Publication and research ethics related to geopolitical issues
…="https://www.stm-publishing.com/research-square-companys-position-on-the-crisis-in-ukraine/">Research Square Company's position on the crisis in Ukraine, 15 March 2022 Clarivate: Clarivate to cease all commercial activity in Russia, 12 March 2022 A BMJ editorial notes that it will continue to consider…- Case
An enquiry about arbitrating reviewers
Under certain circumstances, the editors of journal A use ‘arbitrating’ reviewers. These reviewers advise an editor where, for example, an editor has split reviewer reports or a rebuttal to a decision that was based on split reviewer reports. This reviewer has sight of the other reviewers’ reports as he/she both evaluates the manuscript and assists the editor, through their advice, to arrive at… - Case
Habitual plagiarist
Author F published a single case report (CR1) in my journal. A few months later, I received a letter from author G who claimed that the case published by author F was a verbatim copy of his case report published in another journal H. On comparison of the documents it was obvious that CR1 was an exact reproduction of the article of author G. More than 90% of the sentences overlapped in both arti… - Case
Review of a book written by an editor of a journal
Two scholars and professional colleagues, A and B, serve as co-editors of a peer-reviewed international journal. Editor A, who recently had a book published, has requested that editor B solicit a review of the book from a scholar in the field. Editor A would like this review to be published in the journal that they edit together. Editor B is concerned that this situation would put him in a situ… - Case
Department notification regarding sensitive topic
An essay was submitted to a specialty medical journal. In the essay, the author described an ethical dilemma—involving patient care—encountered while in medical school. The manuscript received favourable reviews, although the reviewers expressed concern about the author’s career if the essay was published. The editor called the author to discuss the ramifications of publication, and then the au… - Case
A case of duplicate publication
Ten years ago, the author published a paper on the same subject in his country’s specialty journal. The first report was short and the product of the author’s graduate work. The publication was in their country’s language. (Recently, the journal has been translating the abstracts of their previous publications into English, but the body of the text is still in their language.) Subsequently, t… - Case
Potential figure manipulation with corresponding author uncontactable
A reader contacted the journal to raise concerns about a paper containing a potentially manipulated figure. The editor-in-chief agreed with the assessment that the figure had been manipulated and attempted to contact the corresponding author, without response. Following further contact with the co-authors and institution, it was established that the corresponding author had retired after public… Text Recycling: Forum discussion topic March 2013
…Read the summary of the text recycling Forum discussion,held on 12 March 2013 ----- Self-- Guidelines
How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers
…class="resource-download-inline__container"> Document How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers PDF 64 KB - News
When the peer review process goes sideways
…text-decoration:underline">Case 12-12 illustrated the pitfalls of using only the suggested reviewers. In this case, after an unusual pattern of very positive and very fast reviews were noted for papers of a particular author, the editors asked the author to explain. The author admitted that the provided emails either were not legitimate and were under the author’s control or were those of colleagues who provided… - Seminars and webinars
COPE webinar 2018: Creating and implementing data research policies
… Presentation Data research policies PDF 12 MB … - Translated resources
Proceso de revisión por pares comprometido en artículos publicados: caso
…La revista publicó notas de retractación para todos los artículos que el autor A estuvo de acuerdo en retractar. La revista ha tomado nota de la sugerencia de repetir el proceso de revisión por pares para el resto de los artículos. La institución del autor A se puso en contacto con la revista y quiere conocer todos los detalles mientras investigan al autor A. Basado en el caso 12-12… - News
Data and reproducibility focus
…other disciplines, but physical sciences and social sciences have similar and relatively strong policies to enable data sharing. A summary of a discussion from a COPE Forum in 2016 explores some of the practical issues editors and publishers face in developing and… - Case
Duplication of data
It was brought to our attention that there is considerable overlap and duplication of data in two papers that a group of authors submitted and that were subsequently published in two different journals.The control groups are identical in the two papers although it is claimed that they were matched controls.The data in several columns in the tables are identical; one figure has been… - Case
Retraction of the first article in the case of duplicate publication
Earlier this year it came to our attention that a published article in our journal (journal A) had also been published in another journal (journal B). The article in journal A was published later than the article in journal B, so following COPE guidelines on duplicate publication, we contacted the authors for an explanation. Their response was to blame the editor of journal B for publishing the… - Case
Confidentiality breach by an associate editor
The authors of a manuscript sent an official complaint to our journal regarding a breach of confidentiality by an associate editor (AE). The authors had been informed by the supervisor of a reviewer of a manuscript. After submission of the review, the reviewer received a confidential email from AE asking whether the favourable recommendation made by the reviewer would have been different if the… United2Act launches action against paper mills
…on the identified areas. We are all committed to delivering real progress over the next 12 months and will be reporting on these actions regularly.” There are five key areas for working groups to plan action and execute: education and awareness, improve post-publication corrections, research paper mills, enable the development of trust markers, and continue to bring together the many voices…- Case
Late addition of co-authors
An article was submitted to our journal with two authors listed. Proofs were approved with these two authors listed. However, two months after publication the corresponding author claimed that the article had actually been submitted on the website with six authors. The journal considers the final list of authors to be those listed on the title page at the first submission step. The autho… - News
Standards in Authorship webinar summary
…familiar with CRediT, 44% had not used CRediT but would try it in future, 12% had already used CRediT and 2% had not used CRediT and would not use in future. The CRediT project encourages feedback here. Authorship issues remain one of the most common concerns for COPE members and COPE has created dedicated… - News
Reflections on the COPE North American Seminar 2019
…that have come to the COPE Forum. There were many highlights for me from this day, but here are a few of my Aha moments and insights (see the agenda for the day here). Karin Wulf,…