- Case
Plagiarism of a PhD thesis
We received a complaint from an author claiming that her PhD thesis had been plagiarized in a journal article. After many discussions, the editorial office decided that the authors should resolve this issue among themselves, as it was an author dispute.After further correspondence, the editorial office is now also saying that because the thesis is not published anywhere, there is no need… - Case
The role of the lead author
…href="http://publicationethics.org/news/what-constitutes-authorship-new-cope-discussion-document" rel="nofollow">What constitutes authorship discussion document How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers… Work with us
…including age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, ethnic origin, nationality, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Page history Page last updated: 12 September 2023…- News
Where next in peer review? Part 1: COPE commentary
…retracted and this damaged faith in community-driven rapid review. This time, however, we seem so far to have avoided these reservations. The story started on 28 July when a research group from South Korea announced on the ArXiv preprint server that they had found a material which acted as a superconductor at room temperature [1, 2]. - Case
Advice regarding a weird type of content and its authorship
Our company publishes clinical pathways. They were initially authored by local experts, but have since been retrofitted with evidence, if possible. This was done by expert “evidologists”, not clinical experts; they were acknowledged solely by their company name (it was “out-sourced”). If the evidence did not fit, the pathway was discarded. We undertake to review all of the pathways… - Case
Duplicate publication in multicentre consortia
Two closely related journals received a series of manuscripts each based on descriptions of a complex medical procedure by multicentre consortia. At least three separate consortia submitted three separate papers. Each consortium included centres which were shared between the three groups and likely have the same patients/procedures represented in different reports. For example: … - Case
Editor as author
A publisher was contacted by an editor-in-chief of one of their journals. The editor-in-chief wanted to submit an article written by themselves and one of the journal editorial board members. The article related to treatment provided by the editor to a patient, who was also the coauthor of the paper. The publisher was concerned about the ethical issues that would need to be addre… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2022: Relationship between universities and publishers
…class="resource-download-inline"> Presentation The critical relationship between universities and COPE - Case
Sanctions for citation cartels?
Multiple journals appear to be affected by a citation cartel between a group of researchers across three universities, via the medium of special issues. All articles within the issues contain a high proportion of citations to the same researchers at the three universities, many as high as 100%. Looking at the pattern of citations to these researchers' work, they have only ever been cited in the… - Case
Guest editors for single articles
A COPE member has noted instances of journals contacting individuals - who are not on their editorial board - to request that they act as guest editor for a single manuscript. The invitation makes it clear that they are being asked to recruit reviewers and to make the editorial decision. This practice includes instances where the invitee has had no prior contact with the journal. C… - Flowcharts
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…office updated 2022 Systematic manipulation of the publication process, updated 2022 Addressing concerns about systematic manipulation of the publication process new 2023 Peer… - Event
15th EASE General Assembly and Conference
…scientific writing mistakes: Grammar and presentation In partnership with Edanz Innovative Scientific Solutions, trainer Gareth Dyke Tuesday, 29 June,12.00pm BST Price £100, EASE conference delegates are eligible for a reduced price £40 - Case
An enquiry about arbitrating reviewers
Under certain circumstances, the editors of journal A use ‘arbitrating’ reviewers. These reviewers advise an editor where, for example, an editor has split reviewer reports or a rebuttal to a decision that was based on split reviewer reports. This reviewer has sight of the other reviewers’ reports as he/she both evaluates the manuscript and assists the editor, through their advice, to arrive at… - Case
Habitual plagiarist
Author F published a single case report (CR1) in my journal. A few months later, I received a letter from author G who claimed that the case published by author F was a verbatim copy of his case report published in another journal H. On comparison of the documents it was obvious that CR1 was an exact reproduction of the article of author G. More than 90% of the sentences overlapped in both arti… - Case
Review of a book written by an editor of a journal
Two scholars and professional colleagues, A and B, serve as co-editors of a peer-reviewed international journal. Editor A, who recently had a book published, has requested that editor B solicit a review of the book from a scholar in the field. Editor A would like this review to be published in the journal that they edit together. Editor B is concerned that this situation would put him in a situ… - Case
Department notification regarding sensitive topic
An essay was submitted to a specialty medical journal. In the essay, the author described an ethical dilemma—involving patient care—encountered while in medical school. The manuscript received favourable reviews, although the reviewers expressed concern about the author’s career if the essay was published. The editor called the author to discuss the ramifications of publication, and then the au… - Case
A case of duplicate publication
Ten years ago, the author published a paper on the same subject in his country’s specialty journal. The first report was short and the product of the author’s graduate work. The publication was in their country’s language. (Recently, the journal has been translating the abstracts of their previous publications into English, but the body of the text is still in their language.) Subsequently, t… - Case
Potential figure manipulation with corresponding author uncontactable
A reader contacted the journal to raise concerns about a paper containing a potentially manipulated figure. The editor-in-chief agreed with the assessment that the figure had been manipulated and attempted to contact the corresponding author, without response. Following further contact with the co-authors and institution, it was established that the corresponding author had retired after public… - Case
An authorship dispute and a question about when a paper is considered published
…reordered in the late stages of the pre-press of the paper ERP. The original order on the web based abstract had not been corrected. Editor E concluded that there had been a longstanding dispute between Author C and Authors A and B. The evidence provided by A, B and C relating to the authorship of paper PV2 appeared inconclusive to Editor E. - News
In the news: February Digest
…were male and younger”. Only 8.1% of reviewers opted to reveal their names and the authors suggest that this supports the view that peer review depends on anonymity. Preprints Papers with involve human subjects or their medical records will not be accepted by 4 major orthopedic journals if they have been posted on a preprint server. The editors of the journals jointly published an…