- Case
Suspicion that signed informed consent forms are forged
…for educative purposes. The editors should also consider whether there is enough evidence to suggest research misconduct, in which case the authors’ institution should be informed (in neutral terms, with the authors potentially copied). The editors may find COPE’s guidance on - Event
ISMPP Asia Pacific Meeting 2019
…Nothing about us without us: Patient involvement in the communication of science ISMPP is offering a 10% registration discount to COPE members for its Asia Pacific Meeting, Bridging Global Standards and Regional Practices, 6 September 2019, in Tokyo, Japan. Learn about the meeting at - Case
The reviewer writes comments that he doesn’t want the author to see
A reviewer has written to complain that a review he sent to us on which he wrote “In confidence—not for transmission to author” was transmitted in part to the author. He had made some rather derogatory remarks which had been edited out by the editor before he had sent back the comments to the author. The review that remained was critical but unremarkable. (1) Is it acceptable for review… - Case
Should we have had author consent for a randomised controlled trial of a peer review?
A medical journal conducted a randomised controlled trial of papers submitted to it without getting consent from the authors concerned. An author found out and objected. Should the journal have sought consent from its authors? … Maybe this is taking matters too far and it is simply barmy to seek author consent. Should notice of this trial been given in advance and the authors been given t… - Case
Patient consent and non-consent
We published an article that contained a detailed account of a woman’s obstetric and psychiatric history. The information had been obtained from a court judgement and is published in Family Law Reports. The article had been written by two people who had never met the patient in question. The patient’s consent was not sought because the information was on the public record. We subsequentl… - News
In the news: February 2018 Digest
…confidence one would have in the results.http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2005203 Other news..... On Jan 16,… Revised principles of transparency and best practice released
…journals. DOAJ has more than one hundred carefully selected volunteers from among the community of libraries and other academic disciplines to assist in the curation of open access journals. This independent database contains over 18,100 journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities in English and 80 other languages. DOAJ is financially supported…- Case
Duplicate submission or self plagiarism. Is the author to blame?
…proceedings. The reviewer sent us the article downloaded from the conference website highlighting the overlapping paragraphs, which was nearly 80%. The journal wrote to the authors asking for an explanation. The authors stated that they had submitted an abstract of their work for participation in the international conference. The abstract was accepted on the condition that they submitted the… - Case
Can a scientific paper be published anonymously?
Two authors wrote to me to ask if they could publish a scientific paper anonymously. The authors work in a general practice that had switched its cervical cytology contract from one laboratory to another. Some time after the switch they noticed that the rate of abnormal smears had almost doubled. This has profound implications for the practice and particularly for the women whose smears were po… - News
Editor to Editor support for Journal Management
…Practices for Journal Websites (INANE collaborators 2016). Another related project is the recently published paper examining 80 nursing journals for adequacy of their author guidelines, conducted by Oermann and colleagues ( - News
In the news: May Digest
…reviews has been commented on in a number of places including Physics Today and Science. A survey showed that nearly half of respondents had ghostwritten a peer review report, despite the 80% of them having the opinion that ghostwriting is unethical. - Case
The perfect study but no investigational drug
A paper was submitted that described the use of a non-licensed investigational drug. One of the paper’s reviewers drew attention to the fact that none of the investigators in the study had been supplied with the drug since 1992/3. The drug is produced exclusively by one manufacturer who has operated an extremely restrictive policy regarding availability of the compound. I contacted the clinical… - News
In the news: April Digest
…Integrity Principles with 9 best practices to achieve them. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-019-00094-3 Bias A Holmes and S Hardy continue their deep dive to describe the effect of gender, assessed in about 80% of the time for both reviewers and authors using Genderize.io on naming order in… - News
Letter from the COPE Vice-Chair: December 2022
…membership criteria, offering guidance and mentorship to support them in developing best practices in publication ethics. Making membership criteria transparent and mapping the application process to these criteria. It is worth noting here that we currently reject approximately 80% of all applications which do not meet our strict assessment criteria, many from countries outside of the… - News
New: Chinese resources
…Chinese COPE resources We have new Chinese translations of COPE resources to add to our existing translated material. eLearning module: Introduction to Publication Ethics Guidelines: - News
Diversity in Peer Review: Survey Results
…src="/files/u7140/Diversity%20applies%20to.png" style="width: 200px; height: 157px; margin: 3px; float: right;" />Diversity and inclusion apply to Editors/Editorial boards of publications (89%) Peer reviewers for publications (87%) Peer review panels for funding/awards (79%) Peer review panels for job applications/promotions/tenure (79%) Other (3%), including conference… - 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… - Case
Living unrelated (commercial) organ transplant
A paper submitted for publication describes a series of children with renal failure who had had kidneys transplanted from commercially acquired donors. The authors of the paper had not carried out the transplants. Indeed, they had been carried out in another country. The authors simply reported what happened to the patients after they returned. The paper, while not of high priority for publicat… - Case
Not getting consent from an ethics committee
We had provisionally accepted a randomised controlled trial of an exclusion diet given to young children with a particular condition. The trial design was that one group started the exclusion diet a month before the second group. In other words, both were given the “treatment.” One part of the trial was that children who were thought to have an allergy to a particular food were rechallenged wit… - News
In the news: January 2018 Digest
…target="_blank">http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187394 But maybe this will all be a thing of the past when automated tools are writing our scientific papers, in the not too distant future?