- Case
Nuisance author
…threatening. We are now ignoring him, but he is sending out these emails to the community which are untrue. He has edited my email responses and then forwarded them on to people. He attached a copy of an email from me which said his paper was unsuitable for publication in our journal. However, he had removed that text and typed in "If all Chinese authors are as impolite and narrow-minded as you, any… - News
Case discussion: critiques after publication
…can be contacted and an expression of concern added in the interim. If the author remains uncooperative, the editor is bound to retract the paper for the sake of not misleading readers, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and other stakeholders. The retraction notice should transparently explain what post-publication review procedures were followed and what happened. As an additional… - Case
Parental consent for participants
…not reviewed by an ethical board. However, the project proposal contained a detailed description of the procedure, including the ethical aspects. The project proposal was approved by a university, and evaluated, approved and funded by a grant agency. My concern is about the age of the participants. Does the Forum have a recommendation regarding the requirements for parental approval for… Text Recycling: Forum discussion topic March 2013
…should amend the literature by adding the missing citation and clarifying what is new in the subsequent publication versus the original publication. Journal editors should consider publishing a retraction article when: There is significant overlap in the text, generally excluding methods, with sections that are identical or near identical to a previous publication by the same…- News
In the news: August
…="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2019/07/21/book-review-research-ethics-in-the-real-world-by-helen-kara/" target="_blank">https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2019/07/21/book-review-research-ethics-in-the-real-world-by-helen-kara/ Misconduct Jennifer A Byrne is a cancer researcher who is committed to cleaning the literature as much as she is to adding to it. She began her crusade to do so after noting… - News
In the news: January Digest
…behavioural research. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0772-6 Ethical oversight ICMJE recommendations have been revised. The main changes are rephrasing COIs to relationships and activities, adding efforts for inclusion and diversity, and advising against citing predatory… - Case
Sufficient consent?
…indicated fully after my name in the documentation send to your journal. So it's now a question of whether COPE considers his responses sufficient. … - News
In the news: February Digest
…were male and younger”. Only 8.1% of reviewers opted to reveal their names and the authors suggest that this supports the view that peer review depends on anonymity. Preprints Papers with involve human subjects or their medical records will not be accepted by 4 major orthopedic journals if they have been posted on a preprint server. The editors of the journals jointly published an… - Case
Omitted author
…Professor X provided the picture and clinical data regarding this patient and I should have included him as coauthor. It was my mistake." This explanation was accepted by the editor and a revised version of the manuscript and authorship consent was submitted.(Comment: The journal does not require coauthors of papers to state explicitly what they have done to merit inclusion as a coauthor.)It… - Forum discussion topics
What does peer review mean in the arts, humanities and social sciences?
…include adding non-native speakers to editorial boards to advise from a high level perspective in an important way; editors entering retirement offering mentorship outside the publication process; for society journals, pairing society members internationally with published mentors and see if they can meet the authorship criteria Post your comments and feedback below. COPE webinar: Understanding text recycling
…wondered if I was wasting my time by doing that extra manipulation, but it felt odd to just put the same text in multiple documents. At the same time, we do often have to say the same thing and starting from scratch every time feels like a waste too.” Professor of Economics Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism, is a common practice in research…- News
In the news: April 2018 Digest
…servers varied little from their final poublished versions, suggesting the commercial publishers’ added value is limitedhttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00799-018-0234-1 Peer review fails to prevent publication of paper with unsupported claims about peer review A recent publication,… - News
Reflections on the COPE North American Seminar 2019
…that have come to the COPE Forum. There were many highlights for me from this day, but here are a few of my Aha moments and insights (see the agenda for the day here). Karin Wulf,… - News
Vacancies on COPE Council
…Annual seminars and workshops are held in a number of locations worldwide and it is hoped that Council Members will participate in at least one of these. "Inspiring, busy and exciting years. It has been a truly unique experience and I am happy to have done my bit." Iria del Río, COPE Council 2016-2019 Key responsibilities COPE is governed by the - Case
Undisclosed conflict of interest
…submitted a COI statement which the journal removed. Subsequently, you falsely asserted that my wife, is a Director and employee of a CMG associated company when she clearly isn’t and has never received any fund from CMG.” We checked the company registration and the spouse is actually listed as company secretary, which is considered an ‘officer’ of a corporation in the country of registration, so… - Case
Concern about reporting of a trial and also its DSMB
…would be credited later by a coauthorship. (b) My personal decision to include three of the four DSMB members in the list of authors was made a significant time after the final database lock. This decision was long after completion of the clinical study and its analysis. It credited three members of the board who made some significant advisory contributions to the present manuscript. Only for… - News
Citations: Link, Locate, Discover, Connect
…target="_blank">http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/jcr1975introduction.pdf [2] Cited references from the Book Citation Indexes were added as contributing materials to the JCR in 2018, and are included in the recently published 2017 Journal Impact Factors and other JCR metrics. The set of content whose citations are included in the JCR now comprise: Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Emerging… - Case
Problem with figures
…similar. I can assure you that all this study is fully controlled and the reproducibility is excellent. We now have even results with the systemic application of the XXX vector to disseminated tumors. I find it hard to believe that I am going to be under investigation questioning my scientific integrity.” (9) We then enlisted the confidential help of an editor from a different journal who is an… - Case
Suspect author
…delayed pending the analysis, which has now been submitted to journal A for publication! (It concludes that fabrication is almost certain.) Meanwhile, a separate publication scandal has distracted the editors’ attention recently. We did not investigate ethics approval since we felt that should be for the institution to investigate. My main question is what to do with the analysis that has been… - News
Allegations of Misconduct webinar summary, April 2019
…a RIO in Chinese institutions? To my knowledge, there is not a designated person named “RIO” at Chinese institutions, but the institutions may actually have a person designated as the point of contact for allegations of research misconduct. Although sometimes it is difficult to find the correct person, they are often senior people like the Vice President for Research. If there is…