- News
What constitutes authorship? New COPE discussion document
…1.538em;">some basic principles to help prevent common problems, and sets out some of the more thorny issues that have come to light in previous discussions, many of which are discipline-specific and which require more nuanced consideration. - News
COPE authorship workshop February 2021
…authorship on two dates, at different times, to reach members in different time zones. The workshop will work through real cases raised by COPE Members to identify issues related to authorship and how to handle them. Join us for the workshop where we'll create an online environment for… - News
New: Spanish resources
…COPE peer review resources: Spanish Spanish translations of COPE resources: flowcharts, ethical guidelines for peer reviewers, How to Spot Manipulation of the Peer Review Process, What to Consider when asked to Peer Review a Manuscript, What Constitutes Authorship? discussion document and our Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. For Peer Review… - Case
Accusation of non-attribution of authorship
In 2008, our journal published a specific series, and an author offered to write short introductions to a series of summaries of the management of various medical problems. One of the articles used a summary written by the complainant, who was fully acknowledged in the table accompanying the article written by his colleagues, but not included as an author. Two years after publication, he… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2015: Plagiarism—how to get it down
…Download presentation: Plagiarism—how to get it down [PDF, 239 KB]… - Case
Authorship dispute
Although the journal checks for plagiarism and authorship at the submission step, they have made their processes more robust to avoid future problems. The editor-in-chief sent several messages to the corresponding author and co-authors asking them to find agreement regarding authorship, based on the journal´s authorship guidelines. Unfortunately, no response has been received. The editorial… - News
Standards in Authorship webinar summary
…margin-left:3px; margin-right:3px; width:300px" />Kelly Cobey (Senior Clinical Research Associate, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada) explained why institutions care about authorship: authorship confers credit and highlights academic productivity. However, to avoid potential authorship disputes, institutions need internal authorship policies and training. The challenge for institutions is how… - Flowcharts
How to recognise potential manipulation of the peer review process
COPE's guide on how to recognise potential manipulation of the peer review process. It contains details on recognised features or patterns of reviewer activity and best practice recommendations on how to minimise peer review manipulation. How to recognise potential… - Case
Authorship dispute regarding author order
…avoiding having to retract the paper in what is essentially an authorship dispute. Does the journal ask for contributorship statements from the authors? This may clarify the issues around authorship. Authorship order is a common problem and the issue of who should be listed in what order differs by discipline. There can also be cultural differences as well as different practices in… - Case
Authorship dispute
…existing authors were invited to resubmit, but asked to resolve the authorship issue before resubmission. The paper has now been revised and resubmitted, but is currently "stalled". The authors say that the individual making the complaint does not deserve to be an author. The complainant has still not seen the paper, but continues to feel strongly that (s)he should be an author. The institution at… - Case
Suspicious responses to authorship change requests
A journal received a request for multiple changes to the authorship list after the manuscript was accepted. Originally, there were five co-authors. After acceptance, the journal received the following requests from author A, the corresponding author and co-first author: remove one of the co-authors (author D), add a new co-author (author E), reorder the list of authors, and change the… - Case
Dual submission
…one that have occurred over the past 12 months. Once again, this case was spotted by chance. The editor feels that there must be many more examples of duplicate publication that get through, especially when they go to different journals. How can editors prevent these cases, rather than trying to catch them in a net with many holes in it? Is the answer to take stronger action against those that are… - Case
Withdrawing from authorship
A journal published a paper that is now under investigation by the host institution for misconduct. All authors signed that they agreed authorship and took responsibility for the content of the paper. After the investigations started, an author asked to be removed from authorship. Questions for the COPE Forum• What should the journal do in this situation? • Should… - Case
Authorship dispute
…could only account for the first two and therefore contacted the editors for clarification. On further investigation, it was discovered that the third manuscript had been rejected by the editors of Journal X, but was later tracked to Journal Y (who also used the same publisher). It was also noted that author B had already been removed. The publisher alerted the editors of Journal Y to the problem and… - Research
Publication practices in multidisciplinary teams: a closer look at authorship assignment and ranking 2013
…culture and different disciplines vary in how they assign and rank authors. Despite the growth in multi/interdisciplinary health research programs (e.g., public health, bioethics, science and technology studies), very little work has focused on understanding authorship assignment and ranking in multi/interdisciplinary teams. If disciplinary cultures shape authorship practices, it is reasonable to… - Seminars and webinars
How to get started: COPE resources
…Presentation to PAMJE Annual Convention March 2023 COPE Council Member, Jigisha Patel, presented at the Philippines Association of Medical Journal Editors (PAMJE) Annual Convention discussing how COPE tools can be practically used to help journal editors address various ethical publication issues. Jigisha began by introducing COPE and COPE resources,… - News
WCRI 2019: Responsible authorship panel
…Summary of Responsible authorship panel at WCRI2019 Our session on the first day of the conference was a panel discussion describing the preliminary analysis of 134 authorship cases presented to the COPE Forum between 1997 and 2018, followed by… - Case
Institutionalised policy of gift authorship?
A manuscript was submitted to our journal. After review we asked for revision. At this time we sent a formatting checklist which includes criteria for authorship. Two authors were removed in the resubmission. Eventually the manuscript was published. At this time one of the formerly included authors contacted us, asking why they were no longer cited. We asked the submitting author, who… - Case
Disputed authorship
Last year, a paper was published with four named authors. The journal concerned then received a letter from another person claiming that they should also have been credited with authorship. That person (Dr M) had been the second author on an abstract with a similar title presented at a conference, on which the authors of the published paper were also named authors. The journal wrote to the… - Case
Coauthor fails to respond to request to confirm coauthorship
Prior to publication, our journal requires coauthors to respond to an email to confirm their authorship status and the author list. A coauthor did not respond to these emails, and when we contacted the corresponding author for help, s/he told us that his/her attempts to reach the coauthor have failed, and that s/he believed the coauthor was attempting to hold the paper hostage.