- Case
Revoked parental consent
Our journal publishes case reports describing the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of unusual cases. Parents must provide written informed consent prior to manuscript submission. No cases are presented with unique identifiers and each is anonymised as much as possible. A manuscript was submitted with written consent that was accepted for publication and assigned to an issue. Just… - Case
Duplicate publication and removal of article
…Question(s) for the COPE Forum• Should journal A publish an ‘Expression of concern’ to highlight the duplicate publication in the past. However, the article in journal B is no longer available. Perhaps a comment in the comments system of journal A would suffice? COPE does not seem to have clear guidelines in one place on how and when to use Expressions of concern (although we appreciate… - Case
Reviewer concerns about transparency of peer review process
…criticisms that no longer relate to the final published paper (the concerns having been addressed during revision). However, yet other journals post all versions of the manuscripts, with the revisions, along with the correspondence so people can follow the full history of the paper. This can prompt comments from readers, sometimes negative comments, but they feel this can be refreshing, and authors and… - Case
Disclosure and transparency issue
…involvement are often the best evidence that can be obtained. The editor could point to the ICMJE guidelines for authorship and ask him/her if they believe they fulfil these criteria for authorship. From the information available, it would appear that this person was akin to a medical writer whose job it is to help authors put their paper together and they probably had no intellectual input into the… - Case
When to conclude correspondence from reader about errors in a published article
…is in the journal, giving clarity to the reader and enabling them to draw their own conclusions. Some journals have a stated policy that allows no more than one letter to the editor from one specific reader on any one particular article, to avoid ongoing dialogue.… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 8 July 2014: ethical review
…Ethics Service (now part of HRA) collected the literature in 2009 and devised categorisation (http://www.hra.nhs.uk/documents/2013/09/defining-research.pdf) to help and set up a queries line to arbitrate in case of difficulty. In these it was recognised that there could be no clear, unambiguous answer. Judgement is needed and… - Case
Licence for a published scale
…if the demands of the developer are reasonable. The Forum agreed this is a very difficult issue, with no easy solution. A suggestion was to write an editorial, highlighting this issue. It seems that there may be many journals who are experiencing similar problems. The editor might consider contacting other editors and producing a joint editorial or opinion piece, highlighting the issues… - Case
Previous publication cannot be verified
…information. Even if the section producing the journal no longer exists, the PR department will have information on who they were and in what capacity they took part in the organisation. The communications office should have a copy of their publications. The publisher may also be able to trace the authors by using web searches, or by searching for them on Web of Science for other papers they may have… - Case
Duplicate publication in a predatory journal
…transferred or a publishing agreement signed and the status of manuscript acceptance has been acknowledged, legal proceedings would have to take their course first. A threat to sue sent by the institution's lawyer can be productive, as this puts the predatory publisher in a potentially costly position that they may be keen to avoid. Predators often simply remove an article with no notice. If the… - Case
Request for addition of new authors
…other resources, recommends the use of acknowledgements for people who make contributions to the work but do not meet the authorship criteria. From the description provided, there are no concerns about the research, and we do not think the concerns here warrant a rejection. Instead, the editor should help educate these individuals about authorship criteria. … - Case
Change of corresponding author after manuscript published online
…of the corresponding author. The manuscript was published online (as an "article in press/online first" without a volume or issue number but with a DOI). However, 5 months after the paper was published online, the authors of the manuscript asked the journal to change the corresponding author, but provided no clear explanation. Questions for the Forum - News
Announcement of COPE Council elections
…below. Those who are interested should send a short CV (no more than 4 pages) plus a covering letter stating what they can contribute to COPE Council. A Candidate for Council membership should be nominated by two other current members of COPE, at least one of whom must not be employed by the same organisation as the nominee. Further information can be obtained from the COPE… - Guidelines
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing
…scholarly merit. They should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Journals should ensure no policies create an exclusionary environment for anyone wanting to engage with the journal and should regularly assess their policies for inclusivity. Back to top Principles of… The ethics of audit and research
…consent. Proportionality is one of the platforms of the whole Data Protection Act. But it does not seem to affect our handling of ethical problems in research. JK Galbraith wrote: "There is no escape into ideology from thought; all depends on the specific case within the larger context." There is obviously a major continuing role for formal ethical scrutiny. But the…- Case
Plagiarism, double submission and reviewer ethicality
…paper so that a retraction was inappropriate. We therefore wrote to A3 et al again asking them to sign a short note to be published in the journal acknowledging the inadequate reference to prior work, and apologising for this (we also said that if no response was received we would publish the note in the names of the editor in chiefs. This note also (implicitly) acknowledges that no citation was made… New UK Panel for Research Integrity
…area of greatest need first, expanding to others if we can clearly demonstrate the usefulness of such a move. Of the 66 allegations reported, a prima facie case was established after a stage I investigation in 35 cases, and in 19 cases, the allegations were upheld in full. Contact was made with the Department of Health at an early stage. It was clear that they…- News
Letter from the COPE Chair: May 2021
…practices in publishing. This month we share a case discussion on gift authorship, an issue as relevant now as it was when the lead case in the discussion was presented to the COPE Forum in 2007. Gift authorship is where authorship is attributed to a person who has made no substantial contribution to the research or paper… - News
In the news: July & August 2022
…for sentinel papers in the study of Alzheimer's disease. "Everyone involved in research has a role to play in research integrity and no single stakeholder can maintain or raise standards alone" is introduction to discussion paper of panel presentation at World Congress on Research Integrity, 2022 which discusses roles of different… - Case
Contacting Research Ethics Committees with concerns over studies
…publication. _ In North America there was a fear of litigation arising out of such cases, but following the Tarasoff case, where it was held that the duty to warn and protect identifiable third party interests overrides a duty of confidentiality, a breach of confidentiality can be justified. In Belgium the duty of confidentiality is absolute, but there is no EU law on the issue.… - Case
Possible plagiarism and fabrication
_ This seems to be a serious case of plagiarism/fabrication, and sufficiently serious as to constitute fraud._ The authors should be asked for an explanation within a specified time limit, and if there was no response to refer the matter to the employer/institution. _ The editor should write to the editor of the other journal, informing the authors of his intentions _ Did the second paper…