- Case
Previous publication cannot be verified
…publication policies, but it appears the publications department was disbanded and all employees have left. The publisher has also tried to contact the authors of the paper published in their journal, but their email addresses bounce back. Question for COPE Council What would be the appropriate course of action here? The publisher has been unable to verify if the original paper… - Case
Can a scientific paper be published anonymously?
The assumption is that everything should be signed and there is no adequate reason for anonymisation. Writing a paper is like signing a cheque and the authors must be prepared to take the responsibility. The laboratories concerned could be anonymised. The distinction is that this is a scientific paper and the authors have to be prepared to stand by what they report and therefore they must sign… - News
In the news: January 2019 Digest
…this could be rectified and argues the case for changing the cultural norms to allow this.https://psyarxiv.com/exmb2 COPE Council member Deborah Kahn Read - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: January 2019
…px; height: 125px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 3px; float: left;" /> Read January 2019 COPE Digest newsletter and use the COPE Audit Tool, read a case discussion on citation manipulation, get dates in the diary for COPE events in 2019, and keep… - News
Case Discussion: Editor and reviewers requiring authors to cite their own work
…discussion document which will be ready, on our website, early this year. Nancy Chescheir on behalf of the COPE Education Subcommittee Read January 2019 COPE Digest newsletter and use the COPE… - Seminars and webinars
China Seminar 2017: Identifying authorship: how hard can it be?
…Download presentation: Identifying authorship: how hard can it be? [PDF, 2,109 KB]… - News
Applicants now being sought for the COPE International Advisory Board
COPE is pleased to announce that applications are now being sought for the COPE international advisory board. This has been established to enable us to gain an understanding of the ethical issues and concerns facing individual countries and regions. A local point of contact will be appointed to advise and assist COPE in its work to support editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals in… COPE webinar: Diversity, equity and inclusion
…COPE Past-Chair and Trustee, lead on the diversity and inclusivity discussion document. Deborah will introduce some of the issues that will be examined in more depth in a new discussion document on “Diversity and inclusivity”.- Case
Publishing complications and patient safety
…which is attended by a small audience of around 120 doctors at which participants present their complication cases. At this meeting, many basic complications are discussed, which can be related to lack of education, lack of knowledge of materials, lack of knowledge about patient disease, or insufficient training, some of which have devastating outcomes. Many of these complications are avoidable. - Event
Neicon 7th International Scientific and Practical Conference
Behrooz Astaneh, COPE Council member, is speaking at this conference titled "2018: Editorial Policy, Open Access, Scientific Communications". - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2015:Altmetrics in practice: where are they being used
…Download presentation: Altmetrics in practice: where are they being used (and misused)? [PDF, 2500KB]… - Case
Can two DOIs be assigned to the same manuscript?
A preprint server owned by a commercial publishing company posted a paper and assigned a DOI to the preprint. The manuscript was then submitted to peer reviewed journal X, owned by a different publisher. Assuming acceptance at the journal, can the article be published under a different DOI belonging to journal X? At journal X, Crossref registration is automatic. However, can two… - Event
CSE's 2014 Annual Conference
COPE will hold a joint session with the Council of Science Editors (CSE) at their next conference, to be held in San Antonio, Texas, USA. Click here for more information. … - Case
Should this paper be retracted?
…correspondence to Journal Y, along with a document highlighting the similarities between the final article and data obtained in the laboratory. After this first claim, three authors listed in the paper published online by journal Y requested to be retracted from the author list, claiming they were not informed about the publication. Journal Y reviewed their peer review process and was unable to identify any… - Case
Request for removal for one author but a coauthor cannot be reached
A journal accepted a paper but after receiving the decision letter, the corresponding author asked if one of the coauthors could be removed from the authorship list. This coauthor is now a prominent politician and felt that their new role would conflict with being an author on the paper. The journal informed the corresponding author that they would need written confirmation from… - Case
Fabricated illness: a case that cannot be published under current guidance
…material. The carer admitted to deliberately contaminating the samples to achieve a positive test. While this condition is well described, it has not been identified by karyotyping in this way before. This probably accounted for us being slow to diagnose it. There are extremely important reasons for diagnosing fabricated illnesses. Unsurprisingly, the carer was not prepared to give consent… - Case
Dual publication may be necessary in some situations
At a recent editorial board meeting it was suggested that in some disciplines straddling several specialties, transparent simultaneous publication might be necessary. It was suggested that this applies to sexually transmitted infections, and different readers may not have access to each other’s journals. For example, in a study of human papilloma virus epidemiologists, virologists, STD… - Case
Retraction notices: Who (if anyone) should be listed as author?
Publisher A has been developing an internal publisher style guide for retraction notices, but has not been able to find any obvious industry best practice when it comes to whether retractions should have an author byline, and if yes, who should be listed. Some retractions have no authors listed; others give 'The Editors of Journal X' as the author byline (in cases of retraction owing to author…