- Forum discussion topics
Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills”
…real authors or paper mill agents. Approaching institutions may be difficult when it is not clear who to approach or there is a lack of response. Back to top Questions for discussion While publishers and editors can handle individual papers on a case-by-case basis, how do we tackle the bigger issues at play? … - News
COPE statement on Frontiers
…publisher's site and we do not believe there is any attempt to deceive either editors or authors about these processes. Publishing is evolving rapidly and new models are being tried out. At this point we have no concerns about Frontiers being a COPE member and are happy to work with them as they explore these new models.… - Case
Problem with figures
…expert on manipulation of digital images and has software that can look for specific alterations. We have not heard back from him yet. What do we do if he (the editor from a different journal) tells us that he has detected manipulation beyond what the authors said they did? What do we do if he says there is no evidence of manipulation of these images? What do we do if he says he… - News
Peer review focus
…peer review process must be “transparently described and well managed”. Journals must have policies in place for the process, conflicts of interest, appeals by authors and other disputes. Journal leadership must make sure that editors and reviewers are knowledgeable of journal polices regarding the process. One of the key documents that COPE revised in… - Case
Foreign language duplicate publication
…publication. The covering letter to the journal confirms that the submitted material had not been published before. The editors considered that parallel publication is quite common and acceptable when the purpose is to disseminate data from a foreign language only paper more widely, but wondered whether the authors should have been more forthcoming or accurate in their citations and covering… - News
In the news: February 2021
…href="https://www.bmj.com/company/researchintegrity/consent-for-publication/" target="_blank">guidance for authors about obtaining consent for publication for research and articles involving human participants. Diversity and inclusion The Life Science Editors Foundation has announced Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Awards. The award provides free scientific or language edits… - Event
COPE Lightning Talk: Text recycling in research writing
17 April 2024, 13:00-14:00 BST / UTC+1 COPE Members only Clarifying the legalities for authors and editors Over the past six years, the Text Recycling Research Project has conducted empirical studies to better understand text recycling in the research context and used what they’ve learned to develop… - News
Letter from the COPE Vice-Chair: May 2020
…href="https://publicationethics.org/AHSS-Study">publishing ethics landscape for AHSS editors: both identified contribution and co-author claims as significant ethics issues. As with all of our discussion documents, we welcome feedback and comments to [email protected]. For those interested in understanding the behaviours… - Case
Publication of correspondence relating to a paper currently online
…Letter to the Editor and/or via the journal’s online commenting tool which allows comments to be posted with regards to individual papers. After this, several such communications and longer letters were sent which discussed the alleged flaws in the paper and repeated the calls for a retraction. The authors of the paper were invited to reply to the longer letter of the complainants and they too… - Case
Possible plagiarism case
The editor-in-chief wrote to the authors pointing out that quoted text should be placed between quotation marks, stating who has written the text, or alternatively, authors should create their own text to describe the situation and not use other individual’s text. This letter was sent to the corresponding author together with the decision letter. The authors have responded with a letter of… - Case
A case of parallel publication?
…subject in the instructions to authors, it was felt that this advice is freely available and widely acknowledged. The committee felt that the authors had deliberately misled the editor. One piece of advice was to write a strongly worded letter to the authors saying that this type of behaviour is unacceptable. Some members of the committee thought that stronger action was required to… - Case
Anonymous case presentations (without patient consent) on a specialist society website
The editor was advised that patient consent must be obtained, and that patient details must not be modified in an attempt to provide anonymity. The specialist society will inform authors that they must obtain signed patient consent before cases can be published.… - Case
Increased number of casual submissions
We have experienced a sudden spurt in casual submissions of poor quality articles. We believe this is because authors wish to show that they have submitted articles which are under consideration at reputable journals. While any journal or editor would be happy to see increased numbers of submissions, sadly, most are of very poor quality in all respects. Most are very casually prepared… - Case
Ethical considerations in publishing conference papers
…added (e.g., 40-50% new content). In the latter case, the prepublished content would need to be clearly explained and indicated at the submission stage for the journal editor to consider publication. Some journals may be willing to consider a special appeal in certain cases; e.g., where distribution was very small (only to conference attendees) and the authors are seeking a broader distribution for… - News
Allegations of misconduct focus
…journals and to outline their policies and procedures for handling such issues when they arise. Journal editors should look to COPE’s resources to develop their policies and to describe their policies so readers, authors, and reviewers can find and read them. One additional resource for COPE members, should a situation of misconduct arise that is unique and not well-covered in existing resources, is that… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum: 13 November 2017: Self-Citation: where's the line?
…to include some of the questions related to self-citation by authors in scholarly publication. Questions for discussion: Where is the line between what’s appropriate in terms of self-citation, and what’s not? If an author did not cite any of their previous works, this could be considered to be an inappropriate deception, indicating… - News
In the news: August 2018 Digest
…like a reasonable additional step.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05386-5 How much editorial misconduct goes unreported?A COPE case of an editor requiring that an author add citations to a paper is the “hook” for this article’s discussion of citation coercion. A survey of… - News
In the news: January 2021
…about half the time. The authors argue that new techniques are necessary in the peer review process to identify these fake images. Open access Starting in January 2021, Springer Nature is offering German authors the ability to - Discussion documents
Handling competing interests
…decision-making, or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to a journal. The principles of conflicts of interest are shared by many journals and publishers, but their policies to address them vary. Examples of COIs: payment to authors; close relationship with an author or editor; patent applications for a device that is the subject of the research. Editors… - News
Reflections on the COPE North American Seminar 2019
…compress the ideas and the language of a book, which he has done and notified journal editors of the misconduct; however, ideas and the way in which they are expressed are the scholarly products in disciplines such as philosophy. Some authors use pseudonyms to write articles or commentary that promote one’s previously published work, making the work seem more important and enhancing citations. Pseudonyms…