- News
In the news: March & April 2022
…factors authors consider when choosing where to submit their manuscripts? Diversity, equity, inclusion If sustainable development works towards a just and ethical society, how does it deal with the - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: September 2022
…href="https://publicationethics.org/events/cope-webinar-managing-paper-mills">last chance to register if you haven’t already. During Peer Review Week there is a full schedule of webinars, videos, podcasts and blogs that you can take part in. Several members of COPE Council members have been invited to speak at various events: Jigisha Patel is on the panel of CSE’s webinar “Research integrity in publishing” Deborah Poff is part of the Aries… - Case
Retrospective correction: how far back do we go?
…report was inaccurate and the conclusions could not be relied on. Is it worth doing anything about this now? The main conclusion is that the journal’s standards about what is acceptable in publications and in errors in publications have markedly changed over the past nine years. But should the journal now acknowledge errors made long ago, and if so how long ago?… - Case
Possibly unethical report on the safety and efficacy of a minor operation
…concerns with the institution where the surgeon was based/operations being carried out, over the failure to obtain ethical committee approval for an unusual procedure. _ If patient safety is an issue there is a statutory duty on the chief executive of the hospital to ensure this.… - Case
Plagiarism in a review article
…and the editor should wait for the outcome of the institution’s investigation before making a decision on future work. - The institution was in a better position to ask the to authors apologise to the peer reviewer if they found that the syllabus had been plagiarised. - The editor should write to the authors’ institution and request an investigation. The editor should inform the authors that s/he… - Case
Accusation of theft of a model
…determine if the reviewer had an undeclared conflict of interest. The injured party in this case was the author of the paper, and one possible course of action would be to suggest to the author that he write to the reviewer’s institution and complain about the reviewer’s behaviour. It was felt that the editor should not write to the reviewer’s institution, as he had no evidence that the paper was… - Case
A case of plagiarism
…called for if the paper had come from Europe or North America, for example. Does COPE agree?… - Case
Possible case of fraud
…and protocol. This they did very willingly, and they sent files of primary data too. The authors then withdrew the related paper submitted elsewhere. Although this seems suspicious, it seems that the authors thought we would be less favourably inclined to the paper they had submitted to us if a related paper from them was accepted by another journal first. - Case
Repeated alleged plagiarism in case reports
The advice from the Forum was for the editor to follow the COPE flowchart on what to do if you suspect plagiarism in a submitted manuscript. The editor should contact the author’s institution or employer and ask them to carry out an investigation. In doing so the editor might need to contact the insititution concerned to find out who is responsible for research integrity as this can vary from… - Guidelines
A short guide to ethical editing for new editors
This short guide aims to summarise the key principles, tasks and relationships of the journal editor role. Becoming an editor of a journal is an exciting but daunting task, especially if you are working alone without day to day contact with editorial colleagues. You may have encountered several different processes, systems and ways of working in your experiences with journals, as author,… - Case
Publication of an article accepted 5 years ago
…journal to revise the paper. The journal should offer to pay the costs for language editing. The journal cannot reject the paper given that the paper was formally accepted. If a contract for publication consists of submission (ie, offer of work) and acceptance of that work, there is a moral, and likely, legal obligation to publish post acceptance. The best way forward in… - Case
Duplicate publication in multicentre consortia
…There seems to be one procedure and one body of people, spread across five collaborating institutions. The multicentre collaboration should have submitted a single manuscript reporting on all findings at the same time. Anything else is duplication. Patients should not be included more than once in study results and journals should not accept outcome splitting. If one umbrella consortium could be… - Flowcharts
Addressing concerns about systematic manipulation of the publication process
…used alongside it. Key points The guidance covers the general principles: The need for journal policies that specify what actions will be taken if there are suspicions of manipulation of the publication process (paper mills). The need for confidential sharing of information among publishers (eg, via the COPE Publisher’s forum or - Discussion documents
Guest edited collections best practice
…How to recognise potential authorship problems COPE infographic Suspected ethical problem in a submitted manuscript COPE flowchart - Event
COPE Forum: September 2023
…dir="ltr">What should the role of ChatGPT/Large Language Models (LLMs) be in the peer review process (if any)? What might peer review look like in 3 years? What will be the biggest threat to peer review in 3 years’ time? Whether or not you attend the Forum we - Discussion documents
Dealing with concerns about the integrity of published research
…regardless of the method of communication. Good practice is to have a policy which sets a timeline for a response. Responses should be neutral and based on facts, indicating the intended action. If the investigation finds that the concern is valid, follow the appropriate COPE guidance for dealing with the issue. It is important to respect the correspondent’s right to… COPE Forum
…class="button" href="/events/cope-forum-march-2024">Forum agenda and register --> Submit a case to COPE Forum Submit a case We encourage COPE members to review existing cases before submitting a case to the Forum, or to COPE Council, to see if similar cases have already been discussed. Please note that…- Case
Publishing corrections for articles in inactive journals
…Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern states that the new publisher takes on responsibility for the content of journals transferred to them and must do the best they can even if they do not have access to full files, metadata, and so on. The editors may need to contact aggregators and databases separately to inform them of the notice.… - News
In the news: January 2019 Digest
…/12/Ethical-Aspects-of-Open-Access-Report.pdf In other news, a recent article in Science describes the concept of “chaperoned” authors, those who first publish in the top journals as non-senior authors, and how they have a higher chance of being published there later in their careers. - Case
Suspect author
…submitted: (i) process as usual and publish if accepted (after discussion with/approval by the publishers); that is, let the author/institution respond if they wish(ii) present it to the suspect author (with the analyst’s permission) and remove from the publication process for the time being(iii) present it to the suspect author’s institution(s) as per (ii)(iv) present it to the…