Press
…transparency and best practice released 15 September 2022 The fourth edition of the Principles represents a collective effort between the four organisations to align the principles with today’s scholarly publishing landscape. Guidance is provided on the information that should be made available on websites, peer review, access, author fees and publication ethics. The…- 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… - Seminars and webinars
COPE webinar: Enhancing partnerships of institutions and journals
….1186/s41073-021-00109-3">Cooperation and Liaison between Universities and Editors (CLUE) guidelines which include recommendations for institutions and editors when investigating potential misconduct. Sabine reflected on the 2022 survey of UK universities which aimed to understand the barriers in implementing CLUE guidelines and the problems universities have when they try to contact publishers. - News
In the news: June 2018 Digest
…-a-reproducibility-crisis-committee-found-when-it-looked-at-climate-science A survey of trainees involved in bench research showed that about 25% did not receive adequate mentoring; amobut 40% were pressured to produced positive results and about 63% that the pressure to publish influced the way data is reported. - 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… - News
In the news: June 2020
…Open Access cOAlition S recently announced price transparency requirements. Starting July 2022, only publishers who provide data in line with approved frameworks will be eligible to receive Open Access publication funds from cOAlition S members. Potential paper mills
…href="https://publicationethics.org/resources/research/paper-mills-research">Paper mills research report, COPE & STM, 2022 Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills” COPE Forum discussion Systematic manipulation of the publication process,…- 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… - Case
Request to remove author from submitted manuscript due to academic misconduct
Regarding a submitted (but not yet accepted) paper from a scientific collaboration, one of the authors has asked whether an instance of academic misconduct or - for that matter - any non-scientific but rather unsavoury personal facts or accusations (e.g. a penal or civil proceedings) can be considered as a valid ground for requesting that the journal remove an author from the paper, as per the… - Forum discussion topics
Artificial intelligence (AI) and fake papers
…publication. Learned Publishing. 2023; 36: 73-80. Doi:10.1002/leap.1533 AI in decision making, COPE discussion document Trustworthy AI for the future of publishing, COPE Seminar… - Case
Managing an editor’s undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article
An opinion piece on a polarising political and technological topic was published. A discussion ensued on social media, and shortly after, the publisher received a formal complaint stating that the editor-in-chief of the journal, who had managed the peer review process for the manuscript, had a conflict of interest and should not have made the final acceptance decision. When the publishing team… - Case
Article published at two journals after withdrawal from first journal
Journal B was contacted by a group of authors who had published their article in Journal B a few months previously. The authors were concerned as they found that their article had been published by Journal A, a journal they had previously submitted the article to but withdrawn prior to publication. Journal B requested the withdrawal confirmation from the authors, and this was duly provided. On…