- Case
Licence for a published scale
…reference list (but not indicating where they should be cited in the text). He also added his name and contact information to a number of places in the paper, most notably in the acknowledgments section. The scale’s license contract and copyright agreement include a number of ‘copyright requirements’ that the authors must agree to. One of these is that all manuscripts using the scale that are being… - News
Announcement of COPE Council elections
Due to expansion of the size of COPE Council, we are seeking nominations for two new candidates. These are voluntary positions. Council is responsible for COPE’s policy and management. Council members are expected to attend four meetings a year (in London) as well as take part in subcommittees and other COPE related tasks. It may be possible to attend some meetings by phone. There are… - Case
Is it plagiarism to use text verbatim from a manuscript review?
…journal B respond to this reviewer?• Is it plagiarism to pull text from a peer review into a manuscript? How should this be cited or credited when the reviewer is blind to the author?• The editor of journal B has often used suggestions from reviewers and not thought of it as plagiarism but rather suggestions from the reviewer to improve the manuscript. Is this correct? … - Case
Retraction request after university investigation found no evidence of fraud
…Two years later Professor Z again contacted the journal saying it was unethical to recruit patients while the previous investigation was ongoing. The journal referred the issue back saying that was an issue that should be taken up with the university. The journal later received an email from Professor Z complaining the university had dismissed their claims and saying: 'I believe the… - Case
Deceased author and author delaying publication
…the journal proceed? What issues are there with publishing an article when one of the authors of the accepted manuscript (who has not signed the copyright) has died? Can the article be published without sign off from both authors? … - Seminars and webinars
How to get started: COPE resources
…Presentation to PAMJE Annual Convention March 2023 COPE Council Member, Jigisha Patel, presented at the Philippines Association of Medical Journal Editors (PAMJE) Annual Convention discussing how COPE tools can be practically used to help journal editors address various ethical publication issues. Jigisha began by introducing COPE and COPE resources,… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
…808–821. http://doi.org/10.5860/crl.75.6.808 Nature Publishing Group. Nature journals' policy on duplicate publication (http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/duplicate.html). "The Nature journals are happy to consider submissions containing material that has previously formed…- Case
Conflicts of interest, corrections, and student research
…and the competing interests statement continues to state none declared. The correction, like the original article, is available behind a pay wall and the nature of the correction is not clear without going behind the paywall. Questions for COPE Council Should corrections be open access? Should corrections be made to online versions of papers?… - News
COPE Research Grant - deadline looming
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Unhelpful institution report
…involved. A new investigation was started; this investigation took many months. The report said there was insufficient justification to take the matter to formal assessment and the institution was not minded to investigate further. We remain concerned. The second investigation asked the authors to provide some data for re-analysis: that came out close enough for the committee to be reassured.… - Case
Authors request withdrawal of a 19-year old article
We have been approached by the authors of an article published about 19 years ago stating that they have found an error in a mathematical proof in their research. As a result, although the main theorem proposed in the paper should still be true, they would need to completely revise the text and intend in the longer run to find a new proof. They recognise that the paper as published cannot… - Case
What happens when there is no local ethics committee?
Can we verify that there is no ethics committee at this University? Taiwan does have ethics committees and the authors should know that they need such approval. It must be made clear to investigators that their work will not be published without ethics committee approval. The editors should contact the authors and tell them that their paper cannot be considered for publication.… - Case
Potential plagiarism
In 2003, Journal A published an original article. In 2006, the editor received a complaint of plagiarism relating to a case report published by Journal B in 2000. The introduction of both articles had one identical paragraph and some paragraphs in the discussion were similar. The article published by Journal A did not reference Journal B, despite: (a) being easy to find on… - Case
Multiple failure to declare a relevant conflict of interest
…indicating to the authors that a correction to the published article with the correct CoI declaration will be necessary. Journal Y is also aware that another article by this group was published in journal Z six months earlier and did not reveal the CoI. Journal Z has a stated policy on declaring CoIs that we strongly suspect was in place when this article was submitted. Journal Y is intending to… - Case
Ethical concerns about a study involving human subjects
…volunteers. There appear to have be no stages in between. There is no statement of informed consent in the manuscript. There is a statement that says the study was reviewed by the institution’s human subjects committee but we cannot find a record of the institution. We had ethical concerns about the study so we asked the authors for more information, specifically: the details of the ethics committee… - News
Tackling the problem of paper mills
…Paper mills research project Contribute to the research with your personal or professional experience of the problem. Share your experience Paper mills continues to be a hot topic in the academic journals community, as evidenced by a session last week at the annual (and this year… - News
COPE and ALPSP collaborate on new publication ethics course
ALPSP are hosting a new course, developed in collaboration with COPE, on 'Publication Ethics: Fraud and Misconduct'. The course will be held on Monday, 4 March 2013, and will be led by ex-COPE Chair, Liz Wager, and Donna Neill, of John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Additionally, ALPSP are able to offer all COPE members its discounted ALPSP member rate for the course.… - Event
Tokyo University & Kyoto Pharmaceutical University
COPE council member Tracey Bretag will give two presentations on academic and research integrity in Japan, during which Tracey will speak about COPE guidance. These will be at Tokyo University on 'Academic integrity - why is it so important?' with an audience of postgraduate global and community health students. This will be followed… - Event
COPE Workshop: MUNIN Conference
…Publication ethics workshop 10:30am - 16:00pm (CEST) In partnership with the MUNIN Conference on Scholarly Publishing, which runs from 29-30 November, Howard Browman, COPE Trustee, and Matt Hodgkinson, COPE Council Member, are leading a publication ethics workshop. The workshop will be based on COPE's Core… - Case
New claim to authorship of published paper
…input to the work. Author X said that the correct authorship should be X and A in that order. Author X provided as evidence an internal document submitted to and accepted by the university authorities in May 2010 in fulfilment of a requirement to demonstrate capability for research. His academic record confirms that this submission was successful. He then changed supervisor (and department)…