- 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… - Case
Authorship dispute
The paper in question describes a collaborative study of several datasets (not all previously published). A putative referee was asked to review the paper and declined. However, this led to a written complaint asserting that (s)he should be an author as (s)he had made a significant contribution to some of the work described in the paper. After promising comments from referees, the existi… - Case
How to correct an incorrect decision to publish a flawed paper
Some years ago our journal published a paper reporting concentrations of a substance in an organ in a small number of people of a particular occupational group who had died of a rare disease. The results have been reanalysed in two subsequent papers and discussed in five pieces of correspondence in two journals. The original paper contributes to a body of evidence used by the defence in some co… - Case
Submissions from institutions where misconduct has previously been suspected
A scientific paper was submitted in January 2011. After initial assessment by the journal’s editor-in chief, it was allocated to one of the co-editors. By chance, the co-editor had reviewed the manuscript for another journal only a few weeks before. The manuscript had been rejected by the previous journal for a number of methodological flaws. The resubmitted manuscript contained signific… - News
Case Discussion: Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute - university perspective comment
…for the Responsible Conduct of Research, 2018 (the Guide). Section 8.1 of the Guide provides for ‘Collaborative research across multiple institutions’ and states: ‘Institutions should consider how preliminary assessments and investigations into potential breaches of the Code are to be conducted for multi-institutional collaborations on a case-by-case basis, taking into… - Forum discussion topics
Predatory publishing: next steps and where do we go from here?
…alt="" src="/files/u7140/kelly_cobey_-_1.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 1px 3px; max-width: 100%; width: 120px; height: 81px;" /> Presentation by Kelly Cobey, The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute Developing a digital authenticator tool… Seminars
…[13.18] Conflicts of interest in medical publishing — Professor Christopher Baethge, Chief Scientific Editor of Deutsches Ärzteblatt (Germal Medical Journal) and Deutsches Ärzteblatt International Download presentation [PDF 1679kB] | Watch presentation [12…- 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… COPE team
…employee of COPE. Alysa Levene Operations Manager Alysa joined COPE in 2022 and is responsible for the operational side of the organisation. Previously she worked as an academic historian and has published on the history of…- News
Diversity in Peer Review: Survey Results
… Proportional representation matching that of a discipline/community (21%) Equal proportional representation (12%) Other (4%), including:- substantial degree of non-homogeneity/heterogeneity- proportional representation at least matching that of the discipline/community- proportional to the diversity in published topics- integrity/competence/expertise is more… - Case
Suspected contact between reviewer and an author led to coauthorship of the reviewer
…of reviewers. The reviews of the original version came with conclusions "Accept after major revision" (rev A) and "Accept after minor revision" (rev B). On that basis, on 12 December 2008 the Associate Editor submitted a decision "Accept after major revision", and requested the author to prepare it within 90 days. The revised version of the paper arrived on 20 December 2008. Without… - Case
Omitted author
A case series of 89 patients with a relatively rare condition was accepted for publication by the journal following due process through the peer-review system. The paper was published online within days of being accepted. A few days later the editor of the journal received an email from a professor (Professor X) from the same country from which the paper was submitted to say that one of the cas… Become a member
…guidelines other guidelines Eligibility Peer-reviewed scholarly journals that have been publishing for a minimum of 12 months; Companies that publish peer-reviewed scholarly journals; and Individuals or companies who are interested in publication ethics and are working in or associated with the publication of…- News
Case discussion: Possible breach of reviewer confidentiality
…routinely instructed not to use any of the content under review, not to share it, and to delete files after review. An extreme example of a breach of trust is when a reviewer commits plagiarism and theft of intellectual property by submitting a manuscript containing material taken from a paper under review. - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: May 2018
…review guidelines, case discussions in quarterly COPE Forums for the last 12 months, our preprints discussion document (and that discussion continues to evolve), and on thoughts we’ve documented from our Education Subcommittee on - News
Creating and implementing research data policies: COPE webinar report
…sharing policies or any comments on the 2016 COPE Forum discussion notes on data sharing, we welcome your feedback by email. Speaker… Publication ethics issues in AHSS: New study
…has over 12,500 members worldwide from all academic fields. About Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group (of which Routledge is part) partners with researchers, scholarly societies, universities and libraries worldwide to bring knowledge to life. As one of the world’s leading publishers of scholarly journals, books, ebooks and reference works our content spans…- Case
Appropriate scope of review for retractions
An institutional review recommended retraction of certain works by a highly prolific and influential author who has since died. The institutional review focused on a relatively small portion of this author’s work. The institution recommended retraction based on deeming the articles unsafe and identifying several concerns, including that the articles' conclusions were implausible. As a pu… - Case
Simultaneous submission without aiming at duplicate publication
An invite for a review was made by journal A. The first revision was done six months after submission, and the second revision two months later. Three weeks after submission of the second revision, the editor’s decision was minor revision. At this point, the corresponding author, author X, informed the editor of journal A that the authors were reluctant to respond to the comments of the second…