- News
Letter from the COPE Chair: November 2020
…saw a team at Texas Tech University launch the first phase of the STEM Training in Ethics of Publication Practices (STEPP) programme; a 3 year project, supported by the National Science Foundation, to research and develop training on the topic of predatory publishing. Our colleagues at the - Case
Potential duplicate publication
…different readerships on “x” screening must surely be beneficial if the basic messages reach more readers. ” 5. Finally, they stated that “We are more than aware of the ethical considerations, as several of our members have sat on LREC and national agency ethics committees. ” The editors are concerned that the duplicate publication will skew data on the screening of x condition and that there is now… - Case
Author did not see reviews or revisions to the manuscript and did not give approval for publication
Approximately 1 year after publication of an article, we received a letter from one of the authors saying that they had not seen the reviews of the paper, the revisions of the paper or approved the final manuscript for publication. This was subsequently confirmed by the other authors who said that contact with the complainant had “broken down” and that the corresponding author had indicated tha… - Case
Institution refuses to investigate scientific issues
…stated that they would have raised this issue regardless of whether the tool was available. They explained their expectation and experience that institutions initiate inquiries into potential ethics cases raised by journals and comment specifically on whether the conclusions are still sound. The publisher asked again that the committee investigate the scientific issues raised about this paper; the… - Case
Questionable authorship information
…questionable changes to authorship. But the editor could perhaps ensure that one or more of the authors should be acknowledged rather than given full authorship as per the guidelines highlighted above. Council agree that the editorial process seems to have been conducted fairly and ethically, and don't see a reason to override the peer review process. The editor should have editorial independence to… - Translated resources
El editor y los revisores solicitan que se cite su trabajo: caso
…revista también podría considerar formar a los revisores y recordarles sus responsabilidades. El editor podría compartir las Guías COPE para revisores pares Seguimiento La revista está trabajando en la implementación de pasos adicionales en el proceso de envío de… - News
In the news: December 2018 Digest
…-trials-run-by-UK-universities-are-missing-results-on-registries" target="_blank">Rankings: Clinical trial registration in UK Confusing author instructions Nature Communications reports that survey respondents, mostly from non-western nations, find that author instructions in journals are relatively opaque and confusing. The survey also revealed differences in ideas about publication ethics, such as plagiarism, authorship, and duplicate submissions. Nature… - News
Case discussion: Suspected plagiarism
…constitutes plagiarism and redundant/overlapping publication should be specified.” Issues around plagiarism often include both ethical considerations (misappropriation of another’s work, undisclosed reuse of content) and legal considerations (violation of another’s copyright or other proprietary right). With respect to ethical considerations, often the editor’s actions may be guided by questions of… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
…SELF-CITATION—WHERE'S THE LINE? A recent post on Scholarly Kitchen raised some interesting points about the ethics surrounding citation, and specifically self-citation. Previously, COPE has discussed related issues surrounding- News
Letter from the COPE Chair: July 2020
C4DISC Dear Readers, I would like to begin by welcoming our newest Trustee, Dr Suzanne Farley. Suzanne brings a wealth of experience in publication ethics and we are particularly interested in her knowledge with respect to open access. Welcome, Suzanne. We all look forward to working with… History and context of the COPE guidelines
…COPE members were expected to adhere. The Best Practice Guidelines were more aspirational, and were developed in response to requests from editors for guidance about a wide range of increasingly complex ethical issues. Liz Wager prepared the first draft of the Best Practice Guidelines. They were developed following discussion with COPE Council, presented for discussion at the COPE Seminar in March…- Case
Is it a breach of confidentiality to send letters to the editor to criticised authors for comment?
…ensure research articles conform to ethical guidelines”. Yet, editors enjoy an (almost) absolute power and are barely accountable. I describe here how a Letter to the Editor submitted by myself to a COPE member journal was rejected only after it was forwarded by the editor to the concerned authors purportedly to get a reply. In that letter, I pointed out the omission of a relevant reference… - Case
Deception in submitting manuscript for publication
…However, I wonder what I can do with a manuscript that has been submitted under these circumstances. What is the best ethical course of action?… - Discussion documents
Citation manipulation
…Citation manipulation is a problem when references do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article, and are included solely to increase citations. Any party which includes or requests to add citations where the motivations are merely self-promotional violates publication ethics. Penalties for citation manipulation may include removal of editors from editorial… - Case
Authorship dispute over image
A journal published an article on a drug. They also accepted a letter questioning the method used for determination of particle size in the study. The author of the original article claimed that the image used in the letter was theirs and asked that the letter not be published. It appears that the two authors used to collaborate. The journal was unable to verify who produced the image… - Case
Sanctions for citation cartels?
…concern on all affected articles have been issued but can anything more impactful be done? The publisher has reported the concerns to the ethics/integrity offices of the institutions concerned and are no longer working with the editorial teams implicated. Question for COPE Council Would retraction of these articles be appropriate in this case? The publisher suspects… - Case
Re-publication of peer reviewed articles as translations
Journal A is planning on publishing translations of some of their articles, either in the publisher's national journal or in a web publication as popularized versions. Both are diamond open access journals which are indexed by DOAJ. One publishes in English, the other in two other languages. Questions for COPE Council What would be good ethical practice for… - Case
Simultaneous publication
About a month after our journal (Journal A) published a paper (Paper X), the journal received emails from readers that Paper X was very similar to a paper (Paper Y) that had just been published by another journal (Journal B). Some of these emails were sent to both journal offices. Paper X was submitted to Journal A a few days before Paper Y was submitted to Journal B and Paper X wa… - Case
Coauthor fails to respond to request to confirm coauthorship
…According to the corresponding author, the coauthor was fired from their institution (which is in a different country than the journal) for ethical lapses, and was now extremely upset and was suing the institution. The corresponding author believed that the coauthor was deliberately ignoring the confirmation requests in order to punish the corresponding author. Although in general we believe that… - Case
Authorship issue related to misleading action of one author
…lied regarding eliciting input and obtaining permission from the national agency to submit and publish the manuscript in our journal. Further, the second author had been fired from his job for “ethical transgressions,” and was now doing work completely unrelated to his previous job for the sub-contractor. She believed he had contributed little to the original paper. The first author has been dealing…