- Case
Request to remove an author post-publication
A paper was submitted to a journal by authors A and B. The paper was accepted and then published in the journal. Several months after final publication, author A contacted the journal asking for their name and their biography to be removed from the article. Author A stated that they wished to distance themselves from the research. Author B also contacted the journal separately to… - News
In the news: May 2020
…acceptable. The document was not meant for public viewing, but was posted on the website of the Fudan University in Shanghai. https://us.cnn.com/2020/04/12/asia/china-coronavirus-research-restrictions-intl-hnk/index.html The managing editor for academic publications at… - Case
Complaint over protocol used in special issue
We launched a Special Issue (SI) focusing on the application of a particular clinical protocol, with guest editors that have an extensive clinical history in applying this protocol. This specific protocol is currently used and promoted by a small subset of practitioners, with limited wider recognition. The SI concluded with a substantial number of published articles, including several case repo… - Translated resources
El autor de un artículo rechazado nombra y critica de forma pública al revisor por pares: caso
…COPE puede ser útil en este campo. Basado en el caso 16-12 Author of rejected paper publicly names and criticises peer reviewer Related resources - News
In the news: August 2018 Digest
…the first or first ten papers that show up on a search. In any case, which papers are cited by an author may have a complex set of reasons and is worth considering.http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/10/12/what-drives-academic-citations/#.W2wCTdhKit… - News
In the news: December Digest
…International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication will be held in Chicago, September 12-14, 2021. There is a link to their website, with a call for submission. The Peer Review Congress has the aim to "encourage research into the quality and credibility of peer review and scientific publication, to establish the evidence base on which scientists can improve the conduct, reporting, and… Editing, reviewing and writing during COVID-19
…in which publishers and industry leaders can continue to support academic peer-reviewed research and the entire academic publishing ecosystem Scholarly Kitchen: changes and challenges to scholarly communications: September 2020 Four…- Case
Unethical withdrawal of a paper
…future and wanted to verify with them that his intended action—a ban for double submission—was suitable. On returning from meeting with the publishers, Editor A discovered that the paper had never been withdrawn from consideration and the review process was now complete (entire review process 28 days). The reviewer comments warranted rejection. Editor A sent a rejection letter to Authors A and… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: December 2020
…Correction to December Digest (Vol 8 Iss.12) In the December Digest Letter, we stated that “In May, arXiv, medRxiv, bioRxiv, and other preprint platforms adjusted their policies to not accept computational models so that the chances of misinformation or unhelpful information being posted would be… - Case
Meta-analysis: submission of unreliable findings
A meta-analysis was conducted of about 1000 patients included in a number of small trials of a drug for emergency management administered by route X compared with route Y. The report concluded that administration by route X improves short term survival. Chronology The paper was submitted to our journal in September 2011 and after peer review was retur… - Case
Authorship dispute
A manuscript was published by journal X and submitted by author A (last author). Author B claims that fraud occurred in relation to authorship for the following reasons. (1) Author A did not take part in producing the data for the paper and has never been a co-author on any version of the manuscript.(2) A paper with very similar content ,which was part of the PhD thesis of author C… - Case
Possible violation of the Helsinki Declaration on Scientific Research with Humans
A manuscript underwent peer review and the resulting reviewer comments raised grave concerns about the ethical legitimacy of the study.The reviewer: questioned the authors’ impartiality, suggesting that there was an undeclared conflict of interest; raised serious concerns about the extent to which participants gave informed consent; strongly doubted that the… - Case
Suspected image manipulation involving four journals
…action to be decided. As the paper was only recently (12 August) rejected by journal A, it has yet to hear back from author X, if indeed it does at all. Journal A feels that it is important that journals B, C and D are made aware of the issues in the papers they have published. However, they also feel that it is important that they are made aware of all of the papers involved so they can… - Case
Author of rejected paper publicly names and criticises peer reviewer
The first author of a paper rejected by our journal publicly identified one of the four peer reviewers for the paper by name. She did this during a media interview conducted after the paper was published by another journal. The first author implied in that interview and subsequently on Twitter that the paper was rejected because of that person's review and also claimed the reviewer did not reve… - Case
Undisclosed conflict of interest
…read “Conflicts of interest: None declared”, because “attending events” is not normally something that would be considered a COI. The authors approved the galleys and did not object to these copyediting changes. Shortly after publication, we received a 12-page letter from a journalist, detailing extensive undisclosed COIs of the authors. The letter was also addressed to another journal which… - Forum discussion topics
Claiming institutional affiliations
…affiliations Khaled Moustafa, Arabixiv Papers A summary of the discussion at the virtual Forum event will be added to this page shortly. Page updated: 12 December 2023 We welcome comments on… - Forum discussion topics
Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills”
…href="https://publicationethics.org/resources/research/paper-mills-research">Paper mills research report, COPE & STM, 2022 Systematic manipulation of the publication process, COPE guidance updated 2022 Potential “paper mills” and what to do about them – a publisher’s… - News
In the news: November 2020
…-one-largest-research-philanthropies-will-require-immediate-open-access" target="_blank">make their research immediately open access, as of January 2022. The new policies are similar to those of cOAlition S and are anticipated to put pressure on some very elite journals, such as Cell, Nature and Science. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has changed their open… - News
Post-publication conflicts of interest
…Trevor Lane on behalf of the COPE Education Subcommittee Related resources Editorial conflicts of interest COPE Forum discussion 2022 - News
In the news: December 2018 Digest
…="http://retractionwatch.com/2018/11/28/majority-of-journals-editorial-board-resigns-after-publishers-handling-of-letter-about-move-to-open-access/" target="_blank">editorial. A Corrigendum was issued after legal threats by copyright holders of a mobile app who demanded new acknowledgements, references and warnings to be added. Interestingly, the…