- News
Diversity in Peer Review: Survey Results
Diversity in Peer Review The theme of this year’s Peer Review Week (10-15 September 2018) was diversity and inclusion in peer review. To understand more about how the COPE community views this topic, the COPE Member Services Subcommittee launched a 3-week online Peer Review… - Case
Author dispute over data presented in paper
A manuscript was submitted to our Journal in 2008. The six authors signed the author form for the Journal which accompanies all submitted manuscripts. The author form gives information on the role each author played in the study and states that each author has read and approved the paper for submission to the Journal. Following peer-review the paper was accepted for publication. It was p… - Case
The ethics of drug/medication use evaluation audit cycles and publication of the results
We are seeking guidance on the ethical issues surrounding drug/medicine use evaluation (DUE or MUE) audit cycles, particularly with respect to the publication of findings but also perhaps with regard to the conduct of these audits in general. DUE is a quality improvement activity that involves data collection and evaluation (usually by audit), followed by ‘action’ or intervention and a r… - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around watchlists
March 2024 Ethical considerations of using and maintaining watchlists Watch the introduction to "Ethical considerations of using and maintaining watchlists" with Dan Kulp: The COPE Case Taxonomy
…and 100 keywords and is designed to be descriptive not judgemental. All the cases in COPE’s database were recoded and all new cases are being coded according to the new taxonomy (up to two classifications, denoting the main topics discussed, and 10 keywords can be assigned per case). It is important to note that classification and keyword coding denotes that a topic was raised and discussed,…- Case
Unethical withdrawal of a paper
…future and wanted to verify with them that his intended action—a ban for double submission—was suitable. On returning from meeting with the publishers, Editor A discovered that the paper had never been withdrawn from consideration and the review process was now complete (entire review process 28 days). The reviewer comments warranted rejection. Editor A sent a rejection letter to Authors A and… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: November 2020
…More work has been undertaken to give predatory publishing a functional working definition. A systematic review was published in BMC Medicine in May, authored by Samantha Cukier and colleagues from the Centre for Journalology, Ottawa, with the aim of leading to “the creation of one evidence based… Publication ethics issues in AHSS: New study
…through education, guidance and support of our members alongside the fostering of professional debate in the wider community. COPE’s 10 Core Practices which includes resources such as guidelines, flowcharts and real publication ethics cases, covers many ethical issues to help editors in their day to day work. COPE was established in 1997 by a small group of medical journal editors but now…- Case
Repetitive duplicate submission to multiple journals and redundant publication
…submitted to J8, J2, and J7. J2 contacted J8 about possible duplicate submission. J8 rejected MsD based on reviewer reports and also added a note to the author informing them that there had been a report of possible duplicate submission with their Ms. The abstract of MsD has been found to be identical to the abstract of an article published in June 2005 in J10 with the exception of two… - Case
Breach of peer review confidentiality
This case concerns a submitted review article that proposes a new theory in a field of research where there are two polarised positions. The original manuscript (R0) underwent peer review and was returned with reports indicating a major revision, which took several months. On submission of the revision, one of the reviewers from the previous round was asked to re-review. That reviewer (r… - Case
Possible self-plagiarism and/or prior publication
In October 2014 it came to our attention via one of the reviewers of a manuscript submitted to our journal that an identical article (100% identical) had been previously published on the website of the author. The submitting author had not made us aware in their submission documentation that the article had been publicly available on their website at the point of submission. Two different but r… - Case
Institution refuses to investigate scientific issues
A publisher was alerted to possible issues with band duplication in an article (more than 10 years old) by a reader. The corresponding author was contacted to resolve the issue. The author was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the bands, and because of the age of the article, the original data were no longer available. The institution was asked to investigate; a summary of the… - News
Post-publication conflicts of interest
…Trevor Lane on behalf of the COPE Education Subcommittee Related resources Editorial conflicts of interest COPE Forum discussion 2022 - Case
Ethics and consent in research
…attention. Her tests were repeated again one and two years later. The two year test indicated more severe disease. These findings were reported to her 10 months later by one of the researchers who failed to mention their significance in his cover letter to the radiologist’s report. Given the patient’s history, she should have been removed from work immediately, and the researchers should have reported this… - Case
What involvement should a journal have in a dispute about an article published in the journal?
Our journal published a manuscript as part of an editors’ forum which, as an invited forum paper, received reviewer feedback but did not follow our usual double-blind peer review standard for regular submissions (the reviewers were aware of the author’s identity but the author did not know the identity of the reviewers). Following the publication of this article, the editor-in-chief rece… - Seminars and webinars
COPE webinar 2018: Creating and implementing data research policies
…policies across all its journals since 2016. As reported in a preprint Standardising and harmonising research data policy in scholarly publishing (Hrynaszkiewicz et al, 4 April 2017), an expert working group found commonalities among the publisher’s 2500 journals and consulted with editors, librarians, and funders. It defined a company-wide… - Case
Should stockholders of a pharmaceutical industry declare conflicts of interest in a research paper?
…information about conflict of interests and/or state which style guide it follows? Many biomedical journals follow the AMA Manual of Style which includes the following in section 5.5 of the current 10th edition: 'Financial interests may include but are not limited to employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, expert testimony, royalties, patents (filed, pending, or registered), grants, and… - News
In the news: December 2018 Digest
…="http://retractionwatch.com/2018/11/28/majority-of-journals-editorial-board-resigns-after-publishers-handling-of-letter-about-move-to-open-access/" target="_blank">editorial. A Corrigendum was issued after legal threats by copyright holders of a mobile app who demanded new acknowledgements, references and warnings to be added. Interestingly, the… - News
In the news: August 2018 Digest
…the first or first ten papers that show up on a search. In any case, which papers are cited by an author may have a complex set of reasons and is worth considering.http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/10/12/what-drives-academic-citations/#.W2wCTdhKit… - News
Case discussion: self-plagiarism and suspected salami publishing
…case, as well as in two previous COPE Forum cases: one of alleged self-plagiarism of a student thesis (10-18 self plagiarism) and one of alleged self-plagiarism/redundancy because of a previously posted paper on a personal webpage (