- Case
A further case of redundant publication
A paper was submitted to a UK specialist medical journal. At review, one of the reviewers alerted the editor to the fact that a very similar paper had been published in a US specialist title. It seems very likely that the reports describe the same randomised controlled trial. The only piece of new information was not an important outcome of the trial. The authors did not disclose the existence… - Case
Clinical misconduct(?), incidentally discovered
An author submitted a speculative article offering a new explanation for the aetiology of premenstrual syndrome, and a new suggestion for its treatment. The paper was wholly based on a priori reasoning, rather than evidence. It was rejected. The authors appealed, citing as evidence in favour of publishing their paper that they had had successful results treating two patients with the proposed m… - Case
Attempt at multiple plagiarism
In January 2004 a submission was made to Journal A from a laboratory in a different country. In April 2004 it was bought to the editor’s attention that the manuscript was a verbatim copy of a paper published in 2003 in another journal, Journal B. The only difference between the manuscripts was that the names and affiliations of the authors on the second paper were different to the first paper.… - Research
Data sharing policies in scholarly publications: interdisciplinary comparisons
…sharing processes and platform solutions across different subject areas. The authors look at the information sharing policies of 150 journal websites, and publishers, from 15 disciplines to understand the levels of different data sharing policies in different fields. 'The results consolidate the notion of the primacy of biomedical sciences in the implementation of data sharing norms and… - News
COPE authorship workshop February 2021
…Online cases workshop for COPE members only Wednesday 10 February 2021 15:00-16:30pm (GMT); 10.00-11.30am (EST) Wednesday 24 February 2021 09:00-10:30am (GMT); 17.00-18.30pm (AWST); 20.00-21.30pm (AEDT) Following on from the success of our virtual workshops last year, COPE is delighted to announce an online workshop on… - Case
Plagiarism and possible fraud
…detailing data from just 15 patients. A review of the author’s publication history revealed that s/he had changed “routes” over the past 5-6 years, publishing only fairly brief reports.… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Ethical practice in research data publication - challenges, lessons and opportunities
… Over the past decade, we have seen a marked increase in the publication of research data, driven by journal, funder, and institutional policies. This has brought ethical challenges specific to datasets, which can affect the journal publication related to the… - Event
COPE Forum: Thursday 9 December 2021
…Forum agenda The 9 December 2021 COPE Forum will be held at 14:00-15:30pm GMT / UTC 1. Update on COPE activities by the Chair. 2. New cases Request to remove an author post-publication - Case
Surprising results and a new area of research
…was a complete departure from the previous work of the first and senior authors. The editor wrote to the authors pointing out that the photos were the same. He received a garbled response, saying that computer photomicrographs got muddled up. There were 15 authors, all of whom were faxed. The first author responded immediately.… - Case
Ethics approval for audit 1
A group in a developing country decided to do a survey of maternal mortality in relation to the available local facilities in the various regions of their country. They set up a small committee to look at the incidence and causes. They obtained the permission of the local authorities, including the local elders, community leaders, and local health care providers, to scrutinise records and asses… - Event
COPE Forum: Tuesday 23 March 2021
The 23 March 2021 COPE Forum will be held at 14:00-15:30pm (GMT). COPE Members can now register to attend the March Forum; the deadline to register is Monday 22 March. The discussion topic will be on the subject on publication ethics and books. This will be… - Case
Questions of authorship, duplicate publication and copyright
In 1995 a group of nine authors published a paper in a leading general medical journal. Copyright was granted by all authors to the journal. In 1998 the senior author received a complimentary copy of a recently published book. One of the chapters was essentially a reprint of the original paper. It was attributed to the sixth, first and second authors. Neither the first nor second author (the gu… - News
Presentations from COPE 2013 Asia-Pacific Seminar now online
…sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5;">Anaesthesia & Intensive Care; Paul Taylor & Daniel Barr, from the Office for Research Ethics and Integrity at the University of Melbourne; and - Event
ALPSP Webinar: Developing Ethical Commercial Revenues in a Changing Publishing Landscape
…tabindex="0">15:00 - 16:30 BST (London) / 16:00-17:30 CEST (Europe)* Chair: Gavin Sharrock, Business Development Director, Wiley This webinar, held by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), will… - Event
COPE Forum: August 2018
…impact factor (MS) 18-10 Are copyrighted conference audiotapes considered "prior publication"?(SK) 4. Updates17-15 Stolen article 17-18 Pre-publication in a discussion paper series 18-02 Dispute between two authors 18-03 Editor and reviewers requiring authors to cite their own work 18-05 Undisclosed conflict of interest - Event
COPE Forum: Wednesday 9 June 2021
The 9 June 2021 COPE Forum will be held at 14:00-15:30pm BST (UTC + 1). The discussion topic "When and how to involve multiple journals and… - News
Responding to world events: ISMTE webinar
On Thursday 15 September, ISMTE held its delayed webinar on Responding to World Events, which had originally been conceived following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing issues faced by publishers and editors on whether to make public statements or how to join various sanctions placed on Russia. The… RePAIR consensus guidelines
…Colorado, USA. The COPE Secretary at that time, Charon Pierson, attended the conference and was one of the 20 member working group who participated in the development of these guidelines. The working group's expertise spanned multiple scientific and professional disciplines with representatives from 15 institutions, two US government agencies and five countries. Summary Researchers,…- Case
Disagreement between authors and sponsor
…each of the concerns that had been raised. They stated that the discrepancies resulted to some degree from the use of a different analytic technique in the submitted article, citing the CONSORT statement as evidence that this technique has become the favoured form of analysis since the initial report, which was presented almost 15 years ago. They also acknowledged that one of the numbers presented in… - Event
COPE Forum: Monday 5 November 2018
…18-11 Increased number of casual submissions 18-12 A pre-submission inquiry with a bribe 18-13 Self-plagiarism and suspected salami publishing 18-14 Authorship conflict 18-15 Peer reviewer contacted by author 18-16 Data fabrication in a rejected manuscript 18-17 Possible plagiarism 18-18 Victim of article theft wants correction to list…