- Case
Authorship of a commentary
The Forum agreed that it is not necessarily unethical for an associate editor to author a commentary, but in this situation, the associate editor and the original author of the commentary need to explain how the associate editor came to be a co-author. There is a potential issue of coercion, where the associate editor may have persuaded the co-authors to assign them authorship. The second… - News
Authorship, a blunt tool: "20 Jahre Research Integrity in Deutschland Was hat sich verändert? Wie geht es weiter?"
…Sabine Kleinert, Senior Executive Editor at The Lancet (and ex-Vice Chair, COPE) unpacked authorship standards, practices, and problems with 40+ vocal and engaged research ombudspeople. We asked (and discussed) three questions. Why does good authorship practice matter? What symptoms identify poor practice? And how do we manage problems when they arise? We debated whether authorship is a sharp… - Case
Requesting authorship after publication
…own publication policy indicated that all PIs involved in the development of the cohort should be listed as authors for subsequent publications. The corresponding author acknowledged that this “puts [the journal] in a difficult position, and exposes problems with [their] publication policy, which need to be resolved, but if it were possible to add [Dr H] to the authorship we should be grateful for… - Case
Advice regarding a weird type of content and its authorship
We are grateful to the participants of the recent COPE Forum for helping us to understand how “authorship” can be dealt with in a non-traditional editorial model. Our thoughts continue to evolve on how we will handle this, but we are likely to list “authors” as a group, assuming that they have all participated under the aegis of one body or leader. Others who participate will be listed, and we… - Case
Authorship issues from disbanded consortium
…corresponding author. When queried, the authors agreed that they qualified for authorship (as per the ICMJE criteria). One of them informed the publisher that three junior members of his research group also qualified for authorship but had never been included in the author list. When contacted, these junior three researchers requested to be included as authors. The manuscript's publication was put on… - Case
Authorship dispute
…conflict of interest statement, and an appropriate acknowledgement section. When the revised manuscript was submitted, the covering letter stated that to comply with the requested revisions and with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ definition of authorship, the list of authors had been amended, but that this amendment could be renegotiated if the editorial team considered that… - Case
Authorship dispute unsatisfactorily resolved by institution
…how can the right to authorship of the claimant according to ICMJE/COPE guidelines be now confirmed independently of the institution?• If a copyright transfer has already been agreed between the publisher and the institution/corresponding author, is this agreement affected if a separate correction article is published detailing an authorship change? … - Case
Authorship conflict
The Forum advised referring the matter to the institution. Journal editors and publishers cannot be involved in adjudicating authorship disputes. Only the institution(s) can determine who is the rightful author. Hence the advice was to contact the institution and request an investigation. If the institution agrees to investigate, the editor may wish to issue an Expression of Concern until the… - Case
Victim of article theft wants correction to list their name, not retraction
…solution? If so, should we correct the article metadata too? • Is there any precedent for such a total correction of authorship? • How might we detect and prevent the publication of stolen articles? They do not show up on Crossref Similarity Check because they are unpublished. … - News
Case Discussion: Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute - university perspective comment
…situation is resolved. When the problem occurs post-publication, there is a need to correct the literature in an appropriate and timely manner. In this case, the journal could simultaneously publish an erratum/corrigendum to correct Author A’s name and issue an Expression of Concern disclosing the authorship dispute with, to date, an insufficient institutional investigation. The Forum agreed that this… - News
Case Discussion: Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute
Case number18-07 The case we are highlighting for March involves an escalating authorship dispute as well as management of the post publication correction process (Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute: 18-07). Cases brought to the COPE Forum are often complex and involve multiple problems, which is the case here. Case Summary After publication… - Research
Authorship research project 2009
Although there is no universally agreed definition of authorship, authorship of research publications is a major requirement for academic advancement and a common cause of disputes among colleagues. Most research on authorship issues comes from biomedicine, where the authorship criteria are those of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. In order to make informed guidelines on… - Case
Author admits failure to credit other authors
…found that the author had left and was now a resident of another country. The university was unable to assist in resolving the authorship issue. The AOR then contacted the journal and stated that due to disagreement on the order of authorship, he was requesting a retraction of the article. One more attempt was made by the editor and a co-author to resolve the dispute, but the AOR refused to… - Event
World Forum Principles of Scientific Publication
…between the decision makers, coworkers, and students. The following questions will give a focus to the discussion: Do current guidelines on authorship reflect how researchers assign credit for their contributions? How can we do better and make the process more transparent that maintains the interests of the principal investigators while considering the collaborators? … - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Authorship for sale
…How do we deal with the growing problem of paper mills? The webinar panelists discussed the prevalence of paper mills, the systematic manipulation of the publication process by individuals or organised groups to guarantee publication, often through sale of authorship or manipulating article acceptance. This session is one of - News
Your comments on Discussion Document: What Constitutes Authorship?
COPE is updating its discussion document What constitutes authorship? This document aims to stimulate discussion about the issue to help inform the debate and provide guidance where needed. We encourage journal editors, reviewers, researchers, institutions, funders and third party services to… - Case
Authorship issue related to misleading action of one author
…The first and third authors could be encouraged to write a different paper in light of the problems. While the Forum recognized the editor’s wish to try and help the author get their paper published, the process should stop at the point of consent or lack thereof and when the authorship issues became questionable. Further changes by the programme officer would likely change the paper significantly… - Discussion documents
How should editors respond to plagiarism? April 2011
Summary This paper aims to stimulate discussion about how editors should respond to plagiarism. Different types of plagiarism are described in terms of their: extent, originality of the copied material, context, referencing, intention, author seniority, and language. Journal responses to plagiarism are also described including: educating authors, contacting authors’… - Case
How to correct a published paper
…changed, a corrigendum must be submitted to address an inaccuracy, omission. Another suggestion was to withdraw the current paper and publish the new one after the manuscript has been peer reviewed. But all of authors on the original paper would need to agree. However, the problem with “withdrawing” a paper and publishing a new one is that the publication record becomes rather confused. Will the… - Case
Misunderstood requirements for authorship
…to explain and account for all the co-authors’ accreditations. From his reply it was clear that he did not understand the requirements for authorship as the associate editor was listed as having been the inspiration for several of his papers. A decision was taken to contact the head of department who also appeared on the paper as the final co-author, asking him to clarify the accreditations…