Foreword, COPE Report 2005
…investigated COPE’s council thought it important to find out how close editors were to meeting these standards. Our survey of COPE members was not encouraging [url]. Almost two thirds of respondents had no declared policies on pursuing research misconduct when it is suspected; six out of 10 had no declared complaints procedure; half had no published guidance for authors; and…- Case
Authorship order dispute
…You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right A manuscript has been accepted for publication in our journal and we would like to publish in the March 2011 issue. The corresponding author (Dr F) is trying to collect copyright forms from all of the authors of the paper to send back to us, but one author will not sign the copyright form due to a disagreement about… - Case
Author misconduct
…You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right The rector at author D’s institution contacted the editor of journal A stating that they have found what they evidently consider to be serious misconduct in an article written by author D and the rector requested author D to retract the paper from journal A but author D refused to do so. The institution contacted jou… - Case
Excessive self-citation in a book chapter
…limit on the number or proportion of references which can be self-citations. One example is a maximum of three instances, or 10 per cent of all references. Others are developing policies to suppress Journal Impact Factors if excessive self-citation is a feature, or stating that citations to the Special Issue articles in Special Issue editorials are not allowed (see examples - Event
COPE Seminar 2021
…Members only) Ethical practice in research data publication - challenges, lessons and opportunities FORCE11 Research Data Publishing Ethics Working Group, in collaboration with COPE, is developing guidelines and resources to support journal editors, data repositories, and institutions in the handling of ethics cases related to research data. The resources… - Case
Disagreement between authors and sponsor
Our journal was contacted by a representative of a company following acceptance of a manuscript that was based on a clinical study sponsored by that company. Upon acceptance, the senior author had forwarded a copy of the manuscript to the company, who had identified some discrepancies between the data presented in the article and an initial report that had been presented to them while the study… - Case
Self-plagiarism of review article
A reader flagged up that a review article originally published in a journal X in April 2003 had subsequently appeared with a few minor additions and deletions in journal Y (our journal) in July 2004 and then in journal Z (of which the author is an editor) in September 2006. The authors on the paper are all from the same institute although with some minor differences between the publications: jo… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: January 2019
…height: 125px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 3px; float: left;" /> Read January 2019 COPE Digest newsletter and use the COPE Audit Tool, read a case discussion on citation manipulation, get dates in the diary for COPE events in 2019, and keep… COPE webinar: Diversity, equity and inclusion
…Diversity, equity and inclusion in scholarly research and publishing Friday 28 May 2021, 13:00-14:30 (British Summer Time) (UTC + 1) Find out what time this is in your country Thanks to everyone who attended the webinar. The- News
COPE in 2023: Update
…articles and disciplines. 2. We committed to surveying not only our members but also others with an interest in publication ethics, to receive input into what you think COPE’s priorities should be for the next three years. We have circulated a member survey and will be following that with a survey… - News
Case discussion: Editor manipulation of impact factor
…journal-level citation metrics are widely quoted as an indicator of journal influence, but also widely misused in research evaluation systems. They are known to be prone to manipulation, such that Clarivate Analytics suppresses titles from its Journal… Diversity policy
…the Executive Officer or to a COPE Officer. Please refer to the grievance policy (being reviewed) for details. Related content Other COPE policies Page history First published 10 September 2022 Back to top…- Case
How to correct an incorrect decision to publish a flawed paper
The Forum suggested issuing a notice of correction but the editor should perhaps consult with the publisher’s legal department before publication. As the problem occurred nearly 10 years ago, another suggestion was to write an accompanying editorial explaining the whole case. The journal can issue a notice of correction without the approval or consent of the authors, but the advice was to… - Case
Duplicate submission and authorship dispute
…journal, there were 10 authors. During the review process, two authors were removed from the article at their request. This happened in May, between manuscript resubmission. These two authors then submitted the case report to journal Y, with a new set of co-authors. We have confirmed with the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of journal Y that they received their initial submission in May. As noted,… - Case
Is there a time limit for submitting a critique of a published article?
The Forum noted that it may be appropriate to set a time limit for submission and publication of comments or rejoinder pieces to published articles, but concerns about the integrity and research presented in articles can arise any time, and it is always ethical for journals to investigate them. For example, eventual retraction of the flawed MMR paper by The Lancet took more than 10 years after… The ethics of audit and research
…are issues around the ossification of process, how innovation and change can be accommodated, and about the perverse incentives that any bureaucratic system imposes on everyone who interacts with it. In a recent paper in the BMJ (2005; 330: 468-73), Derek Wade…- News
Data and reproducibility: The role of research institutions
…href="https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples" target="_blank">FAIR Data Principles -- making research data “Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable”, it falls on funders, publishers, researchers and their institutions to establish practices and policies for the appropriate handling of research data. Research institutions -- as the home of significant research data production and management -- have a particularly critical role… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: June 2022
…href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01604-3">diversity, equity, and fairness in global collaborations, which will be released soon. It was wonderful that the meeting took place in Africa for the first time, and we were able to hear from those directly impacted by historic inequities in financial and scientific resources. As COPE Chair, I moderated a symposium panel on “When and how to report misconduct to institutions, journals,… Revised principles of transparency and best practice released
…newsletter, a compilation of articles, resources, and research of interest to medical journal editors. #PublicationEthics Further information Please contact: Sarah Gillmore, Engagement and Outreach Officer Follow us on Twitter: @C0PE …- News
A vision for a more trans-inclusive publishing world: guest article
…evolutions-of-self be accommodated by a robust, well resourced, low effort process. [1] We outline these risks in detail in a white paper [2] While this document is written with name changes in mind, many trans…