- News
In the news: December 2021
…research data collection. It includes recommendations that, during research design, consideration should be given to whether gender questions need to be included and, if they do, nonbinary genders should be explicitly included. In this - News
Tackling the problem of paper mills
…virtual) Academic Publishing Europe Conference. The session, “The Version of Record under Attack! The Dark Side of the Scholarly Publishing Universe”, was chaired by Dr Liz Marchant (Taylor & Francis). The session had presentations from two editors of scholarly journals, Professor Dr Christian Behl and Professor Dr Bernhard Sabel, and from Tim Kersjes, a Research… - Event
COPE webinar: managing paper mills
…top Related resources Paper mills: authorship for sale COPE Seminar 2021 Systematic manipulation of the publication process, COPE guidance, updated 2022 - Case
Publishing a letter concerning a paper published in another journal many years ago
Recently, Journal X received a letter to the editor based on an article published in another journal about 8 years previously. The editors of Journal X believe this letter is important to their readers. The original article was a seminal paper which changed practice. However, a group of authors challenged some of the data published in this trial in a subsequent review published about 7 ye… - Case
Data integrity issues
Several years ago, a third party contacted the journal with concerns about data irregularities in two randomised controlled trials published about 10 years ago. Both of the papers were published before the journal had strict requirements on data upload to a public repository and availability. The journal sent an initial email to the corresponding author of both papers (the same author fo… - Case
Author accused of sexual harassment
A reviewer for Journal X declined to review a paper as author Y has been the subject of a sexual harassment investigation. Author Y left the institute before the result of the investigation, thereby avoiding the outcome of the case. There is an academic loophole which allows those accused of misconduct to avoid any potential consequences by resigning before the outcome of the investigation, mea… - Case
Can a published journal article be submitted to conferences?
An article is submitted to a journal and accepted for future publication. The authors receive the acceptance letter and the script is waiting for the final publication process (within 4-6 months). During this time the authors ask the journal if they can present the full text of the article at a conference (which is going to be held before the publication by the journal). They also declar… - Flowcharts
Addressing concerns about systematic manipulation of the publication process
…="https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/systematic-manipulation-publication-process">Systematic manipulation of the publication process flowcharts Managing paper mills COPE seminar, September 2022 How do we deal with the growing problem of paper mill - Seminars and webinars
Post-publication corrections
…misconduct JAMA Network article Handling difficult cases a discussion on PLOS Blog Related COPE resources Dealing with concerns about the integrity of… - Translated resources
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Portuguese)
…Transparência e melhores práticas, edição atualizada, Version 4.0, 2022 Transparência e melhores práticas Português - Revisado por Luciano Panepucci, após tradução automática via Documentos Google. Version 4.0, 2022. Edição anterior: Princípios de Transparência e Boas Práticas em… - Forum discussion topics
Editorial conflicts of interest
March 2022 Watch the introduction to the topic "Editorial conflicts of interest" with COPE Council member, Itamar Ashkenazi. - Forum discussion topics
Dealing with complaints about the integrity of published research
June 2022 Watch the introduction to the topic "Dealing with complaints about the integrity of published research" with COPE Council member, Jigisha Patel. Please, play a game with us!
…src="/files/u7140/Digest_University_Image.png" style="width: 560px; height: 215px;" /> In January… As a new RIO, Jo is faced with a dispute between authors. A senior member in the office, who is aware of COPE and the institution’s COPE membership, directs Jo to the COPE website to find out how this type of issue would be handled by journals. Jo reads the COPE guidelines How to Handle Authorship Disputes, A Guide for New…- News
In the news: April 2021
…organisations embed a "dedication to equity and justice into everything a publisher does". COVID-19 The International COVID-19 suicide prevention research collaborative (ICSPRC) - Case
Suspected plagiarism
We had a case of suspected plagiarism recently on one of our journals, on which I would appreciate COPE’s advice. The case has been resolved, so this is not in the least urgent, but I would be interested to hear your views. Very briefly, at review stage the editor spotted substantial similarities between a paper submitted to our journal and a review published recently in a related title.… - Case
Clear case of duplicate publication?
We received an article at our editorial office in April 2008. One of the referees discovered that a similar article had been published in a surgical journal in 2000. In that article, the authors presented data on the haemodynamics and intestinal blood flow in pigs. In the article submitted to us, they presented the same results, but only the first three time points (which had been includ… - Case
Author creates bogus email accounts for proposed reviewers
Recently, as co-editor of my journal, I received a manuscript submitted for publication. The author had recommended two reviewers along with their Gmail accounts and affiliations. I was curious about the affiliation of one of the reviewers. I looked this person up and discovered they had a different email address than that provided by the author. So I usedthe email address that I found to… - Case
Author requests permission to publish review comments
…reviews and a commentary on the issues raised, prior to submission to a journal with open peer review. The author requested the journal’s consent for the review comments to be made public under CC licence. We declined permission to publish the reviews and explained that the journal operates a confidential single blind review process. Reviewers are informed that their names will not be revealed to… - 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
Peer Review Week 2018: new and revised COPE resources
…12px Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999; text-decoration: none;"> Create your own user feedback survey The COPE eLearning module on Reviewer Misconduct has been revised, peer reviewed and updated. Although eLearning is a member benefit, this module will be freely available to all for the month of September. We are also in…