- Guidelines
Guidance for Editors: research, audit and service evaluations
…class="resource-download-inline__container"> Document Guidance for Editors: research, audit and service evaluations PDF 107… - Case
Wrong version of article published. Should we retract?
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. We would suggest that the journal replace the PDF with… - Case
Misattributed authorship and unauthorized use of data
…author B and author C (both PhD students under the director's supervision) were listed as coauthors without their knowledge. Additionally, he claimed that author D (author A's supervisor at his primary affiliation) was not in any way involved in the research described in the article and should be removed from the authors list. The director stated that he wishes for the article to be withdrawn. - Case
Deceased author and author delaying publication
…the journal proceed? What issues are there with publishing an article when one of the authors of the accepted manuscript (who has not signed the copyright) has died? Can the article be published without sign off from both authors? … - Case
Reviewer anonymity in post publication peer review
…href="https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines">COPE's retraction guidelines an expression of concern may be more appropriate. 'Journal editors should consider issuing an expression of concern if: they receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors...' If the methodology is laid out clearly and accurately, then it is part of scholarly debate; retraction should not be a way of settling debate, whether on… - Case
Plagiarism versus questionable research writing practice
…reduces the number of ways that the same things can be said; and common references in a very specialist area. When these areas of commonality are taken out, it was suggested, the two papers had very few similarities. The expert suggested that one of the reasons that the comparison of Dr A’s paper with Dr B’s paper was higher than the comparison of Dr B’s paper with Dr A’s (37% vs 28%) was probably that… - Case
Unhelpful institution report
…involved. A new investigation was started; this investigation took many months. The report said there was insufficient justification to take the matter to formal assessment and the institution was not minded to investigate further. We remain concerned. The second investigation asked the authors to provide some data for re-analysis: that came out close enough for the committee to be reassured.… - Case
A case of scientific misconduct?
…also differences in the number and timing of invasive procedures being used to assess outcomes in the study, and there seemed to be more of these in the study report than in the protocol. We went back to the authors to say we were very concerned about this and would need their explanation. If they weren't able to provide an explanation then we would alert their ethics committee. The… - News
COPE Digest: Publication Ethics in Practice. February 2014 (Vol. 2, Issue 2)
The February issue of COPE Digest has been published on the COPE website. Read it here.… - Event
14th Annual IAVE Meeting
Held at Swissotel in Chicago in conjunction with the 2017 International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication. The themes of this year's meeting are peer review and predatory journals/publishers. Read more… - Case
What happens when there is no local ethics committee?
Can we verify that there is no ethics committee at this University? Taiwan does have ethics committees and the authors should know that they need such approval. It must be made clear to investigators that their work will not be published without ethics committee approval. The editors should contact the authors and tell them that their paper cannot be considered for publication.… Membership subscription fees
…financial hardship may apply to COPE Council for reduced membership subscription fees. Notes Prices in UK Sterling, no VAT is charged for membership. All payments must be made by electronic transfer. Cheques are not valid. Related pages- Case
Potential plagiarism
In 2003, Journal A published an original article. In 2006, the editor received a complaint of plagiarism relating to a case report published by Journal B in 2000. The introduction of both articles had one identical paragraph and some paragraphs in the discussion were similar. The article published by Journal A did not reference Journal B, despite: (a) being easy to find on… - Case
Multiple failure to declare a relevant conflict of interest
…indicating to the authors that a correction to the published article with the correct CoI declaration will be necessary. Journal Y is also aware that another article by this group was published in journal Z six months earlier and did not reveal the CoI. Journal Z has a stated policy on declaring CoIs that we strongly suspect was in place when this article was submitted. Journal Y is intending to… - News
Vacancies on COPE Trustee Board
…Trustee Board and Council are comprised of a number of subcommittees, and a Trustee may be asked to lead or contribute to at least one of these, as appropriate, either actively in the case of a Trustee Board subcommittee or in an ex-officio capacity in the case of a Council subcommittee. It is anticipated that the work of Trustees amounts… - News
A Short Guide to Ethical Editing for New Editors 2011
The short guide to ethical editing was updated in 2019. COPE Council member, Margaret Rees, has written a guide to ethical editing for new editors. Becoming an editor of a journal is an exciting but daunting task especially if you are working alone without day to day contact with… - News
COPE Forum: 9 September 2015
…486kb). If you wish to attend, please contact the administrator here. For more on the Forum Discussion Topic 'Who "owns" peer reviews?', click here.… - News
Submit your poster for the Asia Pacific Seminar
In a new venture for COPE, we welcome you to submit your publication ethics work for presentation as a poster at COPE’s first Asia-Pacific Seminar in Australia. The topics considered will be publication ethics-oriented research or information about ethical policies, techniques, collaborations, and initiatives that COPE members and others attending the COPE seminar will be interested in… - News
COPE and ALPSP collaborate on new publication ethics course
ALPSP are hosting a new course, developed in collaboration with COPE, on 'Publication Ethics: Fraud and Misconduct'. The course will be held on Monday, 4 March 2013, and will be led by ex-COPE Chair, Liz Wager, and Donna Neill, of John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Additionally, ALPSP are able to offer all COPE members its discounted ALPSP member rate for the course.… - Event
Tokyo University & Kyoto Pharmaceutical University
COPE council member Tracey Bretag will give two presentations on academic and research integrity in Japan, during which Tracey will speak about COPE guidance. These will be at Tokyo University on 'Academic integrity - why is it so important?' with an audience of postgraduate global and community health students. This will be followed…