- 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 firs… - Event
COPE Seminar 2021
…="https://publicationethics.org/resources/seminars-and-webinars/research-publication-ethics">Watch keynote address webinar Ethical authorship versus fraudulent authorship Unethical authorship practices include guest, gift, and ghost authorship, as well as not obtaining consent from co-authors and adding fake names as co-authors. Knowingly publishing in predatory journals or using paper mills to buy or sell authorship could also be classed… - Case
Disagreement between authors and sponsor
Following review of the Forum discussion, the society's board of directors agreed to proceed with publication of the article. Rather than drafting a full editorial to explain the controversy, a footnote was added to the manuscript to explain the unusual delay between acceptance of the manuscript and publication. The authors were notified of this, and agreed to the proposed language for the… - Case
Reviewer requesting addition of multiple citations of their own work
…authors to add citations to his work when reviewing their manuscript, often when there was no scientifically legitimate reason to do so. A deeper analysis of this reviewer’s activity showed that he predominantly asked for his own papers to be cited, as well as citations to papers that heavily cited his work. In some cases, he requested for more than 30 citations of his own papers to be added to… - Case
An ambiguous plagiarism case
…to say if they know the remaining coauthor in the paper in A, and an explanation also needs to be sought from the lead author of the A paper. Were they another helper in the paper in B and the thesis, or a co-conspirator or added or invited double gift/guest author? The editor should inform the institution of author A and ask them to formally investigate. If author A has published any other… - Case
Request to remove author from submitted manuscript due to academic misconduct
…and to take public responsibility for it, and so subsequent changes to the authorship list would not be allowed (unless they had been added without their consent). This may need to be nuanced if there are personal safety considerations. Two further suggestions were made for potential actions. The first is that the publisher could issue a carefully worded disclaimer to the effect that the work… - Case
Alleged unauthorized use of data and possible dual publication
…Since the reviewer’s evaluation of the method did not contain any concrete arguments, the senior author assumed that the reviewer was referring to a polemic about the method by another author, published in the same journal in which the senior author countered these arguments. The method continues to be the most widely used, cited over 90 times (the associate editor points out that it was cited mainly… - News
In the news: January 2018 Digest
…target="_blank">http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187394 But maybe this will all be a thing of the past when automated tools are writing our scientific papers, in the not too distant future? - News
Case Discussion: Ethics of non-active management of a control group
…matters would have been germane. Given that the subjects of the research had the same systemic conditions, identification of the individuals would have been a relevant concern. As noted in Journals’ Best Practices for ensuring consent for publishing medical case… Publication ethics issues in AHSS: New study
…new, publication ethics guidance. The organisation is encouraging journal editors to make the most of COPE’s resources available to them. Commenting on the project, Deborah Poff, COPE Chair, added: “This research is part of a renewed commitment by COPE to increase the diversity of our services for all disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields. These findings provide important…- Case
Potential duplicate publication
…two papers were different and there was not “significant duplication”. 2. They mentioned at the time their paper was submitted to Journal C they did not know the citation for the papers in Journal B. 3. They added that the editor of Journal C knew that there were other papers due to be published in Journal B. 4. They stated that “the publication of two different papers in two different journals with… - Case
Legal advice
…authority. The committee commented that what ever the editor does, they will be in trouble and added to the authors list! It was pointed out that the complaint had been taken to the highest level in the country and it is difficult to see why the editor should join in the debate and there was speculation if the material should be published. It sounded like the author wants all those involved with their… - Case
Repetitive duplicate submission to multiple journals and redundant publication
…submitted to J8, J2, and J7. J2 contacted J8 about possible duplicate submission. J8 rejected MsD based on reviewer reports and also added a note to the author informing them that there had been a report of possible duplicate submission with their Ms. The abstract of MsD has been found to be identical to the abstract of an article published in June 2005 in J10 with the exception of two… - Case
Breach of peer review confidentiality
…longer presented in such terms, in the revised manuscript. That observation further added to the author's and editor's concern that the revised manuscript had not been judged properly, or even at all, by reviewer B, and that the process of peer review had been compromised in several ways. An inevitable conclusion is that the peer review of this manuscript was compromised in respect of the… - Case
Managing an editor’s undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article
…basis of any professional or personal opinion the reviewer or editor may hold. Any revisions that result from post-publication peer review will be added to the published article as an erratum along with a disclosure of the editor-in-chief’s conflict of interest. As an alternative to post-publication peer review, should the publisher issue a statement attached to the article confirming the… - Case
Article published at two journals after withdrawal from first journal
…Facilitation and Integrity subcommittee for further inquiry. Finally, Journal B could consider adding an editorial statement to the article noting that the prior publication in Journal A is redundant and it is the version in Journal B which is the true record.… - Case
Simultaneous publication
…X was published in Journal A about 3 weeks before Paper Y. The two paper superficially do not look similar and Paper X contains results that are not in Paper Y. However, the two papers also contain highly similar results and make similar key conclusions. Truth be told, all of the additional results presented in Paper X were added during revisions. The authors of Paper X knew that Paper Y had been… - Case
Requesting authorship after publication
…believed that an acknowledgment was appropriate, but then recommended the addition of Dr H as an author. We maintain that an acknowledgment is appropriate, and that adding him as an author without fulfilling ICMJE criteria (journal policy) would be the equivalent of gift authorship. Question(s) for the COPE Forum• Based on ICMJE criteria and journal policy, does the Forum believe… - Case
What extent of plagiarism demands a retraction versus correction?
The editorial team took the feedback from the COPE Forum on board and notified the corresponding author’s institution of the allegations; the case is still being considered by the research integrity team at the institution. In addition, an editorial note has been added to the article to alert readers that concerns had been raised about the overlap between the original article and the student’s… - Case
Dispute over submitted comment and the right to be forgotten
…we have not heard from you, we will publish the comment without your reply'. If the authors refuse to reply formally and answer the points, then an editorial note can be added that the authors were invited but declined to reply. Ultimately the decision of how best to correct the literature should fall to the editor, so the complication that the new editor-in-chief does not want to be…