- News
Citations: Link, Locate, Discover, Connect
…target="_blank">http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/jcr1975introduction.pdf [2] Cited references from the Book Citation Indexes were added as contributing materials to the JCR in 2018, and are included in the recently published 2017 Journal Impact Factors and other JCR metrics. The set of content whose citations are included in the JCR now comprise: Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Emerging… - News
In the news: August 2018 Digest
…one group of authors in Science showed that 1/5 respondents were coerced into adding citations and findings were similar in a study of PLOS ONE authors. The specter of citation cartels among participating journals—you scratch my back, I’ll cite your paper. The author of this post suggests that an automated algorithm, similar to what is used by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to detect… - News
In the news: July 2021
…tenure decisions. This index can be gamed by excessive self-citation and there are instances of authors adding references at the revision stage of the peer review process after there is likely to be scrutiny of the reference list, producing in an “h-index factory“. The author proposes for these, and other reasons cited in the post, that the community of researchers and publishers need to “ - Forum discussion topics
Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills”
…is not necessarily a sign of a paper mill submission but if there are other red flags, it can be useful. Some additional features have been added. The original features for the tool were to protect against reviewer fraud and a report would only be issued after peer review. A new setting (low, medium, high) can raise an alert if there is a high rate of submission from the same device. Would it be… - News
Case Discussion: Lack of trial registration leads to new concerns about study conduct and ethical review/approval
…institution, who was not a co-author and wished to remain anonymous, informed the editors that the ethics committee named in the article did not exist at the institution. After not hearing back from the authors, the editors added a Comment to the article alerting readers of non-adherence to clinical trial requirements. The authors later said that ethics approval had been granted by another… - News
Where next in peer review? Part 2: COPE commentary
…knowledge to fully understand the capabilities and threats presented by AI. On the potential for personal information to make its way back into training data, for example, Dustin Smith (a self-declared ‘AI optimist’) was quite clear. Where LLMs are trained on closed data sets (that is, with no new information added to it over time), there is little risk of material submitted to it reappearing in… Membership application FAQ
…membership is accepted? When your application is accepted, you will receive an email confirming this. You will receive a link to COPE’s Member Handbook which details the benefits of being a COPE member as well as how to manage your membership. If membership fees are applicable, an invoice will be sent to you. Once your membership fees are paid, your journal details will be added to our…- News
Case discussion: gift authorship
…authorship came from further study of 81 of the hyperprolific authors. Of the 27 authors who completed a survey, 19 admitted failing to meet one of the four ICMJE authorship criteria in more than a quarter of their papers and 11 admitted failing to meet two or more… - News
In the news: May 2021
…discussion can be found here. Peer review CUP has recently published an open access book “Reading Peer Review”, in which the authors analyse the database of peer review reports at PLOS One to gain… - 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… Common editorial dilemmas: hypothetical cases
…conclusions, adding that your last letter to them stated you would accept the revision if they took into account the reviewer's comments, which they have done in full. Discussion The editor has already said s/he would accept with minor revisions, which had been done. Arguably the onus is on the editor to accept this article.…- News
Welcome new COPE members April-June 2019
Welcome to our new members who have joined COPE between April and June 2019. The new members have been assessed against criteria outlined in the Principles of Transparency and signing up to COPE shows that they intend to follow the highest standards of publication ethics and to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the - Case
Request for a retraction of a retraction
…remain on the drug being tested (perhaps treatment should be limited anyway, perhaps the drug is not licensed or available). The retracted paper showed few losses over 12–65 months of follow-up: 67 were in the experimental group, 65 completed; 68 were controls, 65 completed. Our journal recognises that nothing in this paragraph proves misconduct. We do not know why the author of the retracted… - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2022: Managing paper mills
…processes? They are probably equally concerning. They are both bad in terms of contaminating the published record, but they operate in a slightly different way. And paper mills and predatory publishers can overlap eg predatory publishers may run paper mills. We need more research to understand this. Are there any legitimate reasons for adding an author after acceptance? We have seen…