- News
Artificial intelligence and authorship
There has been a tweet circulating recently which gives instructions on how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a video recorder, written in the style of Biblical verse. It’s very funny – at least until you realise that it was written by an AI bot. At that stage it becomes very clever, but it loses… - Case
Triplicate publication with possibly different data in each
A paper describing an outbreak of infectious disease was submitted to three journals. The submission to one journal described the index case; the submission to another included investigation and follow up of other cases and contacts in the country where the outbreak had occurred. The third paper looked at the spread of the disease into other countries. A considerable amount of the epidem… - Case
Redundant publication
A paper was submitted to journal A which was published as a rapid communication. It was subsequently discovered that the major US journal in this specialty had published other findings from the same set of patients, and that the paper had been considered by them at the same time. The messages of the two papers are closely related but different, but either one could have been amalgamated into th… - Case
“Inadvertent” duplicate publication
A paper submitted for consideration in March 1997 was peer reviewed, successfully modified, and accepted for publication in June 1997. In January 1998 the paper was prepared for publication, and a commentary sought from an expert in the same field, scheduled for publication in the same issue. The expert drew the editor’s attention to the fact that a similar paper (albeit in shortened form) had… - Event
COPE Forum: September 2023
COPE Members: join us for the COPE Forum where participants discuss publication ethics issues submitted by Members. The Forum will begin with a discussion on "Peer review models" before we ask participants for advice on Members' cases. REGISTER TODAY Submit a case to… - Case
A pre-submission inquiry with a bribe
The advice from the Forum was that, in general, these types of enquiries from third party organisations can be ignored. They can be added to a spam filter. COPE contributed to this blog on Retraction Watch which explains how some of these companies operate (https://retractionwatch.com… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: July 2019
…Please help us by filling in our survey which should take no longer than 10 minutes. Begin survey. COPE Chair - Forum discussion topics
Claiming institutional affiliations
…-in-a-name-how-false-author-affiliations-are-damaging-academic-research/">What’s in a name? How false author affiliations are damaging academic research Vivienne C. Bachelet, LSE Blog Misrepresentation of institutional affliations: The results from an exploratory case study of Chilean authors Research article - Event
ISMTE Asian-Pacific Conference
…href="https://publicationethics.org/cope-asia-pacific-workshop-singapore-2018">half day workshop, in collaboration with ISMTE, on Wednesday 28 March 2018, at the Novotel Singapore Clarke Quay, 177A River Valley Road, 179031 Singapore. The theme of the workshop is "Publication ethics". Editors, publishers, authors and all those interested in publication ethics are welcome to attend. - Research
Exploring publication ethics in the arts, humanities, and social sciences: A COPE study 2019
…fabrication (31%). Recognising and dealing with bias in peer reviewer comments was an issue encountered by 55% of journal editors. Journal editors felt least confident in dealing with data and/or image fabrication issues (24%), fraudulent submissions (23%), and intellectual property and copyright issues (21%). - Event
APAME 2013 Tokyo
COPE will hold two 90 minute sessions on the afternoon of 3 August during the annual congress of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME) in association… - Case
Attempted dual publication
A study by Japanese authors was submitted to specialist journal A. The manuscript was sent to three reviewers, including expert X. After two weeks, expert X contacted the editorial office to say that an identical manuscript had been sent by the competing specialist journal B to expert Y in the same unit as expert X. Expert X and expert Y had compared and discussed both manuscripts. Expert X sai… - News
Understanding your needs: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
THIS SURVEY HAS NOW CLOSED. Thanks to all who participated; see the - Case
Suspected plagiarism
…study found a cut-off value of 15% to be useful (https://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s410...). If the editor believes that there was no malicious intent on the part of the authors, an educational approach may be appropriate—for example, if the authors are junior… - News
In the news: July 2020
…href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/peteraldhous/mario-molina-coronavirus-face-masks-pnas" target="_blank">concerns about peer review process Diversity and Inclusion The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced a cross-publisher Diversity & Inclusion initiative to drive change in scholarly publishing. Potential paper mills
…href="https://scienceintegritydigest.com/2020/02/21/the-tadpole-paper-mill/">Elisabeth Bik, who skilfully detect suspicious patterns. Although, once detected we do take steps to investigate and correct the scholarly records (eg, retraction or expression of concern), we need to ensure we prevent these papers being published in the first place. Paper mills are quick to adapt to publisher and journal requests and investigation processes, and continue to move the goalposts…- News
In the news: August 2021
…data provided with submissions which have been found to originate from paper mills, this paper identifies characteristics to look out for that could indicate that the data is manipulated, and that the paper originates from a paper mill. On a similar note, a recent study looks at how strange phrases,… - Event
Second International Congress on Publication Ethics, Shiraz, Iran
…to register, please visit the website. … - News
Thank you and farewell to Council Members
…style="height:437px; margin:3px; width:400px" /> Behrooz Astaneh - Editor-in-Chief of the Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences, Iran Iria del Río - Editorial Director of