- Case
Data source for study of questionable integrity and provenance
A journal recently handled a research paper related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper was deemed of interest and sent for external peer review. Because it accrued reasonably positive reviews it was scheduled for discussion at one of the weekly manuscript meetings where research editors and a statistician make final decisions on a number of papers. A few days before the meeting, it came… - Case
Should we allow pseudonymous authorship?
We are handling a manuscript that is now ready for acceptance. During the review process we noticed that one coauthor had the surname "999" and this coauthor and two others had the affiliation "Independent researcher". We asked the corresponding author what this meant. Their answer was that the names of two of these three authors, including "999", were pseudonyms. The paper was based on a compe… - Case
Ukrainian authors request retraction of article in Russian conference proceedings
A journal has been contacted by a group of authors from Ukraine who wish to retract their article because of acute ethical issues in relation to the war with Russia. The authors are employees of a research institute in Ukraine. When preparing their article they were not fully informed about the country of the organisers of the conference. They are concerned that participation in a Russian confe… - News
Case Discussion: Editor and reviewers requiring authors to cite their own work
…discussion document which will be ready, on our website, early this year. Nancy Chescheir on behalf of the COPE Education Subcommittee Read January 2019 COPE Digest newsletter and use the COPE… - Case
Temporary exception to double anonymised review policy
The journal conducts double-anonymous reviews of all manuscripts submitted. As part of the decision process, reviewers routinely receive a copy of the decision letter, which includes reviewers’ comments. In the transition to a new editorial staff, a change to the email template inadvertently meant that the full letter was sent out, including the corresponding author’s name. Before this was disc… - News
WCRI 2019: Responsible authorship panel
…include: questionable changes to author list after submission (27%); submission without knowledge of one or more authors (19%); claims of unacknowledged authorship (21%); ghost, guest or gift authors (19%); disputed order of authorship (7%); and forged paperwork (7%). An analysis of one case was presented to illustrate the complexity of competing claims, unresolved investigations, and legal issues faced… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: December 2019
…We look forward to working in partnership with all of our members and the larger scholarly community in the coming years. We send you all best wishes for the New Year. COPE Chair Membership subscription fees
…£45,396 1751 to 2000 £41,414 1501 to 1750 £37,167 1251 to 1500 £33,451 1001 to 1250 £29,203 751 to 1000 £24,424 501 to 750 £19,911 251 to 500 £13,805 101 to 250 £8,495 …- News
Letter from the COPE Chair: September 2020
…alt="" src="/files/u7140/deborahpoff1%20%283%29.jpg" style="border-style:solid; border-width:2px; float:left; height:121px; margin:3px; width:90px" />COPE Chair Deborah Poff, CM, PhD… - News
In the news: June 2018 Digest
…="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/05/23/there-is-little-evidence-to-suggest-peer-reviewer-training-programmes-improve-the-quality-of-reviews/" target="_blank">http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/05/23/there-is-little-evidence-to-suggest-peer-reviewer-training-programmes-improve-the-quality-of-reviews/ Publons has developed a survey about peer review based on the survey takers personal experience and… - News
Research integrity and how to buy a Persian carpet: TOP Guidelines, part 2
…Picture by Garry Knight (Flickr: Persian Carpet) CC BY-SA 2.0 at http://bit.ly/2FKpQCo In “The art of buying a carpet,” Simon Busch suggests that a wise carpet buyer checks a carpet’s knot count (“You will find much truth under the carpet: turn it… - News
Guest editorial: the challenge of AI chatbots for journal editors
…="http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10jvv3q/eli5_what_exactly_is_text_burstiness_and_text/">where precise meaning is required eg in a legal sense) and burstiness (rare words appearing in a text) of the text. This might present an additional challenge for some authors using this software. Their writing may be detected and flagged up as… - News
In the news: October-November 2021
…="http://www.elsevier.com/connect/reviewers-update/the-case-for-more-diversity-in-peer-review">how diversity affects peer review. The 9th International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication, to be held in September 2022, has issued a call for research and abstracts. The Congress invites papers discussing new research into the quality and credibility of peer review and scientific publication. In an - News
Letter from COPE Vice-Chair: February 2020
This is my first opportunity to open the Digest, so welcome everyone. In this issue, we are releasing the final version of the COPE Strategy for 2020-2023. This document is the end product of months of hard work by your volunteers (COPE Council and Trustee Board) to develop a focus for the next three years.… - Case
Possible overlapping publications/data
As editor-in-chief of a journal (journal A), I was contacted by an individual (N) who indicated the following: authors of an article published in journal A were questioned as to the similarity of a figure and a table appearing in both journal A and in another journal (journal B). N noted that reanalysis of the data of the published work by the authors suggested errors and inconsistencies of the… - Case
Suspicion that signed informed consent forms are forged
A research paper was submitted to our journal and underwent several rounds of peer review and editorial curation. We were on the point of acceptance when we realised there were some images that were submitted along with the paper where patients were perfectly identifiable but we did not have the signed informed consent forms. We therefore asked the authors for the consent forms (corresponding t… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: December 2018
…the European Research Council has the political power to set policy and wield influence, and aims to make full and immediate open access a reality by 2020. Coalition S shared policy ideas back in September 2018 and on November 27th added thoughts about Plan S implementation. While we were writing this Letter, Nature reported that… - Case
Excessive self-citation in a book chapter
The case concerns an introductory chapter in a book. The publisher was first contacted about potential misconduct as part of a broader investigation into an academic who was a coauthor on an introductory chapter in a book. The publisher's subsequent investigation identified excessive self-citation in the work (one of the coauthors is named as an author on 12 out of 16 referenced works).… - Case
Unauthorised reviewer challenges
A paper submitted to a journal with a single anonymous peer review policy was assigned to a prospective reviewer, who agreed to undertake the review. The reviewer then sent an email addressed to a number of different research group and institutional mailing lists calling for volunteers to review the paper. The reviewer attached the PDF of the paper, which had been downloaded from the submission… - Case
Academic freedom
A final year student, and two other researchers in law, all from the same university, undertook research into a recent court judgment on the rules in relation to civil servants making public comments. Based on this research, a manuscript was drafted to be submitted to a double anonymised peer reviewed journal. The manuscript is highly critical of the judgment’s reasoning and impact. All three a…