- Case
Reviewer asks trainee to review manuscript
A known expert in a certain content area was asked to review a manuscript. He asked if one of his trainees (not a content expert) could review the manuscript instead, with some oversight and as a training exercise. He stated that he would provide the trainee with a full explanation of confidentiality. The section editor replied that it was the particular expertise of the invited reviewer that… - Case
Reprimanded author plagiarizes again
A reviewer, R1, brought to our attention several suspected cases of plagiarism in paper A1, submitted by authors A. The main concerns were:— large parts of paper A1 resembled paper B submitted by a different group of authors B, with one of the most major changes being a change in the observation day;— large parts of a section were taken from paper C by author C, including an… The COPE Case Taxonomy
In 2013, it became apparent that the publication ethics cases being brought to COPE for discussion and advice were becoming more complex. A new and more comprehensive classification scheme was therefore developed to make it easier to code cases, to aid searching, and to provide a finer level of detail for analysis. The resulting COPE Case Taxonomy comprises 18 main classification categories…- Case
Author dispute over need for retraction
The authors of a paper are in disagreement over whether the paper should be retracted. One group of authors (group 1) wishes to publish a correction, and another group (group 2) feel that is inadequate, and the paper should be retracted. Group 2 is concerned that one of the authors, author X, in group 1 is guilty of scientific misconduct. The remaining group 1 authors do not support this… - Case
Supervisor publishes PhD students work
…be involved. He informed the editor that a similar case with the supervisor had occurred in another journal, 2 years earlier. (The editor contacted the editor of the other journal who confirmed that a similar case had occurred and the paper had not been published.) The paper was finally removed from the journal; no paper version had been printed. What do we do in this case? We want to ban… - 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… - Seminars and webinars
Publication ethics, research integrity and climbing mountains
In this keynote address Chris Graf (Research Integrity Director, Springer Nature) gives an overview of the present state of publication ethics and research integrity. This discussion is one of eleven sessions hosted by COPE during Publication Integrity Week 2023. … - Case
Removal of an author
…authors to justify the reason for change of authorship. All of the authors complied with the requirement except author C (the author to be removed). The corresponding author explained that author C did not participate in the paper (ie, they should not have been left on the paper in the first place). The explanations on who did what in the paper confirm this statement, but author C is not… - Case
Use of secondary data without proper attribution
…provided a letter from the university registrar that they had obtained proper approval to conduct this study, and data collection was four years ago, not six years ago. Only then did the journal realise that this was a study conducted using a secondary dataset from the institution. In the paper, the authors described in detail the recruitment process and calculation of sample size, as if they… - Seminars and webinars
Good Publication Practice 2022
December 2022 Dr Trevor Lane, COPE Trustee and Council member, was invited to deliver a presentation introducing COPE’s mission and resources at the 2022 Forum on Good Publication Practice, held virtually on 2 December 2022. Hosted by the University of… Common editorial dilemmas: hypothetical cases
Questions to ask: What are the main issues Who is involved? Do I need more information? If so, from whom? Who do I need to contact, and in which order? What possible courses of action can I take? Case 1 A reviewer informs you that he considers a submitted intervention trial from the UK to be…- Case
Author misconduct
…You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right The rector at author D’s institution contacted the editor of journal A stating that they have found what they evidently consider to be serious misconduct in an article written by author D and the rector requested author D to retract the paper from journal A but author D refused to do so. The institution contacted… - Case
Undeclared author conflict of interest
…manuscript have been brought into multiple legal challenges to their use of data as represented in the published article. At the time of submission and publication, multiple authors of the manuscript served as unpaid members of the advisory board of the spinoff, and none declared their role in the manuscript paperwork. The journal became aware of this situation through a letter submitted by… - Seminars and webinars
Handling a case of misconduct
…care to employees, the requirements of funders and journals, and the need to maintain trust in the institution’s research output. Processes must be consistent and institutions should engage in ongoing review and improvement of their systems. Handling allegations of… - Case
Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute
After publication of an article, Author A contacted the journal asking to correct their surname. Author A’s name consists of two parts, but only one was included in the publication. The editor accepted this request but asked all authors to agree to publication of an erratum. Author B (the corresponding author) immediately replied, disagreeing with publication of such an erratum. Author… - News
Registry for systematic reviews created
A registry for the protocols of systematic reviews has been created. The aim of encouraging registration of systematic reviews (as for clinical trials) is to ensure the results are reported responsibly and according to the original design, and also to reduce non-publication of negative findings. The registry is described in a Lancet article DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60903-8 and can be found… - Event
Seventh International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication
The Seventh International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication will be held September 8-10, 2013, in Chicago, Illinois. As with the previous congresses, the aim is to improve the quality and credibility of biomedical peer review and publication and to help advance the efficiency, effectiveness and equitability of the dissemination of biomedical information throughout the… - News
COPE grant on CrossCheck research update
…plagiarism once discovered. The following publication has arisen from this project: Helen Zhang, Xiaoyan JIA (2012). A survey on the use of CrossCheck for detecting plagiarism in journal articles. Learned Publishing 25:292–307 (doi:10.1087/20120408).… - News
New flowchart: What to Consider When Asked to Peer Review a Manuscript
…href="https://publicationethics.org/files/What-to-consider-when-asked-to-PR.pdf">peer review flowchart to aid in the process of peer reviewing a manuscript.… - News
Guidelines for Peer Reviewers Chinese version updated
COPE's Chinese verison of the Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers have now been updated. The update reflects invited input from the publication ethics community and institutions in the COPE membership pilot, and…