- Case
Anonymous peer review – author requesting manuscript file
Two manuscripts were submitted, reviewed as sister manuscripts by the journal, and rejected on the basis of negative reviews. The author took issue with one particularly negative review and appealed our decision. We sought the advice of an editorial board member who reviewed the manuscripts and the reports and agreed that the correct editorial decision was… - Case
Author did not see reviews or revisions to the manuscript and did not give approval for publication
…addendum following sight of the reviewers’ comments. We understand that this matter has also been taken up by the employing institution of the co-authors (at which the complainant was previously an employee but has since left) but do not yet know of any outcome. At the time, journal policy was for the corresponding author to sign an exclusive license form that stated “You hereby warrant… - Case
Suspected contact between reviewer and an author led to coauthorship of the reviewer
A manuscript was submitted via our electronic submission system and processed in accordance with the standard procedures of the journal. This was originally a single author submission, and in the covering letter the author suggested two potential reviewers. The Associate Editor assigned reviewers, choosing reviewer A along the suggestions of the author, and reviewer B from his own list… - Case
Reviewer misconduct?
The reviewer was notified (as were the editors of the other journals) that he had been exonerated, with thanks for his patience and for his cooperation throughout the investigation. The author was also contacted and told that the reviewer had been exonerated. The authors did not formally apologise to the reviewer.… - Case
Plagiarism, double submission and reviewer ethicality
…the editors of journal Z who published paper P4 and who reviewed P3 for journal X. We have decided not to pursue this further owing to lack of hard evidence. It seems that the substantive issues have now been addressed and the case can probably be regarded as closed (subject to our final editorial board review).… - Case
Suspicion of breach of proper peer reviewer behaviour
…investigated and proven by the institution. It is hoped that the journal would follow the COPE guidelines on retraction. Since the journal’s review process was exonerated, it is really up to the author to pursue the matter and the editor should encourage the author to do this. The author and/or editor could consider contacting the grant giving body as well as the reviewer’s institution and ask them to… - Case
Breach of peer review confidentiality
…R0 round of peer review. Clearly, at this point, the author and editor could only assume that the confidentiality of peer review had been broken between reviewer A and reviewer B, but also that further misconduct/incompetence had occurred between the two. The editor put this point to reviewer B for clarification, and the reviewer replied (after a delay of 3 days) that he/she did not know… - 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
Retractions of primary literature papers: how should a review journal react?
…papers. As editor, I have been urged a number of times via email (the true sender of which was not always clear) to retract the said review. At first—before the full extent of the retractions was confirmed—I could do no more than wait, rather than react prematurely, although even at that stage, tracking and trying to verify the claims took some time. Now I have analysed the review—which took… - Case
Lack of trial registration leads to new concerns about study conduct and ethical review/approval
…We replied to the authors to indicate we had the intention of issuing a notice of concern based on lack of trial registration. Given the new issue about the lack of a satisfactory protocol for the study reported, we then requested a copy of the letter of approval issued by the ethics committee/institutional review board cited in the article. Around this time, we were spontaneously contacted by… - Case
An enquiry about arbitrating reviewers
This interesting case provoked much discussion. Most agreed that they would not use the term “arbitrating reviewers”. The third reviewer is providing extra information for the editor, who will then decide whether or not to accept the paper. So the editor is in fact the arbitrator, not the reviewer. By using the term “arbitrating reviewers”, it could send a confusing message to the author that… - Case
Self-plagiarism of review article
…“stated facts are correct (the author has) copied and pasted sentences and whole paragraphs from (journal X) 2003 papers in (journal Y’s) 2004 paper and (Journal Z’s) 2006 paper… all three papers were no (sic) original articles, but invited reviews”. The author also noted that “(journal Y’s) paper duly cited the prior (journal X) paper… so that nothing was ever concealed”. The author goes on to say that… - Case
Transparency of peer review to co-authors
…corresponding author. This may prevent some cases of guest authorship arising. However, the Forum agreed that publishers may edit reviewers’ comments before sending them to authors if they contain rude or libellous remarks. The publisher should keep the original reviewer comments on file for internal use but it is acceptable to send a ‘cleaned up’ version to the authors.… - Case
Author creates bogus email accounts for proposed reviewers
…1). Reviewer 1 asked me to contact the editor of journal 1. After contacting the editor of journal 1, I discovered that the author had provided bogus email accounts for the recommended reviewers. The editor of journal 1 became suspicious of the reviews when he received a review within hours of the request to review the manuscript. It was at this point that the editor of journal 1 discovered… - Case
Reviewer asks trainee to review manuscript
…pushed him to return a detailed review, which he has now done. My question is: is giving this manuscript (not blinded, ie, author names and affiliations are evident) to the trainee a breach of confidentiality on the part of the reviewer? If so, what steps do you recommend taking?… - Case
Review of a book written by an editor of a journal
…the book feel under pressure to give a good review? Most of the Forum agreed that it would be best not to publish a review of the co-editor’s book. If there are other journals in the field, it would be best to publish it in one of these. However, if the editor does decide to publish the book review, the process must be transparent. The Forum suggested publishing an explicit statement about who… - Case
Compromised peer review system in published papers
…that the journal should take some responsibility for failure of their peer review system. Good practice is always to check the names, addresses and email contacts of reviewers, and especially those that are recommended by authors. Editors should never use only the preferred reviewer.… - Case
Compromised peer review (unpublished)
A manuscript was flagged to editor X as having received reviewers’ reports indicating very high interest. At that point the manuscript had been through one round of review, revision and re-review, and all three reviewers were advising that the manuscript be accepted without further revision. On checking the credentials of the three reviewers, editor X was unable to find the publication… - Case
Ethical obligation to find reviewers
…obliged to keep trying to find reviewers?(2) Or do our editorial responsibilities only extend to making ‘reasonable attempts’ to find reviewers?… - Case
Two reviewer reports contain a significant amount of verbatim textual overlap
…expressions (common in … but unusual in English) appear in both of our reviews”. Questions for the COPE Forum(1) Should the editor-in-chief rely on the reports of the two reviewers?(2) Should the editor-in-chief invite in the future the two researchers to review other submissions in the field?…