- Case
Change of corresponding author after manuscript published online
…could the authors be trying to manipulate the publication process because in some countries the corresponding author position is seen as prestigious. So the journal needs to establish why the request is being made. The authors need to provide a satisfactory explanation before the journal can consider the request further. The Forum suggested that the journal should follow the advice in the COPE… - Case
Reviewer misconduct and its potential impact on an submitted manuscript
Author X raised concerns that confidential information obtained during the peer review of their submission with Journal Y had been misappropriated by one of the reviewers of their submission (reviewer Z). Author X believed that reviewer Z had used this confidential information in order to silently alter code published by reviewer Z with repository R, which contained errors that were high… - News
Reducing the inadvertent spread of retracted science
…href="https://osf.io/5z2n4/?view_only=c7e1c5ecb59f4b81962700a298dc0326">Hsiao & Schneider, manuscript). Science Magazine recently analyzed 200 post-retraction citations to two high-profile COVID-19 papers published in May 2020 and retracted in June 2020: over half of the citations did not mention the retraction; they noted that publishers and editors were "caught by surprise" and many do not systematically check for retraction or post-publication… - Case
Online posting of confidential draft by peer reviewer
Shortly before publication, I received an email from the authors of a systematic review telling me that a version of the paper as first submitted to the journal for peer review had appeared on the website of a campaign group based in the USA. It was clear that the version of the document posted on the website was the same as the version supplied to the journal's peer reviewers. Further… - Case
Registration of a randomised control trial
…apply some pressure for a more detailed explanation. The researchers may not know what kind of explanation is warranted, or why. It may therefore be necessary for the journal to explain to them why registration is important (without registration it can be very hard to know, for example, what trials should be in systematic reviews and that papers in the systemic reviews are not counted twice); what… - Case
Plagiarism by a possible predatory journal
…systematic reviews. Since the article is in the public domain it is permissible to provide the full citation, including the name of the journal. This could also have an educative function if there is a risk that the predatory journal is using a web bot which is targeting many authors from the same journal. The editors could also consider making a comment on a site like PubPeer, though this is unlikely to… - News
Citations: Link, Locate, Discover, Connect
…response to intentional manipulation of citation counts or deliberate inflation of the JIF value. While the citation behavior that results in suppression is often extreme, the cause or motive of the behavior cannot be a consideration, as it cannot be equally or objectively assessed across all journals. The JCR and JIF are not created by Clarivate Analytics. Rather, they are calculated by… - News
Case discussion: Authors’ contributions and involvement by medical communications company
…the study. Consequently, the editor rejected the manuscript, reported the case to the authors’ institution, and considered the case closed. The journal is seeking ways to systematically identify similar cases in the future. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Case discussion This case… - News
In the news: August
…target="_blank">http://scigendetection.imag.fr/TPD52/. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/editors-update/meet-the-woman-whos-tracking-down-systematic-research-fraud In a May 2019 publication entitled "Data Communities: A new model for supporting STEM Data Sharing, Danielle Cooper and Rebecca Stringer coined… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: March 2019
…in the popularity of the flowcharts COPE offers to help with this. Authorship must always be carefully considered during manuscript planning, especially when power differentials between authors exist and could be manipulated. This month's Digest includes a case discussion that reflects this: 'Inconclusive institutional investigation… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: May 2021
…href="https://publicationethics.org/publishing-manipulation-paper-mills">Paper mills was the discussion topic at our September Forum which looked at helping journals and publishers to detect paper mills early in the process. We will discuss a related issue at our June Forum: when and how to involve multiple journals and publishers in dealing with complaints from whistleblowers. COPE was invited to speak at two sessions at the - News
In the news: July & August 2022
…Some see it as a symbolic step in the right direction that might inspire change elsewhere. Dr. Matthew Schrag of Vanderbilt University notes that "You can’t cheat to cure a disease. Biology doesn’t care." He is a whistleblower regarding image manipulation concerns… - Case
Allegations of scientific fraud and unethical conduct of experiments with attempts to silence the whistleblower
…The allegations of fraud A paper reported a radioisotope test for diagnosis of a speci?c,acute,neurological disease with 100% accuracy. Replication studies failed to con?rm the ?ndings and suggested that the test is positive in a… - Case
How many “mistakes” are too many?
We published a randomised trial by six authors. Some years later, we received a letter from a researcher who had been looking into the trial in the context of a meta-analysis. She noted “implausibilities of serious concern”, including “a highly unusual balance in the distribution of baseline characteristics”, 95% CIs that were non-symmetrical about the effect estimate, and use of a… - Case
Conflict of interest
…affiliation of the interviewer and for the author’s own data (as an interviewer). Again, there was no evidence of systematic bias. On the basis of this investigation, the journal has confidence in the authors’ findings as published. COPE recommended that readers should be made aware that the author had published as a reporter under another name, and that failure to disclose a separate name, under… - Case
Retraction or correction?
…data being compared in the discussion section, it is confusing for readers and later authors doing a systematic review. If the published version did not mention that a comparison was being carried out, the reader would naturally assume the conclusions stem from the results shown (which includes other researchers' results in this case). In general, if the author's reply is unsatisfactory, the… - News
In the news: December 2018 Digest
…published between 2015 and 2017, about 2/3 included statements on funding and conflicts of interests and about 20% mentioned publicly available data. In a similar study from 2000 to 2014, very few papers included this type of information. COPE Council member Nancy Chescheir - Case
Authors’ contributions and involvement by medical communications company
…systematic manner, but in terms of this specific manuscript, the editor considers the case closed.… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Reducing the inadvertent spread of retracted science: taxonomy considerations
…topics such as systematic review automation, semantic publication, and the citation of retracted papers, with funding from NIH, IMLS, the Alfred P Sloan Foundation, and NSF. Opportunities and perils of reforming retraction policies - Case
Duplicate publication?
The editors of this journal check all articles against Medline for possible redundant publications. Two very similar articles from an author were retrieved when the name of the author was searched. The titles were very similar, except for the name of the disease. The abstracts had almost 50% identical wording. The two articles were not related to the article submitted to the editors, but as the…