- Case
Suspected plagiarism
…the article is not copied verbatim.The photographs seem to be same but captions different.Should this be investigated further?How?… - Case
Ethical approval procedural lapse
…paper was then rejected. The authors appealed, but the editorial committee decided at a subsequent meeting to uphold their decision. How should an institutional journal's editors investigate such a procedural lapse when it has occurred in their own institution? … - News
Diversifying editorial boards
…and depth of your content and supports the equitable development of knowledge in your field. Diversity also fosters innovation and creativity through a greater variety of problem-solving approaches, perspectives and ideas. It increases understanding and reduces conflicts between groups, improving collaboration and loyalty. How to diversify your editorial board A diverse board… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2013: Institutional responses to violations of research integrity
…Download presentation: Institutional responses to violations of research integrity (PDF 156KB)… Submitting a guest editorial or opinion piece to COPE
This policy provides information about writing a guest editorial (commissioned by COPE) or opinion article (uncommissioned) for publication in COPE Digest, and across COPE’s multimedia channels. Aims and scope We are looking to widen the scope of discourse regarding research and publication ethics in COPE membership communications by including voices and opinions…- Case
Withdrawal of accepted manuscript from predatory journal
…would proceed with legal action if the article was not removed from the journal’s website by a given date. She will now proceed with submission to a legitimate journal, and the editor of the legitimate journal is comfortable that duplicate publication is no longer a problem.… - Case
Appropriate scope of review for retractions
The Forum agreed this is a difficult case and one that increasingly arises in historic papers with questionable data practices. This is a reflection of a wider problem of how far back to go if there are problems with the data. Data maintenance practices in the past may not always have been very good. It is up to editors to have a look at the papers and see if there's anything very obviously… - Event
COPE Forum
…experience to the discussion: Preprints: what are the issues? Forum agenda and materials The agenda for the COPE Forum on Monday 24 July: 1. Update on COPE activities by the Chair 2. Forum discussion: Preprints: what are the issues? 3. New cases 17-11 Authorship dispute… - News
COPE pilot initiative: institutional membership
…together the publication ethics issues that they can’t address alone. We have also found that researchers, authors and reviewers, as well as integrity and accountability officers at institutions, regularly use COPE materials. The institutional pilot is likely to provide help to prospective authors and their institutions. COPE is testing this idea with a pilot and we will report back on how this is… - Case
Overseas editor dismissed from university for fraud
…attempting legally to overturn the university’s action. The UK editor wrote to the journal asking whether the incident discussed affects the editorial arrangements for the journal. Is there anything else the editor should do and does the problem affect his own position as an editor working in parallel with the overseas editor, as neither one is accountable to the other?… - Case
No ethics committee approval or informed consent
The medical director replied promptly. He had met with the author and made it clear that he should have obtained ethics committee approval for his study. This message has now been transmitted to all those engaged in research in the Trust. The medical director explained that the problem had arisen because the study had been carried out by undergraduate students, for whom appropriate protocols… - Case
A case of duplicate publication?
…to be duplication but the authors deny this on the grounds that there are further data.… - Case
Ethics committee waives consent for case report, editor disagrees
…with no identifying features. The Forum noted that this is a particular problem in paediatrics, which has often been discussed at the Forum. The Forum questioned whether it would be possible to write a comment on the general condition, without publishing the actual cases. Can a useful message be conveyed without giving specific details on the cases? In the end, it is a judgement call for the editor.… - News
Case Discussion: Withdrawal of paper at proof stage
…seriously allegations of misconduct pre-publication and post-publication. Policies should include how to handle allegations from whistleblowers.” Journal Management, which states: “A well-described and implemented infrastructure is essential, including the business model, policies, processes and software for efficient running of an… - Case
Sufficient consent?
Following the last COPE meeting I went back to the author with the following questions: 1) Was ethical approval sought from the appropriate ethical review committee? 2) The details of consent process for each patient are unclear. Specifically how many people gave written consent? How many people gave oral consent? How many gave consent by proxy, i.e. by their “tutor”? Who… - Case
Lack of ethical approval and not reporting experimental evidence
In May 2011 a letter from the Vice-Rector for Personnel of a reputable university was sent to the editor mentioning that two articles published in the journal contained two statements not supported by documented evidence. The two statements related to: (1) approval of the local ethics committee and (2) representation of the experimental evidence. With regard to point (1), the authors… - Guidelines
Text recycling guidelines for editors
…Opinions on the acceptability of text recycling vary greatly and it can be a challenge for editors to know how to deal with it once it has been identified. In response to this uncertainty, the Biology and Medical Editors at BioMed Central, in collaboration with COPE, have developed a set of guidelines to help editors handle cases of text recycling. During the development of these guidelines,… - Case
Author accused of stealing research and publishing under their name
…editor needs to contact the student directly but we need bona fide contact details of the student and we are not sure we would get it from the accuser or the accused author A. Google is also of little help as there are so many people with the name. Question(s) for the COPE Forum• How should we go about contacting the student?• What should be our next steps?… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: November 2019
…role of human agency and human intervention in AI in decision making. These included what to do about author appeals of decisions where the author may question the decision, making the claim and the argument that the artificial intelligence algorithm “got it wrong”. Other questions involved what is the role of human agency in articulating explanations for authors and how much do editors need to share…