- Case
Availability of reagents
One of our journals has published several articles describing use of a particular cell line X, which belongs to company Y. The authors included employees of company Y. A reader at a university, Dr Z, wished to gain access to cell line X, and requested it from company Y. He was informed by the director of science of company Y that ‘...it is Y’s intention to keep control of the integrity of the X… - Case
Unauthorised use of data
A multicentre study conducted with a working group involving 38 centres was published in our journal. Author A was a member of one of the centres and was listed as the 13th author in the article. Another colleague (author B) who is not a coauthor and who works in the same department as author A, contacted our journal and claimed that the data from the centre used by author A in the study were u… - Research
Editing of reviewer comments: a COPE survey 2020
…acceptable for an editor to edit a peer reviewer’s comments and about 25% said they believed it is never acceptable to suppress a complete review. The most common reasons cited for editing reviews were related to unacceptable reviewer comments because they were inflammatory, hostile, or otherwise offensive, or factually incorrect. Other important reasons why editors said they edited reviews were because… - Case
Request for addition of new authors
A journal received an article submission from two authors. The paper went through several revisions over the course of a year, and was eventually accepted for publication. The authors were informed about acceptance and the paper was sent for copyediting. The editorial office subsequently sent the final version of the paper to the authors for proofreading. On the same day, a request was… - Seminars and webinars
Good Publication Practice 2022
… From ‘Publish or Perish’ to ‘Publish and Nourish’ The COPE presentation was titled “Creating a culture of publication integrity together”, which is COPE’s new motto this year to mark its 25th anniversary and the opening of COPE membership to universities and research institutes. The talk concentrated on the joint role that multiple stakeholders, including peer-reviewed journals and… - Case
Dealing with cases with culturally offensive content
…‘Advice to the NEJM on dealing with old influential articles with undisclosed COIs’, BMJ blog, - Event
COPE North American Seminar and Forum 2011
…afternoon of 31 October (2–5 pm) followed by a whole day seminar on 1 November. - Case
Plagiarism in a book title
We received a complaint of plagiarism by Dr A concerning a book that has just been published. This case is ongoing since January 2012. Authors B and C published a new, very extended edition (+1000 pages), on a topic that previously was covered in part in an English book by author B (published in 2006). Part of this book was based on a German book published back in 1993 by Dr A and author… - Case
Post-publication correction because of lack of consent
An article that has been published in our journal has subsequently been found to have serious ethical issues. The authors did not seek the correct ethics approval from their institution before conducting the research (which involves human subjects). They also did not obtain informed consent from the research participants prior to publication. The article in question is a case study of a… Membership subscription fees
…Number of journals Fees per year 5 to 10 £666 11 to 25 £1515 26 to 50 £2728 51 to 100 £4848 101 to 250 £9693 251 to 500 £15753 501 to 750 £22720 …- News
In the news: April Digest
…target="_blank">https://framadrive.org/s/knSLtx8ZAzk7Rt5#pdfviewer The Criminal Code of Montenegro now recognizes plagiarism as a criminal offence. The law also includes penalties for other types of breaches of academic integrity. https://retractionwatch.com/2019/03/25/montenegro… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
… ReferencesLewandowsky S, Bishop D. (2016). Research integrity: Don’t let transparency damage science. Nature, 25 January, vol 529; http://www.nature.com/news/research-integrity-don-t-let-transparency-damage-science-1.19219 Taichman DB, et al. (2016). Sharing…Membership subscription fees
… 51 to 100 £4,248 26 to 50 £2,390 11 to 25 £1,328 5 to 10 £584 Continuous publications Publishing companies that wish to join COPE but do not have a discrete journal product published in intervals…- News
Letter from the COPE Chair: September 2020
…Trust in peer review September sees the sixth Peer Review Week taking place (21 - 25 September), which has now become something of an established fixture in the research community calendar. The theme for this year is ‘trust’; a focus which resonates strongly with the core values and goals of COPE, going hand in hand with ethical reliability and responsible leadership. COPE’s… - Case
Duplicate publication
In 2003 a paper was published in a specialist surgical journal following proper peer review. The paper summarised the experience of a group of clinicians concerned in treating malignancy in the Head and Neck using a novel method of therapy - and was a case series of 25 patients. The paper was not considered to be one of high priority but was published because of the paucity of information… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2022: Book wars
…media. John then highlights a range of milestones of development, including the point at which eBook sales peaked at 25% of sales in 2012, to the steady increase in audio book consumption, from a dominance of physical CD in 2010, to 90% digital streaming and download in 2019, and the proportions of sales and revenue of books in different formats; with romance, sci-fi and other fiction categories… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: January 2019
…disciplines “Challenges and solutions: issues of inclusivity and diversity in the humanities and social sciences”. We are finalising the speakers and session topics and will announce them very soon. COPE will have a prominent role at the WCRI (World Congress on Research Integrity in Hong Kong, China (2-5 June 2019), with four COPE-led symposia… Submitting a guest editorial or opinion piece to COPE
…any loss or damage caused or occasioned as a result of the publication of a guest editorial or opinion article. Publication history This policy will be reviewed and updated at the discretion of the editors. Published: 25 January 2022 Updated: 20 June 2023…- Case
Profusion of copied text passages
…in the region of 25% to >35%. These are substantial values and certainly beyond fortuitous incidences. However, in almost all cases it is difficult to suspect acts of conscious (self)plagiarism as the copied text (ranging from single sentences or fragments of sentences to passages of 2–3 sentences) can be attributed to a very large number of sources: often more than 60, and in one case… - Case
Unethical withdrawal after acceptance to maximize the 'impact factor'?
We are a publisher with a portfolio of about 25 journals, with journal X being the flagship journal. Journal X has a high impact factor. We also publish a range of other, newer journals, some of which are ranked highly but most have no impact factor. An author submitted a manuscript to journal Y where it underwent peer review and was accepted after revisions. After acceptance, the…