- News
COPE position statement on inappropriate manipulation of peer review processes
…with publishers, publishing organizations and relevant national bodies to determine how best to address this situation in the longer term. Updates will follow as more information becomes available. We encourage anyone with information on these issues to contact COPE directly. Related resources - Case
Competing interests question
An online post-publication literature evaluation service aiming to highlight the best papers in medicine, received an evaluation of a basic science study funded by an NIHM grant. The evaluator declared in his/her competing interests that he/she is the director of a project that included the evaluated study as one of its components. The overall project was funded by an NIHM grant and paid the… - Case
Competing interest issue
An online post-publication literature evaluation service, aiming to highlight the best articles in medicine, received an evaluation of an article on which the evaluator was listed as an author on PubMed. The editor queried the evaluation and the evaluator replied explaining s/he had no involvement with the study but had commented on it. When the editor looked at the full text HTML version on… - Case
Short case reports without formal consent
…that they should be allowed to use these case histories on the basis of the best interests of the community. Is the blanket ethical approval sufficient for us to publish these short case histories, or do the authors need permission from the parents of the children who died?… - Case
Author requesting removal of verbatim text from published paper
…work are that although the name of author A lies buried in the sections where phrases, sentences, and whole paragraphs have been lifted from their work, the actual passages lifted are not marked as quotations (by quotation marks, indentation or in any other way); the impression therefore is that the lifted passages are at best, author B own words, or at worse, author B is paraphrasing the words of… - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2020: Understanding text recycling
In 2020 we hosted a webinar with invited speakers from the Text Recycling Research Project (TRRP) to hear about their latest findings, and the ethical and practical issues involved in establishing good practice and effective policy. Watch now - Case
Professional misconduct of one author
…settled by the authors’ institution(s). The coauthor responded to this email to provide details of the article in question and explained that they no longer wish to be associated with the manuscript or to be a part of that work based on the alleged behaviour of the lead author. Up to now we have approached this issue in line with the policies and guidelines central to best practices in… - Case
Request for a retraction from a pharmaceutical company
…for example in the form of a letter to the editor. Certainly the pharmaceutical company should ensure that their publications are formally corrected, and the journal could contact the relevant publishers to ensure that they are aware of this. It is certainly good practice to invite the authors of a critiqued article to respond, although it is not a requirement, and some journals make this a regular… - News
In the news: May 2020
…the Royal Geographical Society, Phil Emmerson, suggests that the publish or perish ethos in the academy could benefit by incorporating for the long term some of the kinder and gentler approaches that journals are using during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/kinder-publishing-practices… - Case
Plagiarism, double submission and reviewer ethicality
…authors A3 et al, which cites P1, but carries essentially the same scientific message. In year n+8, A3 et al submitted paper P3 to conference Y without referencing P1 or P2. The main content of the paper was essentially the same as that in P1. This paper was awarded a best student paper prize at the conference and journal X, which has an arrangement with conference Y to fast track “extended”… - News
New Members: July-October 2019
…href="https://publicationethics.org/core-practices">Core Practices. New members ACS Chemical Heath & Safety Advances in Operator Theory Annals of Functional Analysis - Event
Online webinar series on good reporting of health research studies
…component of good research practice. Via: Blackboard Collaborate. Registration: Deadline: 6 February 2013 To register, please email Shona Kirtley at [email protected] and include your name, institution/organisation, email address and country. An email confirmation… - Case
The unacceptable use of a placebo
…should go back to the authors and ask whether they had informed consent, to reply to the concerns about poor practice demonstrated, and show evidence of ethics committee approval. _ If no reply is received then the editor should go directly to the head of the institution. Which point was the most serious? Firstly, that the trial shouldn’t have been done at all; secondly, that the patients had been… - Case
An accusation of fraud in a rejected paper
A paper was reviewed by two referees. The associate editor dealing with it recommended rejection as both reviews were critical of the methods, results, and reproducibility of the experiment. After the authors were informed, the editor-in-chief received an email from someone in the same laboratory, expressing relief that the manuscript had been rejected. The writer went on to say that s/he had m… - Case
The disappearing authors
Some time after a single authored research article was published a journal received a letter pointing out that the same article had been rejected by another journal because of unresolved authorship and acknowledgement issues. At that time the paper had 12 authors. The correspondent said that the single author had a patent application related to the topic of the paper. This was declared as a com… - Case
No control group, arbitrary dosage, undiagnosed condition
There committee questioned where the institute was based. It was pointed out that in some countries, this type of procedure is standard practice. It was also pointed out that in the past, there is no response from the institution, and often no response. Also it was thought that perhaps journals had a role in publishing such a paper to illustrate what is going no in other countries. The… - Research
Prevalence and attitudes towards plagiarism in biomedical publishing 2010
…Better understanding of plagiarism will contribute to the prevention and discouragement of such practice among authors. The obtained results will be used for creating guidelines for editors on using available software to detect plagiarism in manuscripts before publication. This is a research project proposed by Lidija Bilic-Zulle and collaborators from the Croatian Medical Journal and Department… - Case
Correcting the affiliation of an author after publication
Correcting the paper is important for maintaining the accuracy of the published record and to maintain consistency and clarity. Authors make mistakes all the time. There is nothing unethical in a missed affiliation. A formal correction/erratum is appropriate here. It is considered good practice that author affiliations should be published for all articles. This information is important for… - Case
Sharing by a reviewer on social media
…has made with its reviewers. As the right of confidentiality lies with the reviewer, if the reviewer wants to reveal the information, then it is reasonable to consider granting that request. However, many journals require permission from the author after their paper is published if the reviewer is going to disclose information, and this is considered to be a good practice to follow.… - Event
Workshop: Introduction to publication ethics
…href="https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_C0ovpFo_Sp2BeULr2AyfBA#/registration">REGISTER TODAY --> Introduction to publication ethics Monday 26 February 2024, 12:00-13:30 GMT / UTC This workshop is an introduction to the principles of publication ethics and how to use the guidance and tools available to embed publication ethics in a journal's daily practice. Trevor Lane and Anubhav Pradhan review the Ethics Toolkit and other COPE resources,…