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…office updated 2022 Systematic manipulation of the publication process, updated 2022 Addressing concerns about systematic manipulation of the publication process new 2023 Peer… - Case
Using industry knowledge to evaluate an ethics case
A journal owned by publisher A recently posted an article critical of publisher B. Both publishers A and B are COPE members. Publisher B has already responded with several claims about the author’s methodology. Publisher A would normally defer to the journal’s editors. However, because the content of the article relates to the publishing industry, publisher A has particular insights into the to… - News
Peer review resources
…src="/files/u7140/screenshot_2021-09-16_at_21.16.21.png" style="width:100%" /> To narrow your search by the type of guidance you want, filter by ‘resource type’. COPE produces a variety of resource types: Guidelines COPE Guidelines are formal COPE policy and are intended to advise editors and publishers on expected publication ethics practices. Discussion documents… Artificial intelligence (AI) in decision making: Forum discussion topic November 2019
…discussion topic, members' cases will be presented for discussion and advice from the participants of the Forum. COPE members need to register for the Forum by Friday 8 November 2019. Please do leave any…- News
International Workshop for Journal Editors, Indonesia
…-publishing">16 Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, the 10 COPE Core Practices, and practical advice on preparing to apply for COPE membership. Other workshop presenters at the event included representatives from Clarivate Analytics, SCOPUS, the… Increasing number of fraudulent papers produced by “paper mills”
…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 journal editors and now has over 12,500 members worldwide from all academic fields.…How COPE will respond to a media enquiry
…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 journal editors and now has over 13,000 members worldwide from all academic fields. COPE is a global organisation with Trustees and Council Members…- Case
Redundant publication
Journal A received letters from two readers pointing out that the female component of a cohort the paper published was identical with that in a paper published in Journal B earlier that year. The two papers were sent to two independent reviewers, one of whom felt that there was a great degree of overlap between the two papers. The other agreed, but suggested that the paper submitted to Journal… - Case
Dual submission
_ Around one in five published papers are republished in substantial form. _ A study in the 80s found that over 10 per cent did not mention previous publication, but a second study at the end of the 90s suggested this figure was around 1%. _ It takes considerable time and effort to look at all the referenced papers to see if there is any overlap and then those are the published ones, not those… - Case
Retrospective correction: how far back do we go?
In 1990 a case report was published in which it was alleged that the use of a particular endotracheal tube had led to tracheal damage, requiring the child to have a tracheostomy and a tracheal reconstruction. This paper was from a specialist surgical unit, and a letter was subsequently received from the paediatricians who had cared for the baby at the referring hospital before and after the tra… - Case
Suspected unattributed text in a published article
An article was published in July. In October, a corrigendum was published to correct large sections of unattributed text. Two weeks later the journal and publisher received a complaint from a reader who accused the author of the published article of using text from an unpublished collaborative manuscript on which the published author was participating. This participation on the collaborative wo… - Case
Preprint plagiarism
Author group A deposited a preprint onto a preprint server and simultaneously submitted the manuscript to journal A. Peer review in journal A took some considerable time, but the paper (paper A) was eventually published. During the long peer review of paper A, author group A noticed that another set of authors, author group B, had published paper B in journal B. While paper B was submitted seve… - Case
Author anonymity at the final proofreading stages
A newly relaunched open access, peer reviewed journal operates a double blind peer-review system. At all stages of the review, until the decision to accept has been taken, neither the author nor the reviewer can identify the other. The journal always uses at least two reviewers, who are also unaware of the identity of each other. After the author has been told that the article is accepte… - Case
Duplicate submission and request for withdrawal
A paper was submitted to journal A and received a ‘revision’ decision. At some point following this decision, the authors emailed the journal to request withdrawal, citing inconsistencies in their data and subsequent conclusions. A search of the literature showed that the same paper (with the same authors) was published in journal B the day before the withdrawal request. Clearly, the authors wa… - Case
Suspicious responses to authorship change requests
A journal received a request for multiple changes to the authorship list after the manuscript was accepted. Originally, there were five co-authors. After acceptance, the journal received the following requests from author A, the corresponding author and co-first author: remove one of the co-authors (author D), add a new co-author (author E), reorder the list of authors, and change the designate… - 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… - News
Comments please: framework for editors when requesting patient consent for publication in small cohort studies
The International Rhuematology Editors' Group would like to receive comments from wider specialty communities on their framework below. Please send any comments to Shehnaz Ahmed. Framework for editors when requesting patient consent for publication in small… - Seminars and webinars
Post-publication critiques
…co-founder of PubPeer, a not-for-profit website which allows readers and authors to comment on scholarly publications. Nick Wise is a researcher in fluid dynamics and an integrity ‘sleuth’ whose work has resulted in over 900 retractions. Peter Doshi is an associate professor of pharmaceutical health services research and leads the - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around watchlists
….embedtool embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } .embedtool .fluid-vids {position: initial !important} /*-->*/ Watchlists are a contentious issue in scholarly publishing. They are used to maintain…