- Case
Data availability for vulnerable populations
A paper on a vulnerable population was published in a journal. The journal followed their usual procedures for processing papers on vulnerable populations, by requesting and reviewing further information on the ethics approval and consent procedures of the study (e.g.: recruitment procedures; blank version of the consent document participants read and signed; the study protocol that was approve… - Case
Reviewer misconduct and its potential impact on an submitted manuscript
Author X raised concerns that confidential information obtained during the peer review of their submission with Journal Y had been misappropriated by one of the reviewers of their submission (reviewer Z). Author X believed that reviewer Z had used this confidential information in order to silently alter code published by reviewer Z with repository R, which contained errors that were high… - Case
Request to withdraw as an author of an accepted but unpublished paper
…specific details regarding the nature of her disagreement with PD. It turns out that it involved two data points (out of 22) in a supplementary analysis. AP and PD could not agree on the value of those data points. The editor then suggested to AP and PD that they re-do the supplementary analysis, based on the 20 scores that were not in dispute; if the pattern reported originally was confirmed in… - Case
Is ethics committee approval necessary for retrospective clinical studies?
A journal received a manuscript on risk factors for a disease, which had no ethics committee approval or dispensation. The clinical data were collected from the electronic and physical histories of the patients during hospitalization. The authors stated that the study was not submitted to an ethics review board because these data are "secondary." In some countries, this type of research will re… - Case
Should we retract a published paper with a high similarity match?
The journal published an original article in 2022. Recently, we received feedback from a third party that the paper is similar to the authors' other work published in 2019. The duplicate rate of the initial submission was 31% and the final version was 24% which is within the journal’s standard. The concern was that the paper may not add value as the authors have already published similar resear… - Case
Temporary exception to double anonymised review policy
The journal conducts double-anonymous reviews of all manuscripts submitted. As part of the decision process, reviewers routinely receive a copy of the decision letter, which includes reviewers’ comments. In the transition to a new editorial staff, a change to the email template inadvertently meant that the full letter was sent out, including the corresponding author’s name. Before this was disc… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: December 2021
…not the only organisation looking more deeply at the broadening diversity. In this issue you will find a number of news items related to DEI from JAMA, which has updated their guidance on the reporting of race and ethnicity, - Case
Unusual consent process in a vulnerable population
A clinical trial was conducted in a low income country. The trial involved two schools. At the first school (the control school), children would receive a one-off drug treatment for a common infection (such “mass drug administration” is the norm for treating and breaking the transmission cycle of this infection). At the second school, children would receive the same one-off drug treatment plus… - Case
Excessive self-citation in a book chapter
The case concerns an introductory chapter in a book. The publisher was first contacted about potential misconduct as part of a broader investigation into an academic who was a coauthor on an introductory chapter in a book. The publisher's subsequent investigation identified excessive self-citation in the work (one of the coauthors is named as an author on 12 out of 16 referenced works).… - 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… - Case
Academic freedom
A final year student, and two other researchers in law, all from the same university, undertook research into a recent court judgment on the rules in relation to civil servants making public comments. Based on this research, a manuscript was drafted to be submitted to a double anonymised peer reviewed journal. The manuscript is highly critical of the judgment’s reasoning and impact. All three a… - Seminars and webinars
COPE webinar: Enhancing partnerships of institutions and journals
…="https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/cope-guidelines-institutions-journals-webinar.pdf" target="_blank">COPE guidelines revisions and questions PDF 3 MB Back to top Participant questions Time on recording: 53:22-1:22:20 Following the presentations… - Case
Possible peer review manipulation
A journal received a complaint by one of the co-authors of an article submitted by a research team, stating that one of the reviewers suggested by the corresponding author sent an email to corresponding author asking them to tell them what comments they should insert in their review. In response, the corresponding author asked the co-authors to propose comments to be sent to the reviewer. One o… - Case
Is there a time limit for submitting a critique of a published article?
A letter to the editor was submitted to a journal with a comment referring to a study published a year previously. The reader raised concerns about the study and interpretation of the results. The editors of the journal examined the peer review comments of the manuscript and found that the aspects in question were missed out. The journal sought expert advice from an independent reviewer who com… - Case
Seven plagiarized manuscripts in one month by the same corresponding author
In one month we have received 11 manuscripts (9 case reports, 1 original study and 1 letter) written by authors from a European Union country. The manuscripts were submitted by the same corresponding author (author A) who was also the first author in all of the 11 manuscripts. Another author was the second author (author B) in 10 of the manuscripts. There were two other authors (authors C and D… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: June 2022
…with an interest in this topic. We would particularly like to hear from journal editors, publishers, researchers, and academic institutions. COPE members can register for the Forum to join the live discussion. Have a wonderful month. - Case
Can a journal retract a paper against the recommendation of an institutional investigation?
A research article, published several years ago, was alleged to have integrity issues relating to some of the figures. Following detailed checking of the figures, the editors confirmed these issues and found more issues. The authors provided the raw data, some of which also had integrity issues. An institutional investigation concluded that the data were sound but the editor still feels uneasy… - Case
An ambiguous plagiarism case
A paper was published in journal A. The plagiarism check tool did not show any similarity during the peer review process. Some time after publication of the paper, the editor-in-chief was contacted by an author who had published a paper in journal B. They claimed that the paper published in journal A was plagiarised from their MSc research project thesis and asked journal A to ret… - Case
Undeclared author conflict of interest
A journal published a study related to a pilot programme run by an online mental health support resource which, at the time of publication, had a for-profit spinoff. At the time of the publication, this resource would share “anonymised” user data with the spinoff to create and market customer service software. Although this practice of sharing data has since been stopped, the authors of the man… - Case
Request to remove author from submitted manuscript due to academic misconduct
Regarding a submitted (but not yet accepted) paper from a scientific collaboration, one of the authors has asked whether an instance of academic misconduct or - for that matter - any non-scientific but rather unsavoury personal facts or accusations (e.g. a penal or civil proceedings) can be considered as a valid ground for requesting that the journal remove an author from the paper, as per the…