- News
Where next in peer review? Part 2: COPE commentary
…knowledge to fully understand the capabilities and threats presented by AI. On the potential for personal information to make its way back into training data, for example, Dustin Smith (a self-declared ‘AI optimist’) was quite clear. Where LLMs are trained on closed data sets (that is, with no new information added to it over time), there is little risk of material submitted to it reappearing in… Membership application FAQ
…membership is accepted? When your application is accepted, you will receive an email confirming this. You will receive a link to COPE’s Member Handbook which details the benefits of being a COPE member as well as how to manage your membership. If membership fees are applicable, an invoice will be sent to you. Once your membership fees are paid, your journal details will be added to our…- News
WCRI 2019: Predatory publishing plenary
…when authors know a journal is not reputable, but often we see that a publisher quacks like a duck and Jeffrey Beall’s coining has stuck. Essentially, predatory publishers are “flim flam men” who deceive, cheat, and squeeze money out of authors, such as by refusing all fee waivers and declining to withdraw submissions. They lack transparency and are given away by tells such as false claims of… - Case
Serial plagiarism by an experienced author
…material. This prompted an iThenticate check of the published paper, which gave a similarity index of 57%, with 45% of the material from three papers by other authors. (It should be noted that this paper was reviewed and accepted before iThenticate was available for checking incoming submissions.) It was clear that the new submission should be rejected. The key issue was the action to be taken… Common editorial dilemmas: hypothetical cases
…conclusions, adding that your last letter to them stated you would accept the revision if they took into account the reviewer's comments, which they have done in full. Discussion The editor has already said s/he would accept with minor revisions, which had been done. Arguably the onus is on the editor to accept this article.…- News
Welcome new COPE members April-June 2019
Welcome to our new members who have joined COPE between April and June 2019. The new members have been assessed against criteria outlined in the Principles of Transparency and signing up to COPE shows that they intend to follow the highest standards of publication ethics and to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2022: Managing paper mills
…processes? They are probably equally concerning. They are both bad in terms of contaminating the published record, but they operate in a slightly different way. And paper mills and predatory publishers can overlap eg predatory publishers may run paper mills. We need more research to understand this. Are there any legitimate reasons for adding an author after acceptance? We have seen…