- Case
Concerns about the reliability of findings following re-analysis of a dataset from a published article
…employed for the analyses and they have not formally agreed to retract the article. We have offered the reader to submit his re-analysis for publication but he is not interested in doing this; he is however willing for us to make his re-analysis publicly available via a public notification on the published article if we decide that such a notification is necessary. In the light of the… - Case
Author impersonating corresponding author without knowledge of coauthors
We received an article which was accepted and published after an uneventful peer review process. The article was apparently written by seven authors from two universities. As part of our routine processes, all co-authors were alerted to a submission via the email addresses provided by the submitting author. Some time after the article had been published, we received an email from the… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 4 September 2013: Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct
…who may also be considering similar letters (since it’d be much better to so jointly); — It is appropriate to use email for such communications, all of which should be marked as, and treated as, confidential; — Participating journals would inform authors via their webpages that information may be shared under these circumstances. Even were legal advice to suggest that such… - Case
Exposing citation manipulation and fraud in the community
…fake identities have also been re-evaluated. Some of these will need to be retracted due to lack of scientific soundness, while other articles have been found to be sound so they will remain part of the published literature. The publisher has noted via Publons that the guest editors have acted as peer reviewers for other publishers, and it is possible that they have also been involved, or… - Case
Data availability for vulnerable populations
…its management via institutions and data repositories. Comments reported that journals vary in their attitude to data availability, some encouraging it, others making it mandatory and others still leaving it to the discretion of the author. The Center for Open Science has taken a lead in recommending data availability and opinion… - Seminars and webinars
Publication misconduct tools
…knowledge of publication misconduct. STM operates via working groups, task forces, and a governance Board, and their focus is on the source of integrity issues. The Paper Mill Checker tool carries out on-demand screening using eight signals of paper mill activity, including other external tools such as PubPeer and Clearskies. The Duplicate Submission Checker, which is at the pilot stage, operates as an… - Flowcharts
Systematic manipulation of the publication process
…="https://publicationethics.org/publication-integrity-week-2023/publication-ethics-research-integrity">Publication misconduct and fraud day: Keynote Publication Integrity Week 2023 Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via paper mills COPE Forum discussion, 2020 Potential… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: February 2019
…1997, via formal registration as a charity in 2007, and onwards to the membership organisation we are now with more than 12,000 members and many, many valuable resources that people all over the world use. Liz was one of the good people that got COPE started on our amazing journey. So it is with great warmth that we wish you, Liz, all COPE’s very best for your retirement, and all the very best for… - Case
Should we allow pseudonymous authorship?
The journal sought advice from their legal team who recommended that pseudonymous authorship would only be considered on a case-by-case basis, and where the content related to a highly sensitive area, or if there was a genuine threat to the safety of the author. In the current situation the request should be addressed via a conflict of interest statement at the end of the article or… - News
COPE collaboration with FORCE11 Working Group
…the WG, which is co-led by Iratxe Puebla, COPE Facilitation and Integrity Officer, and Daniella Lowenberg, Dryad Product Manager. The group welcomes additional participation from stakeholders from relevant areas; those interested in joining the group can do so via the FORCE11 page. We look forward to sharing further… - News
Text Recycling Research Project: update March 2021
…Springer Nature. Board members have participated in a number of focus group meetings in the past year, providing valuable feedback on drafts of educational materials and policies. Recent publications TRRP has published a number of research articles in the past year (all accessible via the TRRP website): - Case
Plagiarism of reviewer's work
…later the article was resubmitted after revision, and we sent it for review. One of the reviewers, who was chosen by the handling editor via a PubMed search, replied quickly, saying that:1) she used to work in the senior authors' department where her PhD was supervised by the most senior author;2) the worked examples in the revised submitted article, and some of the accompanying… - Case
Excessive self-citation in a book chapter
…excessive citation (otherwise regarded as citation manipulation). This is in line with COPE’s recommendations which state that “[Publishers] should develop policies and standards to determine self-citation thresholds, provide educational resources to support best practice and establish procedures to respond to potential misconduct.” Publishers can find more guidance via - News
Guest editorial: Tackling paper mills
This is a guest editorial and opinions may not reflect official COPE guidance or policies. A society publisher's perspective Zara Manwaring, Managing Editor (Biochemical Society/Portland Press) The initial storm In June 2020, an anonymous reader flagged via PubPeer over 50 papers in our journal, Bioscience Reports, that had been through peer review and… Press
…="https://publicationethics.org/increasing-number-fraudulent-papers-produced-paper-mills">Increasing number of fraudulent papers produced by “paper mills” 16 October 2020 Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via "paper mills" is emerging as a growing issue. Paper mills produce and sell fraudulent manuscripts that seem to resemble genuine research. They may be similar in layout, experimental approach and have similar images or figures.- Case
Compromised peer review system in published papers
…students or collaborators. Author A asked the preferred reviewers (or the people behind the accounts) to submit favourable reviews of the papers and turn them around quickly or author A submitted the reviews via the dummy account. Author A admitted employing this system for a number of papers, but not every paper, although we found similar patterns of peer review activity for these also. Author A states… - Case
Request for removal for one author but a coauthor cannot be reached
…both the coauthor who wished to be removed from the authorship list and all remaining coauthors. They received this from every coauthor except one. The corresponding author reported that this coauthor lived in a country with potentially limited communication infrastructures and did not respond to several attempts at contact via email and telephone. Questions for COPE… - Translated resources
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Portuguese)
…Transparência e melhores práticas, edição atualizada, Version 4.0, 2022 Transparência e melhores práticas Português - Revisado por Luciano Panepucci, após tradução automática via Documentos Google. Version 4.0, 2022. Edição anterior: Princípios de Transparência e Boas Práticas em… - News
Intellectual property focus
…href="https://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_Guidelines_For_Peer_Reviewers_2.pdf">during peer review, as well as a flowchart on what to do if a reviewer is suspected of appropriating an author’s idea or data. Conversely, peer reviewers add their own intellectual contributions via their peer review reports. Journals may publish these reports with or without reviewers' names, but reviewers nevertheless deserve… Potential paper mills
…href="https://publicationethics.org/resources/research/paper-mills-research">Paper mills research report, COPE & STM, 2022 Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills” COPE Forum discussion Systematic manipulation of the publication process,…