- 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… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Trustworthy AI for the future of publishing
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Artificial intelligence: Lightning talk summary
…New tools and directions in AI for scholarly publishing January 2024 Lightning talk In the first of our new Lightning Talks Marie Soulière and Nishchay Shah spoke about new tools and directions in AI for scholarly publishing.… - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around watchlists
…href="https://cabells.com/solutions/predatory-reports">Cabell’s Predatory Reports are the latest iteration, but as a paid-for service they engage in deeper evaluation of journals and are transparent about the criteria they use. Now, the increasing scale of systematic manipulation is leading to more calls for information sharing to protect the published record. Benefits and potential risks Watchlists of individuals… - 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… - Case
Seven plagiarized manuscripts in one month by the same corresponding author
In one month we have received 11 manuscripts (9 case reports, 1 original study and 1 letter) written by authors from a European Union country. The manuscripts were submitted by the same corresponding author (author A) who was also the first author in all of the 11 manuscripts. Another author was the second author (author B) in 10 of the manuscripts. There were two other authors (authors C and D… - News
Case discussion: Possible breach of reviewer confidentiality
…review and publish signed reviews on public platforms (eg, those based on the F1000Research post-publication review model), peer review is usually a closed and confidential process. Confidentiality needs to be understood and maintained by both authors and reviewers. The manuscript under review, journal correspondence, and peer review reports… - News
Authorship, a blunt tool: "20 Jahre Research Integrity in Deutschland Was hat sich verändert? Wie geht es weiter?"
…enough tool for the job some people use it for: recognizing and rewarding research efforts. We explored the not-yet-widely-adopted contributorship model (where authors provide a short explanation of who contributed what), alongside narrative “soft” approaches to enabling this (like those used by The… - News
Complaints and appeals
…upcoming COPE Forum and more. Read April 2018 Digest: Complaints and Appeals… - News
Research Integrity, Sixth Report of Session 2017-19 from the House of Commons
…would be assured by establishing an oversight committee with responsibility for verifying that research institutions have followed appropriate methods to investigate research misconduct and report annually on compliance, according to Norman Lamb, MP and Chair of the… - News
Post-publication discussions and corrections focus
…--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read November Digest: Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections. This issue of Digest announces new resources What to do if you Suspect Image Manipulation in a Published… - Webform
COPE integrity workshop 2021
…Facilitation and Integrity at COPE: prevention, education and best practices in publication ethics 21 April 2021, online workshop, COPE members only 16:00-17:30 British Summer Time (UTC + 1) Find out what time this is in your country - 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… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: February 2019
…providing new publishing ethics resources, including resources designed specifically for ethical issues which are found only in these areas. Be there! Goodbye, to a good friend We’d like to share fond and warm farewell with Liz Wager, flowchart magician, cat/poetry lover, and Chair of COPE between 2009 and 2012. Liz,… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: September 2019
The 16th-20th of September is Peer Review Week, with this year's theme Quality In Peer Review. This is now an anticipated time in the calendar for many of our members around the world and a number of events focus on issues related to peer review and publication ethics and integrity. As a long time editor of journals and books, I know…