- Case
Lack of acknowledgement of contributor
Our case relates to a paper (by author’s A and B) that was retracted because of lack of acknowledgement of the contribution of another author (C). The retraction statement noted: “While the A/B paper is largely the work of A and B, it includes some sentences and ideas that previously appeared in an unpublished paper and/or Power Point presentation only with A and C listed as authors. We regret… - Case
Falsified references
An article was submitted to my journal and was sent for peer review. An editorial board member realised that a number of the references were incorrect: publication dates had been changed to make them more current. The author was contacted by email and telephone who said he/she had a number of students working for him (who were not listed as authors or in the acknowledgment) and they must… - Case
No ethics committee approval of a study
Our journal received a manuscript describing a comparison of two different techniques for patients in the intensive care unit. There was no information on ethics committee approval and so we asked the authors if approval was obtained. They replied that they had not applied for ethics committee approval “as it was a clinical comparison of two existing methods, none of them experimental. All pati… - Case
Change in author’s name after publication
…publications are traced back to this unique identifier. On a show of hands, the majority (15) of the Forum said they would not change the name and 10 said they would.… - Case
Authorship dispute
A manuscript was published in journal X, submitted by several co-authors, including one of the editors in chief of journal X, Dr A (the article was handled by another editor in chief at the journal). Another researcher, Dr B, has claimed that this article should be withdrawn because it contains unauthorized data from him (Dr B). A few years previously, Drs A and B worked and published jo… - Case
Should a journal disclose peer reviewer names?
…a subpoena, the journal could take the position that it will comply with this demand or it can file a motion to oppose the subpoena. There is some precedent for courts upholding a journal's right to preserve the confidentiality of its peer reviewer process (see an example here). If the journal has a policy of referee… - Case
Reviewer misconduct and its potential impact on an submitted manuscript
…that the repository has (or will be) updated but this should be limited to what can be considered a reasonable length of time. There is further discussion on these points in Lonni Besançon, Elisabeth Bik, James Heathers and Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Correction of scientific literature: too little, too late! PLOS Biology, version… - News
Announcement of COPE Council elections
…Administrator, Linda Gough to whom applications and nominations can be emailed. The closing date for applications is 10 JUNE 2011. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ COPE council member: role description Purpose of role … - Flowcharts
Systematic manipulation of the publication process
…manipulation. Flowcharts offer a step by step process for editors or publishers to use when they are handling suspected manipulation. Recommended actions are suggested depending on the type of problem or indication of manipulation. Related resources Addressing concerns about systematic manipulation of the publication… - News
Case discussion: critiques after publication
…href="https://publicationethics.org/node/34586">Responding to whistleblowers when concerns are raised directly” and “Responding to whistleblowers when concerns are raised via social media”. Although not strictly social media, the PubPeer platform has a paid dashboard service to notify journal administrators of journal mentions. Whether and how… - Case
Handling self-admissions of fraud
…results. The Forum questioned why it has taken the corresponding author 10 years to contact the journal, as it would seem to be professional suicide. The Japanese government has recently issued guidelines to institutions to clean up their act following the Japanese stem cell scandal—could this be a factor? The Forum acknowledged that the journal has handled this correctly by taking the… - News
Core Practices
…and, most importantly, continually revised library. Within COPE’s core practices is a suite of documents including over 500 cases, 20 flowcharts (in multiple languages), 11 guidance documents, and much more. The ten core practices are: - Case
Plagiarism of reviewer's work
Several Europe-based authors, including well known, respected and much published ones, submitted an essay for the journal's section on research methodology. We rejected it without external review as it wasn't making sufficiently new points. We offered to see it again, however, if it was revised and if it added some worked examples using this methodology within published studies. A year l… - Case
Possible overlapping publications/data
As editor-in-chief of a journal (journal A), I was contacted by an individual (N) who indicated the following: authors of an article published in journal A were questioned as to the similarity of a figure and a table appearing in both journal A and in another journal (journal B). N noted that reanalysis of the data of the published work by the authors suggested errors and inconsistencies of the… - Case
Authorship dispute unsatisfactorily resolved by institution
The journal was contacted with a claim to first authorship of a paper currently published online ahead of print. Print publication was put on hold pending the result of the investigation. The claim to first authorship was based on the claimant stating that they had obtained most results published in the paper during their PhD studies under the supervision of the corresponding author, and contri… - Case
Unauthorised reviewer challenges
A paper submitted to a journal with a single anonymous peer review policy was assigned to a prospective reviewer, who agreed to undertake the review. The reviewer then sent an email addressed to a number of different research group and institutional mailing lists calling for volunteers to review the paper. The reviewer attached the PDF of the paper, which had been downloaded from the submission… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: February 2019
…providing new publishing ethics resources, including resources designed specifically for ethical issues which are found only in these areas. Be there! Goodbye, to a good friend We’d like to share fond and warm farewell with Liz Wager, flowchart magician, cat/poetry lover, and Chair of COPE between 2009 and 2012. Liz,… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: September 2019
The 16th-20th of September is Peer Review Week, with this year's theme Quality In Peer Review. This is now an anticipated time in the calendar for many of our members around the world and a number of events focus on issues related to peer review and publication ethics and integrity. As a long time editor of journals and books, I know… - News
Vacancies on COPE Council 2021
…target="_blank">Trustee Board, who is ultimately responsible for the financial, legal, and business operations of COPE as a charitable business and gives authority to Council and the Executive Office to manage the operational activities of the organisation. Council currently comprises 10… - Case
How many “mistakes” are too many?
…2009 Following an internal investigation by the author’s institution, a number of serious problems were encountered, including: lack of ethics approval, lack of written consent, lack of treatment-allocation concealment and an inability to verify the authenticity of the data. We therefore retracted the paper on 10 October 2009.…