- Seminars and webinars
Post-publication critiques
…problems with a publication no matter how long ago it was made available. Editors and readers are now more prepared to engage with concerns and this has been aided by the emergence of respected ‘sleuths’ and commenting sites like PubPeer. It would be beneficial for universities and funders to place greater emphasis on data sharing which would in turn encourage more careful work and accountability.… - News
In the news: November 2018 Digest
…-massive-database-retracted-papers-reveals-about-science-publishing-s-death-penalty" target="_blank">An analysis of the database was published in the journal Science. This concludes that the increase in retractions in recent years might reflect better editorial practices. Not all retractions involve misconduct, 40% of the retractions in the database are due to errors, problems with reproducibility, and other issues. Around 50% of the retractions are due to “fabrication, falsification, or… - Case
A case of plagiarism
The general view was that the three year ban was harsh and perhaps not appropriate. Most members agreed that banning an author is not good policy and could lead to legal problems. Also, in dealing with cases from outside Europe and North America, we should bear in mind that plagiarism may be unintentional as authors may be less familiar with publication procedures. Hence there is a case here… - News
In the news: February Digest
…research in the biomedical sciences.https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/01/09/guest-post-mla-insight-how-to-buy-whisky/?informz=1 In order to increase inclusion and diversity, we have to call attention to the problem and then have resources to correct it. The… - Case
Concerns over the withdrawal of a complaint
Journals are obliged to pursue a complaint once made as they have been made aware that there is a potential problem with the article. It is therefore not possible for authors to retract and halt the process and the editors are correct to continue with their investigation. However, there are several mitigations that can be taken to protect them. First, the individuals who raised the concern can… - Case
Undeclared conflict of interest
A published study reviewed the use of particular devices for performing a clinical manoeuvre. One of the authors worked for a consultancy, but declared that he had no conflict of interest. Subsequently, the journal received a letter pointing out that the consultancy had been set up explicitly to persuade governments and their regulatory organisations of the virtues of new drugs and… - News
Case Discussion: Ethics of non-active management of a control group
…to raise issues with respect to the research and to raise questions regarding the institutional vetting of research protocols through the research ethics committee. As the COPE guideline on the General Approach to Publication Ethics for the Editorial Office (October 2018) notes “Ethical issues are often complex and the approach will vary depending on the specific problem and the resources of the… - News
Vacancies on COPE Council
…and team to manage the day to day affairs of the organisation. Council currently comprises six subcommittees - Council Members will be expected to join either the Membership subcommittee or the Facilitation and Integrity subcommittee initially, to gain a deeper understanding of how COPE works and the… - Case
Lack of trial registration leads to new concerns about study conduct and ethical review/approval
Following publication of an article, the editors noticed that the paper reported results of a clinical trial, but no details of trial registration were included in the article. (The journal does have careful checks on trial registration by staff at submission but this paper was not well written and it took careful reading to work out that it did in fact report on a clinical trial). We… - Case
Ethical concerns about a study involving human subjects
…that approved the study; whether they had informed consent from the patient and healthy volunteers; whether the trial had been registered before it commenced; how the patient and controls were recruited; what information the patient and controls were given before they agreed to participate; where the study took place; what safety/monitoring was in place in case of any adverse effects; what approval… - Case
Possible suppression of data
…competitor. The information is also relevant to a wider debate about the evidence required for regulatory agencies to licence related drugs. For the company there was an important issue at stake in terms of the outcome of this research. This core problem involved refusal of the pharmaceutical manufacturer to provide crucial raw data (principally randomisation and event codes and… - Case
Researchers give an experimental therapy to patients based on a laboratory study published in our journal
We published a paper in the journal which reported on microarray expression profiling of cell lines from a specific type of cancer (not named here, to preserve anonymity). That paper suggested that a particular compound might affect the function of a protein expressed in the cell lines; this compound could therefore be a possible candidate drug for use in this type of cancer, which might be… - Case
Unethical research undertaken by a single handed GP
…consent from an ethics committee. Indeed, I don’t see how he could possibly have got consent for such a study. I have written to ask him if he has got such consent and I’m waiting to hear from him. The patients clearly agreed to take the tablets, but I worry that they were misled over the scientific value of the study. What should I do, if as I suspect, I discover that the GP did not have ethical… - Case
The incomplete systematic review
…group and refer to the previous Cochrane review. _ Their findings could conflict with the Cochrane review, which could itself, of course, be flawed, but the authors should include all relevant studies if asked to resubmit a revised version, and to detail why any flawed studies had been excluded. _ Write a frank letter to the authors asking how their review differed from the Cochrane review, and to… - Seminars and webinars
North American Seminar 2019: Ethical challenges in the arts, humanities, and social sciences
At the North American seminar 2019, Kath Burton (Associate Editorial Director of Arts & Humanities, Routledge, Taylor & Francis) presented the initial research findings and the solution put together on the back of some research conducted by COPE, supported by Routledge. The aim of the research was to better understand the publication ethics needs of arts, humanities and social… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: December 2021
…href="https://publicationethics.org/news/diversifying-editorial-boards">diversify our editorial boards and how to go about it. COPE hosted several online events focused on DEI in 2021. In May, COPE hosted a webinar on diversity, equity, and inclusion. This webinar deals with the impact of discriminatory practices in our industry and outlines best practices around identity and… Audit your journal
It is all too easy to read guidelines, agree with them in a vague sort of way and then do little about them. As a COPE Member benefit, the COPE Journal Audit is designed to support and encourage editors to identify areas of their journal's policies and processes that may need to be revised so that they adhere to- Case
Sections of plagiarised text in an e-publication
…for plagiarism are retraction and public admission. The grey area is how to treat the situation as the science does not appear to be flawed, only how it is presented as the big picture. While the case clearly involves plagiarism (true plagiarism, self-plagiarism and unquoted use of text), there is no way to ensure the science is fairly presented while the authors are reprimanded. Accepting… - Case
Literature evaluation service and supplements
An online post-publication literature evaluation service aiming to highlight the best articles in medicine has received evaluation of articles published in supplement issues of journals. Given that many supplements are funded by pharmaceutical companies, should we have a different policy on how to handle such evaluations? If so, what suggestions do you have?…