- Case
Author requests for certain experts not to be included in the editorial process
…any conflicts of interest when commenting on a paper, so that their comments can be taken in the context of their conflict. If reviewers or editors do not feel they can be impartial, then they would be asked not to contribute to the editorial process for the paper. To provide further context, the author has submitted three papers to the journal previously, which have been rejected. The most… - Webform
COPE integrity workshop 2021
…alt="Photo of COPE Council Member, Tara Hoke" src="/files/styles/140_wide/public/council/tara_hoke_sm_smarch.jpg" style="float:left; height:122px; margin:3px; width:90px" />Tara Hoke is General Counsel for the American Society of Civil Engineers, publisher of 35 peer-reviewed journals in the subject of civil engineering research and practice. Tara is… - News
Final 3 flowcharts now available in Spanish
The final three flow charts have now been translated into Spanish and are available here. These are: Advice on how to spot authorship problems; Suspected guest, ghost or gift authorship; and What to do if you suspect a reviewer has appropriated an author’s idea or data.… - Event
Biochemical Society's Scientific Publishing Workshop: Understanding Scientific Publishing
This workshop has reached FULL CAPACITY - however if wish to attend please email the conference office to be placed on a waitlist should space become available. More details on their website.… - Case
Disagreement between a reviewer and an author
…unfavourable, have been cited by this individual to other senior academics and editors of other journals.” The author did not make any response to the accusation of duplicate publication. I wrote back to this author saying that if he has correctly identified the reviewer (which seems likely), then I am disturbed that the reviewer did not declare a conflict of interest. I also asked him to respond to the… - Case
Guest editors for single articles
…Can such single manuscript guest editing be considered good-ethical practice for journals? If so, under what circumstances? If a journal does not have an editor who is qualified to handle a submitted manuscript, what options does it have? … - Case
Request by organisation to retract article and publish expression of concern
…should be retracted, but instead that the editors should respond to the complaint with an explanation about when retractions are appropriate and also the nature of how the paper was accepted/published. However, the editors are considering whether they should publish the letter with the responses (if it would benefit the community, which is a very close knit group). The author has also requested… - Case
Academic freedom
…manuscript and it is expressly stated in the manuscript that the research and writing of the manuscript happened while the student was completing their studies with the university. Over a series of months, senior managers in the civil service have explicitly denied the student permission to be an author on the manuscript. Based on this communication, it is the strong opinion of the authors that if… - Case
Unethical research
…were withdrawn from the study if their duodenal ulcer relapsed. The question is whether it is ethical to treat such patients with ranitidine or placebo rather than with H pylori eradication treatment. A gastroenterologist has advised me that he does not think it is. The paper makes no mention of ethics committee approval or informed consent. I have rejected the paper on… - Case
Undeclared conflict of interest
…substantial payments for his work. The article related to these legal cases. The author intends to write to the complainant and ask her permission to send her letter to the author. If he accepts that he did have a competing interest, then the journal will publish a statement saying so. Does COPE agree with this? Should anything more be done?… - Case
Publication of dead patient’s name at the request of the family
_ If the deceased patient is identifiable, then there is a breach of confidence, and confidence survives death. _ The family cannot absolve this, but if it is in the public interest, then the name could be provided. _ The editor has to be satisfied that the dead patient would not have objected to any publicity, and that no other person(s) can be hurt or harmed by the publication of her name.… - Case
Inadvertent discovery of salami submission
…asked to review by that journal so you can decide whether or not you really wish me to comment on the one submitted to you. If you think this is "inappropriate", just ignore the attachment, let me know, and I will review your paper tomorrow. Sorry for this convoluted message, but I thought you ought to be aware of the situation.” The handling editor felt that paper 2 did not… - Case
Author withdraws manuscript upon payment request
…payment policy is clear and the author agrees upon submission of the manuscript; and (2) see if there is some way to provide financial assistance if there is truly a need. Journals need to be unambiguously transparent about article fees. Some authors may be unfamiliar with open access, particularly in specialties where it does not have a strong market share yet. The journal could be more up… - Case
Deceased author and author delaying publication
The Forum advised that the journal should keep the manuscript on hold until the editor hears back from the corresponding author. Perhaps the editor in chief or the handling editor of the journal could reach out to the surviving author directly. Journal practices vary about whether all authors or only the corresponding author needs to sign off the proofs. If both authors need to sign off the… - Case
Boundaries of duplicate submission
A paper was submitted to journal A. The reviewers were enthusiastic but raised substantive concerns. The editorial decision was 'reject with resubmission allowed', providing the authors the opportunity to submit a revision if they feel all concerns can be addressed. The authors elected to submit substantially the same report to journal B. The outcome was essentially the same; the paper was… - Case
Institutions paying authors to be named on papers
…issue of boosting productivity. If multiple institutional affiliations appear in the author byline, editors might want to ask authors to explain why and what contributions were made by the universities to the research. Editors could also pursue the primary university to determine if they are aware of the second university and if the second university was involved in the research. Editors could… - Case
Author cannot be located
…on multiple occasions, but no response was received. The manuscript is ready to be published, but the journal is unable to locate one of the authors of the manuscript to sign the publication form. If a coauthor cannot be located to sign the publication forms, it seems they cannot affirm that they accept the responsibilities as well as the rights of authorship. Question for COPE… - Case
False memory syndrome
…a subject? (2) Do we need the daughter’s consent even if we are going to publish the paper anonymously? (3) Should we give the daughter a right of response? (4) Should we go ahead and publish the paper even if the daughter refuses to give her consent and declines to respond?… - Case
Controversy surrounding ethics approval
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance. The journal is not in the position to decide if an… - Case
Reviewer citation manipulation
…omitted references to a particular authority for personal or other reasons, or is engaged in some form of citation manipulation themselves. If the reviewer has only made one or two suggestions this is also less likely to raise a concern, even if they are all to their own work. In this case the editor can make a judgement on whether to pass the recommendations on to the author or how they frame the…