- Case
Author of rejected letter blames global bias against his message and undisclosed conflicts of interest
…mentioned and industries) reviewers, of which he proposes three names. We have not replied to this last email and decided to seek COPE’s advice on how to best close the case and what we should have done better earlier. In particular, I'd be interested in your opinion on: — how the editor should have communicated with the author of the letter in the first place? What are the main weaknesses in… - News
Artificial intelligence and authorship
…;nbd=&nbd_source=informz">recommend the best AI writing bot (it was admirably diplomatic), to a rabbi who asked it to write a sermon for him. In January new registrations to the service had to be suspended because… - News
In the news: January 2018 Digest
…> Peer review A blog in the Times Higher Education Supplement criticising peer review for not calling out issues of reproducibility and deceptive practices, and calling for innovation in peer review which addresses both issues. https://www.timeshighereducation… - Case
Authorship dispute
…co-author has a joint appointment at two institutes, and so both directors will need to be involved in the process. Is the way in which the putative referee obtained confidential information objectionable? Have the authors acted improperly in not sending the paper to the complainant? How best can we now balance the interests of the authors, complainant (the complaint may be genuine or… - Case
Retraction or correction?
…institutes. Although I think, in principle, the article should be retracted because of redundant publication of data, does it best serve readers if the conclusions are, in fact, sound? This paper has been well cited in the literature, and some results do indeed seem to have been reproduced by others. I would very much appreciate advice on whether we should retract this article, issue a notice of… - Case
Publication of correspondence relating to a paper currently online
…lawyers have become involved, it would be best to seek their advice, especially if there is a possible case of libel. The legal side may need to run its course first. In the interest of transparency and given the controversy, it makes sense to publish the additional reviews and letters, as long as they are part of the scientific debate. The publication policy at the journal will determine how… - Case
Institution wants to retract despite ongoing legal proceedings
Generally, it is best if journals do not get involved in legal arguments. The advice would be not to proceed with the requested retraction while there are ongoing legal proceedings. The Forum acknowledge this is not a perfect solution as legal proceedings can be lengthy. However, the journal might take the stance that until the institution or the author who complained states exactly… - News
Case discussion: Possible breach of reviewer confidentiality
…people were involved in reviewing. Case discussion This COPE Forum case is categorised under two COPE Core Practices: Complaints and appeals: “Journals should have a clearly described process for handling complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher.”… - Case
Possible suppression of data
…key randomised trials used to prove the efficacy of this drug for regulatory approval. It is critical to understanding of the mechanism of this class of drugs. The outcome of the research also has practical clinical relevance in terms of choice of drug therapy and therapeutic monitoring. It is pertinent to interpretation of a recent head-to-head trial of this drug versus its main… - Case
Community leaders’ consent as a proxy for individual consent
…tribal communities, state that: (1) The law makes it clear that while obtaining prior consent from community leaders is very good practice, it should not dispense with efforts to obtain individual consent. (2) Every individual must give consent; illiterate individuals should give a digital print. We wrote to the authors to ask why they did not obtain individual consent, and whether… - Case
Self plagiarism
…Examination of four or five easily accessible references revealed an unacceptably high proportion of direct replication: many phrases and sentences and some complete paragraphs. The paper was rejected with an explanation that this practice of self-plagiarism is unacceptable, and that the journal would be contacting the head of research ethics at the author’s institution. The author appealed against… - Case
Conflicting claims of intellectual property?
The matter was referred by the editor and publisher to University 2, who are conducting a formal investigation according to the university's code of practice for complaints of misconduct in research. University 1 is cooperating at the highest level. The process has been delayed at several points, but is expected to be concluded shortly, a date having been set for the examiners and expert… - Case
Falsified references
An article was submitted to my journal and was sent for peer review. An editorial board member realised that a number of the references were incorrect: publication dates had been changed to make them more current. The author was contacted by email and telephone who said he/she had a number of students working for him (who were not listed as authors or in the acknowledgment) and they must… - Case
Editor as author of a paper
…directly accepted by the editor-in-chief. During proof corrections, no one noticed that the subject editor was listed as an author and also as the communicating editor (it is standard practice on the journal to name the subject editor on the published paper—ie, "Communicated by ..."). Thus the article was published online before the authors became aware of the problem and contacted the editor. The… - Case
Two reviewer reports contain a significant amount of verbatim textual overlap
…that about a third do use them, but there was not much support among those not using structured forms to introduce this practice… - 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 cor… - Case
Removal of an author
A paper was submitted to a journal with authors A, B, C, D and E. The paper was peer reviewed. Before acceptance, the corresponding author asked for a new author, author F, to be added, and an existing author, author C, to be removed. The editorial office asked all of the authors (authors A, B, C, D, E and F) to complete a change of authorship request form and for the corresponding autho… - Case
Behaviour of researcher during peer review
…good ethical practice. Reviewing is generally confidential, unless a reviewer might need to consult a colleague, and the journal should have a procedure that explains how and in what circumstances this is allowed. If the journal does not have clear policies on this on their website and communicated to reviewers then this will be something they might wish to consider strengthening. If the… - Case
Author displays bullying behaviour towards handling editor
A handling editor rejected a paper without review, after consulting with a senior editor. The corresponding author sent an appeal about 2 weeks later where he requested that the paper be given a second chance and be sent for peer review. He added that, in case of a new decision to reject without review, the editor should provide a detailed response to a number of questions and comments raised i… - Case
Request for addition of new authors
A journal received an article submission from two authors. The paper went through several revisions over the course of a year, and was eventually accepted for publication. The authors were informed about acceptance and the paper was sent for copyediting. The editorial office subsequently sent the final version of the paper to the authors for proofreading. On the same day, a request was…