- Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around book publishing
…technology to access individual chapters, without accessing the whole book, so ethical statements on a chapter level is desirable. Who is responsible for ethics in book publishing? If journal articles are published with a CC-BY license, can the author publish a similar article in a book as a chapter? From a copyright legal perspective this is allowed, as long as… - Forum discussion topics
Best practices for guest edited collections
…different from the conference proceeding paper. See the STM Permissions Guidelines (2022) for alternative proposals.' Q: Keeping in mind that it is common practice to publish preprints on repositories such as arXiv (where there is not a proper review but in any… - News
In the news: April 2018 Digest
…draws the parallel with and speculates that Sci-Hub may be involved, although not named in the indictment.https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/03/28/51123/ Authors of premier medical textbook didn’t disclose $11 million in industry payments Researchers led by Brian Piper evaluated financial… - News
Conflicts of interest focus
…Related resources Editorial conflicts of interest COPE Forum discussion 2022 Undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article COPE article 2021 … Diversity policy
…the Executive Officer or to a COPE Officer. Please refer to the grievance policy (being reviewed) for details. Related content Other COPE policies Page history First published 10 September 2022 Back to top…Submitting a guest editorial or opinion piece to COPE
…any loss or damage caused or occasioned as a result of the publication of a guest editorial or opinion article. Publication history This policy will be reviewed and updated at the discretion of the editors. Published: 25 January 2022 Updated: 20 June 2023…- News
Guest article: Detecting integrity issues
…href="https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/systematic-manipulation-publication-process">Systematic manipulation of the publication process, COPE guidance 2022 The evolving relationship between universities and scholarly publishers, COPE Seminar Keynote address 2021… - Case
Possible peer review manipulation
A journal received a complaint by one of the co-authors of an article submitted by a research team, stating that one of the reviewers suggested by the corresponding author sent an email to corresponding author asking them to tell them what comments they should insert in their review. In response, the corresponding author asked the co-authors to propose comments to be sent to the reviewer. One o… - Case
Is there a time limit for submitting a critique of a published article?
A letter to the editor was submitted to a journal with a comment referring to a study published a year previously. The reader raised concerns about the study and interpretation of the results. The editors of the journal examined the peer review comments of the manuscript and found that the aspects in question were missed out. The journal sought expert advice from an independent reviewer who com… Consensus statement on research misconduct in the UK by COPE and BMJ
16 February 2012 A BMJ/COPE high level meeting in London on 12 January 2012 agreed the following statement: This meeting believes that the UK’s mechanisms for ensuring good research conduct and investigating research misconduct need to be strengthened Research misconduct is defined as behaviour by a researcher, intentional or not, that falls short…- Case
Correcting errors versus privileged information
The editor-in-chief received an email from author A regarding a recently published corrigendum by authors BCD, one of whom (author C) is a member of the journal’s editorial board. In this email, author A claimed that the corrigendum, which corrected some errors in an earlier article by BCD, was based on illicit use of privileged information, obtained by two of the authors (B and D) who were rev… - Case
Was this study unethical?
We reviewed and published a randomised controlled trial in which children’s exposure to parental secondhand smoke (SHS) was either sustained (usual practice control) or parents were asked to avoid smoking around their children (intervention group). The study included more than 400 children averaging 9 years old. Parents provided written informed consent. The study was approved by the ethics com… - Case
Alleged misuse of confidential information
In early 2012, author A submitted a paper reporting on the gene mutated in a rare syndrome seen in a specific population. The paper was citing an earlier (2006) report by author B that had mapped the disease locus to a narrow chromosomal location but had stopped short of actually identifying the gene (which would have been laborious by the technology available at the time). Author A’s su… - Case
Authorship dispute regarding author order
…different countries. Hence it can be difficult for authors to navigate. COPE resources: What constitutes authorship How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers … - Case
Authorship issues from disbanded consortium
…international newspaper was copied into these threats. The publisher took the following actions: - Removed the three authors from author list, as per their request. - Asked all 12 remaining authors to sign an authorship form re-attesting to the authorship (the publisher's online submission system notifies all authors of manuscript submission). - Included the three… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: Issues related to papers submitted to “discussion” journals
…discussion section of the journal Within 2-8 weeks, the paper is up online with a DOI, ready for the open peer review process Two referees are invited to post their reviews online Anyone else can comment on the paper whilst it is going through review A decision is made on the paper based on the review comments, with the normal “major,” “minor,” “accept” and “reject”…Revised principles of transparency and best practice released
…Press release 15 September 2022 Revised Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing have been released by four key scholarly publishing organisations today. These guiding principles are intended as a foundation for best…- Case
Can a journal retract a paper against the recommendation of an institutional investigation?
A research article, published several years ago, was alleged to have integrity issues relating to some of the figures. Following detailed checking of the figures, the editors confirmed these issues and found more issues. The authors provided the raw data, some of which also had integrity issues. An institutional investigation concluded that the data were sound but the editor still feels uneasy… - Case
An ambiguous plagiarism case
A paper was published in journal A. The plagiarism check tool did not show any similarity during the peer review process. Some time after publication of the paper, the editor-in-chief was contacted by an author who had published a paper in journal B. They claimed that the paper published in journal A was plagiarised from their MSc research project thesis and asked journal A to ret… - Case
Undeclared author conflict of interest
A journal published a study related to a pilot programme run by an online mental health support resource which, at the time of publication, had a for-profit spinoff. At the time of the publication, this resource would share “anonymised” user data with the spinoff to create and market customer service software. Although this practice of sharing data has since been stopped, the authors of the man…