- News
Announcement of COPE Council elections
…attend. Annual seminars are held in a number of locations worldwide and it is hoped that Council Members will attend one of these. COPE has subcommittees, and Council Members will also be expected to be involved in other COPE related tasks, which are undertaken electronically. It is anticipated that the work of Council Members should amount to about 1–2 days per month, in addition to attendance at… - News
In the news: December 2018 Digest
…="http://retractionwatch.com/2018/11/28/majority-of-journals-editorial-board-resigns-after-publishers-handling-of-letter-about-move-to-open-access/" target="_blank">editorial. A Corrigendum was issued after legal threats by copyright holders of a mobile app who demanded new acknowledgements, references and warnings to be added. Interestingly, the… Seminars
Listed below are details of programmes and presentations from previous seminars. Reports from some older presentations can be found in the Annual Reports . Seminars 2015 Presentations at COPE European Seminar and Workshop (- Case
Plagiarism by a possible predatory journal
An article published in a journal in 2023 appears to have been plagiarised in a possible predatory journal but the publishers are unable to get a response from the predatory journal or affiliated Institute. The article (Article A) was submitted to Journal X in 2022 and published early in 2023. The authors reached out to the Journal after finding that another article dated from 2021… - Case
Data anonymity
…institutional review board who said it was exempt. The cohort was 2500 patients, all with one syndrome, in one hospital. The paper contains two tables that display data from 12 patients: sex, age, presenting symptom, as well as laboratory parameters and outcome. Question(s) for the COPE Forum• Are these patients identifiable?• If we remove, say, age and sex, would that be… - News
Case Discussion: Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute
…case is labeled on the cases website (https://publicationethics.org/case/inconclusive-institutional-investigat...) as relating to core practice of “Authorship and contributorship” and “Post-publication discussions and corrections.” A closely related core practice is “Journal management.” All… - News
In the news: December 2020
…href="http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/11/02/there-is-no-truth-there-is-only-workflow/" target="_blank">importance of fact checking in scholarly publishing - books and journal articles - as well as in journalism. She notes that the "absolute truth may be elusive" given that the state of knowledge is consistently evolving but that we are obligated to reveal and refine the processes we use to work towards knowledge. Peer review Shawna Williams explored the idea… - News
In the news: March 2021
…and required practice, this is less common in non-clinical fields. The author promotes the process and lists available registries (such as preclinicaltrials.eu, Open Science Framework Registration, As Predicted Platform,… - News
In the news: September 2021
…a multiracial group of industry professionals to "help individuals at all levels within scholarly publishing organizations implement inclusive policies, procedures and norms". Research integrity STM Working Group on image alterations and duplications has developed draft Submitting a guest editorial or opinion piece to COPE
…personal views and why. Any COPE Member can submit a proposal for a guest editorial or opinion piece, and we will also commission content from members, non members and other organisations. When submitting a proposal, write a brief outline of what your article will cover. Please submit your proposal to…- Case
Possible peer review manipulation
The Forum advised that the editor might wish to look at the COPE flowchart on Peer review manipulation suspected during the peer review process, and other COPE - News
In the news: July 2021
…linking research that successfully, or unsuccessfully, attempts to reproduce the research and build collective data on replication work. Open Science advocates push for pre-registration of research methodology as well and constantly monitor for retractions. Research misconduct Dr. Elisabeth Bik - News
COPE Forum 3 February: Register & agenda
…discussed at the start of the next COPE Forum on Friday 3 February. You can leave comments whether or not you're planning on joining the meeting. Comment on disclosed conflicts of interest Forum agenda and materials Download the agenda and materials for the COPE Forum meeting Friday 3 February 2017… - News
Complaints and Appeals focus
COPE’s core practice # 3 recommends that: “Journals should have a clearly described process for handling complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher.” Such complaints can take many forms (there are 133 cases in the COPE case database), some fairly… - News
Exploring publication ethics in the arts, humanities, and social sciences: Initial research findings
…Key Research Findings In early 2019, COPE, working in partnership with Routledge (Taylor & Francis group), conducted an international survey of academic journal editors in the arts, humanities, and social sciences (AHSS), exploring the publication ethics issues specific to these… - Case
Wrong article abstract published: corrigendum or retraction and republication?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance. A retraction seems unnecessary here as a mistake was… - Seminars and webinars
Ethical concerns in research on urbanisation: perspectives from the Global South
…href="https://publicationethics.org/events/cope-seminar-2023">Publication Integrity Week 2023. - Guidelines
Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct
…possible misconduct Document - Case
Retracting a 'Just Accepted' article
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance. If the article is available in any form, then it should… - News
COPE response to Science paper submission of fake paper, by Virginia Barbour, on behalf of COPE council
…href="http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1354" rel="nofollow">earlier discussion on this issue, journals such as this are the publishing equivalent of Nigerian banking scams. Second, that some of these questionable journals have managed to get themselves onto the lists of respected industry association bodies - including COPE. At COPE, some may have been included because they were in the lists of journals submitted by reputable…