- Case
Pre-publication in a discussion paper series
A submission in the economics field to an interdisciplinary social science journal was accepted, following full external review. Subsequently, the publisher wrote to the author stating that during editorial checks, it had come to their attention that a full manuscript of a paper with the same name was available in a discussion paper series and kindly asked that this version be removed from the… - Case
Unethical withdrawal after acceptance to maximize the 'impact factor'?
We are a publisher with a portfolio of about 25 journals, with journal X being the flagship journal. Journal X has a high impact factor. We also publish a range of other, newer journals, some of which are ranked highly but most have no impact factor. An author submitted a manuscript to journal Y where it underwent peer review and was accepted after revisions. After acceptance, the autho… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
…it is worth noting that correcting the record in this way should be regarded as a positive step by a journal. Clarification of policy COPE’s Code of Conduct item 17 clearly states that “Editors should have systems for managing their own conflicts of interest as well as those of their staff, authors, reviewers…- News
In the news: November 2018 Digest
…findings. COPE Council member Deborah Kahn Read November Digest: Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections… - Case
Self-plagiarism of review article
A reader flagged up that a review article originally published in a journal X in April 2003 had subsequently appeared with a few minor additions and deletions in journal Y (our journal) in July 2004 and then in journal Z (of which the author is an editor) in September 2006. The authors on the paper are all from the same institute although with some minor differences between the publications: jo… - Case
Data manipulation and institute’s internal review
A journal received an enquiry from a reader stating that they had found some discrepancies in the spectra published in the electronic supporting information for a published paper. They suggested that the discrepancies would be consistent with the spectra being manually ‘cleaned’. If this were true, the characterisation and purity of the compounds reported in the paper would be called into quest… - Case
Duplicate submission or self plagiarism. Is the author to blame?
An article was submitted to Journal A for publication. According to the journal’s policy, the article was scanned using anti-plagiarism detection software, which gave a 17% similarity result. As the journal allows up to 20% similarity, the article was sent for peer review to two reviewers. One of the reviewers noted that the article had been published in a similar form in a conference… - News
Case Discussion: Editor and reviewers requiring authors to cite their own work
…discussion document which will be ready, on our website, early this year. Nancy Chescheir on behalf of the COPE Education Subcommittee Read January 2019 COPE Digest newsletter and use the COPE… COPE webinar: Understanding text recycling
…Understanding text recycling Friday 7 August 2020, 16:00-17:15pm (BST) Registration is now closed for this event COPE is hosting a webinar on text recycling when we will hear the latest findings from the members of the Text Recycling Research Project since- News
In the news: October 2020
…indicated that the Chinese scientific publishing industry will strive to publish more quality and influential English language scholarly journals and enhance global cooperation in upholding academic integrity and open science, in a bid to ensure a healthy Chinese ecosystem for basic research and assessment of… - Case
Two cases of double submission
Journal A is dealing with two separate cases of double submission: Case 1: Manuscript X was submitted to the journal. Two rounds of revision were suggested by the editor in charge, following comments by the referee, and an amended version was submitted. Following routine plagiarism detection checking, the editorial team found that a substantial part of the manuscript was similar to artic… - Case
Requesting authorship after publication
Our journal was contacted by an individual, Dr H, who had recently seen a published article and was surprised that he was not listed as an author because it utilised samples from a database that he established. (The article was published online in November 2014 and in print in February 2015.) He stated that the cohort has spawned many projects, but he was not involved in the “specialist area” i… - Case
Lead author of a research paper disagrees with content of a linked editorial
The author of an accepted research paper (that showed some benefits for a controversial treatment) contacted the journal shortly prior to publication of the paper. It is the policy of our journal not to share commissioned editorials with authors ahead of time. This author had, however, received a copy of the journal press release in preparation for a press briefing. The press release quoted sta… - Case
Reviewer anonymity in post publication peer review
A journal with an open peer review process (names and reports published alongside articles) accepted an article after assessment by three peer reviewers. Two reviewers were positive and the third reviewer raised some concerns about the methodology. A revised version of the manuscript was published alongside the three peer reviewer reports and the authors’ response After publicatio… - Case
Dispute over submitted comment and the right to be forgotten
Some time after publishing a paper, a journal received a comment highlighting serious issues with the methods reported, and claiming that the conclusions could not be trusted. The comment was 13 pages long and rather technical in nature, so it was peer reviewed. The journal contacted the authors to respond to the comment but they replied that they wished instead to completely rem… - Case
Using the name of a scientific society inappropriately
A journal published an article about clinical recommendations for a condition that supposedly was the result of a consensus between two scientific societies of different medical specialties. The article underwent peer review and no problems were identified at that stage. However, about one month after publication the journal was contacted by one of the scientific societies raising concerns that… Common ethical and editorial dilemmas of author misconduct: how should we respond?
…0 2001 39 30 9 0 2002 18 14 4 0 2003 22 15 5 2 2004 25* 17 7 1 Total 212 163…- Case
Misattributed authorship and unauthorized use of data
The director of a research laboratory contacted our journal regarding an article published earlier this year. The director claimed that the documents and data used in the article were collected at his research laboratory and used by author A without his knowledge and permission. At the time, author A was a visiting scholar at the director's laboratory. The director also claimed that auth… - News
Case Discussion: Ethics of non-active management of a control group
…Case summary Case 17-21 An article was submitted involving over 200 pregnant patients with a systemic illness (from 2010 to 2015) who were recruited and assigned to a control group or an active intervention group (of their systemic illness). The control group received routine antenatal… - News
In the news: June 2021
…misbehaviours. This article describes the work being carried out by the Centre for Journalology, which researches, teaches and performs outreach on metascience, the use of scientific techniques to study the research process itself. Intellectual Property A