- News
COPE in 2023
…A time to review and look forward In 2022, COPE celebrated its 25th year. While we celebrated this anniversary with pride in all that we have achieved over the past 25 years, we also took the opportunity to reflect on COPE’s role and purpose in a rapidly evolving research and publication landscape.… - News
In the news: March Digest
…policies, features, and practices of 44 preprint platforms in the life and biomedical sciences were presented during a recent ASAPbio workshop on preprints. The workshop was attended by Iratxe Puebla, COPE’s Facilitation and Integrity Officer, and approximately 30 other stakeholders with the goal of developing an agreed set of best practices for metadata and processes to support the discoverability, use,… - Case
“Medical research” using data in the public domain
…site containing the same elements as the data used in the author’s study. The author also stated that as these data were in the public domain, the project was exempt from the requirement for ethics review as per the following two guidelines for ethics in human research: (1) Tri-Council Policy Statement, Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans, Canada, 1998, Article 1.1(c) "Research about… - Discussion documents
Artificial intelligence (AI) in decision making
…href="https://publicationethics.org/news/challenge-ai-chatbots-journal-editors">The challenge of AI chatbots for journal editors, guest editorial, February 2023 Trustworthy AI for the future of publishing COPE Seminar 2021 - Case
An article in a high profile journal that potentially misappropriates research published in lower impact journals
It has been drawn to our attention that a paper published in a high-impact journal in the field of biological sciences (Journal A) draws very heavily on research published in the lower-impact factor journal for which we work (Journal B), as well as on work published in other journals. One of the authors of the paper in Journal B has contacted the editor of Journal A to register his/her concern… - Case
Author refuses to comply with editorial review prior to production and publication
The Editor-in-Chief of a journal received a message from a corresponding author of a brief communication, stating that the proposed editorial edits were beyond typical formatting edits at this stage. They felt said many edits were not appropriate, would need further response and suggested holding this article (which had already been in process with the journal for over a year) for the next edit… - Case
Author withdraws manuscript upon payment request
We occasionally come across a situation when an author withdraws a manuscript upon receiving a payment request. We consider this irresponsible, when much of the publication process has been completed by editors and reviewers. We request authors to provide payment details after the manuscript has been accepted for publication. The fees policy is published on our website and we require that the a… - Case
Exposing citation manipulation and fraud in the community
A publisher has identified a ring of three individuals who acted as guest editors for three special issues. These individuals used nine fake accounts to peer review manuscripts. For some manuscripts, the fake identities were used alongside legitimate reviewers, while in other cases they were used exclusively. The publisher has also identified several submissions to those special issues where th… - Case
Data availability for vulnerable populations
A paper on a vulnerable population was published in a journal. The journal followed their usual procedures for processing papers on vulnerable populations, by requesting and reviewing further information on the ethics approval and consent procedures of the study (e.g.: recruitment procedures; blank version of the consent document participants read and signed; the study protocol that was approve… Membership: universities and research institutes
COPE announced the launch of membership for selected universities and research institutes in May 2022. An initial group of universities and research institutes have joined as members and will help ensure that the dedicated resources provide the appropriate support and guidance that universities and research institutes need: Aston University |- Flowcharts
Systematic manipulation of the publication process
…process COPE guidance 2023 Paper mills research report COPE & STM, 2022 How to recognise potential manipulation of the peer review process COPE infographic - News
In the news: November 2018 Digest
…findings. COPE Council member Deborah Kahn Read November Digest: Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections… - Case
A case of scientific misconduct?
…authors wrote back to us, cc'ing the heads of their two research ethics committees, to say that indeed, the manuscript did not match the two different protocols they sent us. They explained that there was a fault in the manuscript and not in the work carried out. They explained that the paper they sent us did not describe a single study but rather parts of 4 different approved studies taking place over… - News
Announcement of COPE Council elections
…obtained from the COPE Administrator, Linda Gough to whom applications and nominations can be emailed. The closing date for applications is 30 September 2011. COPE council member: role description Purpose of role To be responsible, together with other council members, for the policy and management of the Committee on Publication Ethics. … - Event
COPE Lightning Talk: AI
30 January 2024, 13:00-14:00 GMT / UTC COPE members only New for 2024 COPE introduces Lightning Talks! We've created these to increase awareness and confidence in specific topics. Each talk will begin with a short introduction from experts, and then open up to discussion and questions from the audience. Join us to learn more, let us know your thoughts… - News
In the news: August 2018 Digest
…="_blank">http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/07/26/open-science-is-all-very-well-but-how-do-you-make-it-fair-in-practice/ Research integrity British universities fail at research integrity self-regulationA report released July 11, 2018 noted that ¼ of UK Universities does not comply with the concordat to support research integrity released in 2012. This concordat tied loss of funding from agencies… Resources and further reading
…Education (ICME-2013), 2-6 October 2013, Balaclava, MauritiusKusal Das, International Advisory Group 2nd International Scientific Practical Conference "World-class scientific journal: problems, solutions, preparation and inclusion into citation indices and reference databases", 24-26 September 2013 and Innovative…- Case
Lack of trial registration leads to new concerns about study conduct and ethical review/approval
Following publication of an article, the editors noticed that the paper reported results of a clinical trial, but no details of trial registration were included in the article. (The journal does have careful checks on trial registration by staff at submission but this paper was not well written and it took careful reading to work out that it did in fact report on a clinical trial). We co… - Case
Dealing with cases with culturally offensive content
…The Forum agreed that further guidelines will be useful. The forthcoming COPE guidelines will address some of the issues reviewed here and other resources can be found below: Simone Ragavooloo, Helen Macdonald and Kamran Abbasi, ‘Acting on historically offensive content in BMJ’s archive’, BMJ 2022; 378:o1829 doi… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
…DOI:10.1186/s41073-017-0030-2 Porter J, Jick H. (1980). Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics. New England Journal of Medicine 302 (2): 123–123 DOI:10.1056/NEJM198001103020221 This will be discussed at the start of the next COPE Forum on Monday 26 February 2018. Please do leave any comments below, whether or not you are planning on joining the meeting Comments are reviewed and, on…