- Case
Duplicate submission or self plagiarism. Is the author to blame?
…previous presentations. If the research is so good and the authors admit to naivety about publishing in the conference proceedings, the journal could consider asking the authors to resubmit their paper after paraphrasing and adding additional original content. The conference paper may be preliminary data only and could be developed substantially. Some journals allow this practice after… - Case
Undeclared author conflict of interest
A journal published a study related to a pilot programme run by an online mental health support resource which, at the time of publication, had a for-profit spinoff. At the time of the publication, this resource would share “anonymised” user data with the spinoff to create and market customer service software. Although this practice of sharing data has since been stopped, the authors of the… - Case
Request to remove author from submitted manuscript due to academic misconduct
…platform to provide context. The second suggestion was to consider suppressing the name of the author who has been accused of behavioural misconduct. This is an uncommon practice and is generally used to protect an author from the ramifications of working on a particular type of research. Editors can again refer to their authorship guidelines to direct them, thinking about how they map on to cases… - Case
Suspect author
…co-authors. The largest group of papers (by topic) are all very similar in design, with very little variability in baseline placebo event rates, and generally similar results although the outcome measures differ and there are one or two ‘surprising’ (at best) findings. One particular drug features in 71 studies. Dropouts are hardly ever reported. (2) Regarding the newer papers: (i) these may… The COPE Case Taxonomy
…should/deserves to be listed as an author is omitted on a submission or publication. Gift authorship When someone who has made little/no contribution to a research project/manuscript is included as an author on a submission or publication. Questionable authorship practice Dubious behaviour, e.g. making inclusion as an author dependent on…- News
Applications for COPE Ombudsman
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is looking to appoint a new Ombudsman to ensure that COPE carries out its stated mission in a fair, expedient, and transparent manner, and that its Council and Trustees are acting in the best interests of the organisation and its members. Applicants should not be a member of COPE. COPE is a membership organisation and UK registered charity… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: January 2020
…scholarly work in medical journals” Also, for our North American colleagues, we want to let you know that this year’s North American seminar will be held in Columbus, Ohio, 15 June 2020. Mark your calendars. Details will be forthcoming soon. It is going to be an exciting first year of the new decade and we look forward to working with you to make it a great year for publication ethics. Best… - Case
Arm twisting an editor
…editor then discussed the whole issue with the authors and suggested ways to rewrite the paper, such that the data were protected, but also that the public interest was best served. Not surprisingly, the authors had been put under pressure, but agreed to consider the editor’s suggestions in a further revision. The editor wrote a commentary to accompany the article, which was directed at the media.… - Case
Suspected systematic data fabrication
…editors to write to the authors requesting the raw data. However, it was agreed that it would be best to wait and see if this editor receives a response before the other editors took any action. The Council of Science Editors (CSE) has been contacted as many of the journals are also members of the CSE. The CSE are very interested in pursuing this case through their governing body and are also… - Case
Plagiarism in a case report
…genuine. Author A wrote to Author B apologising for the incident. Author A phoned me again to say that Author B had requested that the case report be withdrawn from our journal. At no time has Author B communicated directly with me. Following discussions with his/her Director of Research and Education, Author A had been advised that the best solution was to withdraw… - Case
The ethics of using privileged information
…they adopted the best ethical course. Questions for COPE • What is COPE’s view? • How should editors and reviewers proceed when they have access to privileged information which suggests that their own work should be modified or corrected? • Is there an ethical responsibility to avoid letting known errors into the scientific literature which was transgressed in this case?… - Case
Concerns about the reliability of findings following re-analysis of a dataset from a published article
…original article. The Forum agreed that ideally, the reader should publish the re-analysis. The suggestion was for the editor to try to persuade the reader to publish the results of the re-analysis. Getting the re-analysis published formally is the best option. If the reader still refuses to publish, then the editor should ask the authors to respond to the re-analysis and then ask an independent reviewer… - Case
Possible omission of information essential for conclusions in a research paper
…some way. So, the best option may be for the journal to publish the concerns, not necessarily revealing the researcher’s identity, and invite the authors to respond.… - Case
Disclosure and transparency issue
…involvement are often the best evidence that can be obtained. The editor could point to the ICMJE guidelines for authorship and ask him/her if they believe they fulfil these criteria for authorship. From the information available, it would appear that this person was akin to a medical writer whose job it is to help authors put their paper together and they probably had no intellectual input into the… - Case
Data anonymity
The Forum agreed that the case was concerning. With the sophisticated knowledge and information that can be trawled from the internet, the concept of anonymity is becoming more and more difficult. However, editors have to do their best to protect patients’ identities, and it is has to be an editorial decision on the risk–benefit of publishing. Journals have different policies on… - Case
When to conclude correspondence from reader about errors in a published article
…published and that Dr A should write a formal letter for publication in the journal expressing her concerns about the paper, with the authors then being given the right of reply to this letter. Dr A duly wrote a letter but the nature of the concerns she raised has led the editors to conclude that this approach might never resolve the matter, and that the issue should best be handled by… - Case
Self-plagiarism and suspected salami publishing
…was going to be accepted by journal A because of the time between acceptance and publication? The authors may then have slightly altered the paper and submitted it to journal B? The advice from the Forum was to give the authors the benefit of the doubt, and to contact the authors for an explanation. It is always best to first ask the authors to explain how this has happened. It may be that this is… - Research
Editing of reviewer comments: a COPE survey 2020
…comments. COPE will consider the results and the issues raised in this survey, and determine how best to provide guidance to our members on this issue. Related resources Editing peer reviews guidelines - Case
Withdrawal of an article
…services), we feel that we have no option but to reject this manuscript again from Journal A. We also have concerns that there may be copies of the Journal B version of the article in repositories or downloaded and saved by readers. Questions for COPE Council Would COPE agree that this is the best course of action? Given that the authors’ paper has been taken down from… - Seminars and webinars
Publication misconduct tools
…analysis and plagiarism detection among other functions. He stressed the potential of AI as a thought partner for humans, and the need for AI to be exposed to human writing to keep its data authentic. Image integrity Patrick Starke is the co-founder of ImageTwin: a tool to detect integrity problems with images. It operates both within and across publications and works best when combined…