- Case
Citation manipulation in a conference proceeding
We have received a communication from the conference organiser and conference committee of a conference proceeding published by us. They initially wrote to us advising that members of the teaching staff at their university manipulated the references of 68+ papers by deleting references/adding references which had nothing to do with the research. The organiser advised that the university… - Case
A falling out
A research letter was submitted from a team of investigators,A, B, C, and D. In their covering letter they reported that: A was involved in planning the study, collecting patient samples, and in writing the manuscript; B measured IL-10 polymorphisms and analysed the results; C was involved in supervising the measurement of polymorphisms and in writing the manuscript; D was involved in planning… - News
In the news: March Digest
…target="_blank">https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/2/e023983.full Humanities research A report from Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, shows that spending on Humanities research in the USA was at a 10-year high in 2017, at just under $500m, a 76.5% increase over 2007 when adjusted for inflation. - News
In the news: June Digest
…target="_blank">https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05145-6 According to a study of 80 cases investigated by the US Office of Research Integrity, the first author of a paper is 38% more likely to be responsible for identified misconduct than the other authors. Should she or he be held accountable? All of the authors? Just the senior author? Arguments for these different ideas are presented here--illustrating that the answer isn't clear. - News
Case Discussion: Withdrawal of paper at proof stage
…="https://publicationethics.org/case/dual-submission-and-editor%E2%80%99s-failure-take-action">19-06, Dual submission and editor’s failure to take action), the copyright for a paper published in a journal was held by another journal because the authors did not formally withdraw their earlier submission. This case illustrates what might happen if editorial office processes and communications are unclear or inconsistent. The second relevant COPE Core… - Forum discussion topics
Artificial intelligence (AI) and fake papers
…Chatbots in Relation to Scholarly Publications OpenAI’s image-creation tool DALL-E2 VC Bachelet and M. Rousseau-Portalis. A technology-based, financially sustainable, quality improvement intervention in a medical journal for bilingualism from submission to… - News
In the news: July Digest
…translation of articles and republished in another language under a different author name https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/theo.12188 Authorship and contributorship Single author papers are declining globally and across all disciplines… - News
Case discussion: Editor manipulation of impact factor
…referencing (giving full bibliographic details in the reference list at the end). The case provides a reminder that everyone involved in the scholarly enterprise is expected to know how to present work ethically, cite sources appropriately, and reference those sources to allow others to verify information and read further. A degree of self-citation is expected, but adding or suggesting the addition of… - 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… 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…