- Event
COPE Forum: Tuesday 15 December 2020
COPE members can now register to attend the December Forum, to be held on Tuesday 15 December 2:00-3:30pm GMT. The deadline to register is Monday 14 December. The discussion topic is 'Predatory publishing: next steps and where do we go from here?'. This will be followed by… - Event
COPE Forum: Wednesday 22 June 2022
…Forum agenda On 22 June 2022 the COPE Forum will be held at 14:00-15:30pm (BST / UTC+1) 1. Update Update on COPE activities by the Chair. 2. Forum discussion topic We begin the COPE Forum with a discussion on the topic Dealing with… - Case
Duplicate publication based on government data
A group of researchers from departments of psychology and public health submitted a paper based on a survey that had been commissioned by the NHS Executive. The paper was received at Journal A on 14 May 1998 and a decision to offer publication of a revised version was made on 25 June 1998. Over a year elapsed between this offer and the resubmission of a revised version of the paper due to… - Case
Sloppiness or deception?
A case control study that links miscarriage to a particular event was published in Journal A. The paper says that most women were pregnant when interviewed. Whether or not they had miscarried when interviewed matters because of “recall bias.” In fact, most of the women who miscarried had already miscarried and so were not pregnant. The statement that most of the women were pregnant is “true” be… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: Analysis of retractions, initiators and reasons for retractions
…perspective on retractions, and Howard Browman shares an update on COPE's revised retractions discussion document. Watch now To hear Thed Van Leeuwen's presentation, listen from 11:14. - Research
CrossCheck guidance: an analysis of typical cases of plagiarism in different disciplines 2010
…Jia XY, Lin HF, Tan XF. Editorial: Be careful! Avoiding duplication: a case study. Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology) 2013;14(4):355–358. doi:10.1631/jzus.B1300078 4. Jia XY, Tan XF, Zhang YH. Replication of the methods section in biosciences papers: is it plagiarism? Scientometrics 2013. doi 10.1007/s11192-013-1033-5 - Case
Possible plagiarism
A review paper (paper 1) was published in journal A. A review paper on the same subject (paper 2) by a different author was published in my journal (journal B) later in the same year. The authors of paper 1 and the editor of journal A informed me that paper 2 had in part been plagiarised from paper 1. I as editor of journal B looked to the COPE flowchart for guidance and I wrote to the… - Case
Dual publication
The Forum reiterated the fact (raised in case 10-14) that if something is published online, then it should be considered published. Hence, an editor cannot simply remove a paper from their website. In this case, the author cannot withdraw his paper as it has been published. A paper should only be removed from on online site if it has been formally retracted. If the editor has clear evidence of… - Event
COPE European Seminar 2014
…baseline; line-height: 1.5; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif;">Friday 14 March 2014 - News
Survey reveals need for guidance on places to publish
…completed by 410 respondents from all parts of the world. In-depth analysis of the findings is still ongoing but preliminary analysis points to some clear trends: ● Think. Check. Submit. is welcomed and seen to be fulfilling an important role. 14% said it was “essential” and 42% said it was “very useful”, while less than 7% of respondents said the initiative was “not very useful” or “not useful at… - Case
Should editors get involved in authorship disputes?
A paper from Finland in a controversial area of vaccine research was peer reviewed and provisionally accepted. At the revision stage, the journal received a letter from a researcher based at an immunotherapy company in the United States, raising serious doubts over the analysis of the Finnish data. This author claimed to have been involved in the research, and proposed an alternative interpreta… - Case
Withdrawal request by an author
We received a request by an author who states not to have contributed to an article published in 2015. The author claims that his name was used without his knowledge and that the corresponding author has been retired for several years and can no longer be reached. At the time of submission, we received a copyright transfer signed with the author’s name (we request all authors to sign the form).… - Case
Concerns over the withdrawal of a complaint
The journal received multiple complaints from two ‘whistleblowers’ in country A regarding the methodology presented in an article published in 2021. The Editors began an investigation into the paper, using evidence provided by the whistleblowers. The Editors felt that based on the provided evidence, an investigation should be carried out. The authors, who were also from country A, were made awa… - News
In the news: March 2018 Digest
…="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/02/14/without-urgent-action-big-and-open-data-may-widen-existing-inequalities-and-social-divides/" target="_blank">http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/02/14/without-urgent-action-big-and-open-data-may-widen-existing-inequalities-and-social-divides/ Ethical oversight - Case
Refusal to give details of a competing interest
A journal published a paper on passive smoking in which the authors failed to declare financial support from the tobacco industry. A subsequent letter highlighted this failure, and the authors responded in a letter in which they offered some explanation, admitting funding from one source. The editor then published an editorial in which he detailed the extensive involvement of this group with th… - Case
Dual publication
It was brought to the attention of Journal A that a paper published in 2002 was similar (title, summary, introduction, case, survey, results, discussion) to a paper published in Journal B. Journal A is a very technical journal that reports conference proceedings and is not peer reviewed. Furthermore, Journal B had received a letter from the authors of another paper, published in a very prestigi… - Case
Potentially unethical publication
A new Editor was appointed to a society journal in a minority medical specialty. An officer of the society immediately handed him an anonymous letter from a reader of the journal complaining that an article recently published was unethical. The Editor is a personal friend both of the previous editor who accepted the paper, and the author of the paper. The paper is by a single author who gives n… - Seminars and webinars
Universiti Malaysia Seminar: Authorship
…class="resource-download-inline__type"> Presentation Publication ethics and authorship dispute presentation for Universiti Malaysia, Sabah, Seminar 2021 PDF 14 MB - Event
1st COPE Asia Pacific Seminar 2011
…PUBLICATION ETHICS AT THE FOUR POINTS OF THE JOURNAL EDITING COMPASS: 1ST ASIA PACIFIC COPE SEMINAR AND FORUM 2011 COPE is very pleased to announce its 1st Asia Pacific Seminar and Forum. The COPE seminar on 14 November will include a COPE Forum in the afternoon. The theme of the seminar is how publication ethics is similar across different disciplines. Journal… - Case
Reviewer's identity revealed
The journal operates a double blind peer review system. Because the journal is small, it does not use a platform for reviews, so reviewers are sent a Word document containing the manuscript and an evaluation form to complete, in which they can leave their comments. However, some reviewers choose to comment directly on the Word document. Most of these comments are anonymised by appearing as user…