- Case
Mislabelling/duplicate images
We were contacted by a reader who told us that he had spotted a number of cases of image duplication and mislabelling of fluorescent tags that had occurred over the past 4 years. These involved two papers published in our journal, and two other papers published in two different journals. The two papers in our journal were both reviews, and the one that had the most occurrences involved a poster… - Case
Inappropriate authorship on students paper
A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study which was a final year student's project was submitted as an original article to our journal on 30 April 2011. On initial review it was obvious that it was conducted by students and written by them, but the list of authors had the supervisor as the first author, followed by 13 students. The supervisor, who was also the corresponding author, wa… - Case
Meta-analysis: submission of unreliable findings
A meta-analysis was conducted of about 1000 patients included in a number of small trials of a drug for emergency management administered by route X compared with route Y. The report concluded that administration by route X improves short term survival. Chronology The paper was submitted to our journal in September 2011 and after peer review was retur… - Forum discussion topics
Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills”
…href="https://publicationethics.org/resources/research/paper-mills-research">Paper mills research report, COPE & STM, 2022 Systematic manipulation of the publication process, COPE guidance updated 2022 Potential “paper mills” and what to do about them – a publisher’s… - News
In the news: November 2020
…-one-largest-research-philanthropies-will-require-immediate-open-access" target="_blank">make their research immediately open access, as of January 2022. The new policies are similar to those of cOAlition S and are anticipated to put pressure on some very elite journals, such as Cell, Nature and Science. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has changed their open… - 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 Membership application FAQ
…than one full-time equivalent paid member of staff per journal (ie, run mainly on voluntary efforts) and with zero income/funding from any source (including from a publisher). Can I apply for membership for my university or research institute? In 2022 COPE launched a new membership category to support university and research institute members who:- News
Case discussion: Consequence for dual submission
…submission”, or “simultaneously submitted” return fewer cases. Performing a Boolean search for ["multiple submission" + "questionable behaviour (author)"] returns 12 cases: the case under discussion and 11 others. Case discussion In COPE Forum… - Case
Lack of ethical approval and not reporting experimental evidence
In May 2011 a letter from the Vice-Rector for Personnel of a reputable university was sent to the editor mentioning that two articles published in the journal contained two statements not supported by documented evidence. The two statements related to: (1) approval of the local ethics committee and (2) representation of the experimental evidence. With regard to point (1), the authors sta… - Case
Author requests for certain experts not to be included in the editorial process
The Editors decided to comply with the author’s request. The manuscript was rejected, based on two peer-review reports and opinions from 11 editors. The author was told that the journal had complied with the request, and that advice had been sought from COPE. The author subsequently appealed the decision; this was not upheld. In light of this, the editorial board were asked to create… - Translated resources
El autor solicita que ciertos expertos no participen en el proceso editorial: caso
…Existe el peligro de que esto envalentone más aún al autor si los revisores que sugirió finalmente están involucrados en el proceso de revisión. Además, los editores tienen el deber de proteger a los revisores. Sejuimiento Los editores decidieron acceder a la solicitud del autor. El manuscrito se rechazó basándose en los informes de dos revisores por pares y en la opinión de 11… - News
Diversity, equity, inclusivity and accessibility: COPE commentary
…within the wider publishing community. In March 2022 we issued a position statement which stated that COPE is committed to creating an inclusive and equitable culture, where all voices are welcomed and heard, and difference is celebrated. Through our words and actions, we intend to work for… - News
Case discussion: Low-risk study with no ethics committee approval
…Forum case (11-16), a journal rejected a paper on an online questionnaire study for being unethically conducted despite receiving retrospective ethics approval. Advance ethical approval or official exemption is recommended for survey studies (highlighted in… Facilitation and Integrity FAQ
…style="text-decoration:none;">[email protected] with any other queries. COPE resources are available under a CC BY-NC-ND license, and thus the resources may be used by journals and publishers regardless of whether they are COPE members. A reference to COPE materials or COPE standards on the journal’s web pages does not, by itself, imply COPE membership. Therefore, it is…COPE Privacy notice
…balanced against COPE’s legitimate interests. How long we keep your information We will retain your personal data only for as long as necessary. The length of time will vary depending on the purpose we have collected it, any legal obligations we have (for example, for accounting…- News
In the news: June 2018 Digest
…href="http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2018/04/11/1078-0432.CCR-18-0227" target="_blank">http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2018/04/11/1078-0432.CCR-18-0227 The XPhi Replicabilty project will seek to replicate about 40 studies in experimental philosophy to estimate the replicability in this field that has methods similar to social psychology. In… - Case
Author of rejected letter blames global bias against his message and undisclosed conflicts of interest
The editor in chief received a letter to the editor criticising a paper published earlier in the journal. The editor first told the author of the letter that he would publish the commentary after he had given the authors of the criticised paper a chance to respond. When asked by the author of the letter, he later added that he would also publish the letter if the authors failed to respond.… - News
In the news: July Digest
…="_blank">https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/ugc-move-to-thwart-pay-and-publish-trash-culture/story-AP0BFFrbNuL1mN5WNbgCjI.html Peer review An experiment on peer review conducted by researchers at Harvard Business School, found that almost 50% of reviewers of medical funding applications changed their own ratings… - News
In the news: February Digest
…scientific record is, to this editor, awe inspiring. https://retractionwatch.com/2020/01/02/nobel-winner-retracts-paper-from-science/ In other news The New York Times published an analysis by Dana Goldstein of 8 American History texts used by 8th and 11… - News
Case Discussion: Data fabrication in a rejected manuscript
…and reliable system for the peer review of data. Trevor Lane on behalf of the COPE Education Subcommittee Read