- Case
Handling undisclosed peer reviewer conflict
…are employed by this company) recommended that peer reviewer in the first place? … - Flowcharts
How to recognise potential manipulation of the peer review process
…="https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/recognising-peer-review-manipulation-cope-infographic.pdf" target="_blank">How to recognise potential manipulation of the peer review process PDF 316 KB Key points Peer reviewers may be suggested by: the Editor handling the manuscript;… - Guidelines
Managing the relationships between society owned journals, their society, and publishers
…Resources should be provided by the society to ensure a journal maintains transparent and ethical processes. Societies should be transparent in their process for selecting third party support for the journal, such as printers or advertising support. The journal website should clearly state its ethical practices for authors and reviewers. Management of the journal and ownership… - Event
COPE webinar: Standards in authorship
Read the summary of our first COPE webinar for information, shared discussion and practical advice on common authorship issues faced by COPE members.. We will be discussing the main issues that are brought to COPE for advice, ranging from what constitutes authorship to guidelines for authorship and… - News
In the news: January 2019 Digest
…midst of all this discussion of Plan S, a report has been published on the outcomes of a workshop held in February 2018, by ALLEA (European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities) on the ethical aspects of Open Access.https://www.allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2018… - News
COPE in 2023
…to be a regulatory body. As a membership organisation that is run by volunteers this cannot be what we do at COPE. Rather, our aim is educational and aimed at providing guidance and advice – not only to our members but, indirectly, to the wider community. Our goal is to raise standards and awareness of best practice via collaborative dialogue, providing an objective space… - Case
Problem with figures
…(3) The authors responded initially by sending higher resolution images saying: Please find the attached fig. X. At original magnification it is obvious that the problematic 2 panels are taken from different samples. We are happy to send the original pictures. (4) We asked one of our editorial board members who has relevant expertise in the area of science and in digital imaging to… - News
In the news: March 2018 Digest
…="_blank">https://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41073-018-0046-2 and the authors wrote a blog about their experiencehttp://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2018/02/27/research-integrity-training-by-stealth/ Peer review - News
COPE in 2023: Update
…name="top"> 1. We committed to working and collaborating with individuals and organisations across the ecosystem to try and improve the way that misconduct is detected and dealt with so that the research record can be protected and trusted. We strongly believe that only by working together can we raise awareness of these issues, promote high standards of ethical behaviour, and attempt to produce guidance… - Case
A lost author and a new hypothesis
…which B is cited as an author, again without his permission, is currently being held by the editor of a specialist journal pending the outcome of this particular case. All of the co-signatories and collaborators on the original grant application have been asked (with B’s permission) for their view on the allegations. A further complication is that although the grant awarding body has a procedure for… - Case
Sanitising a misleading statement
Author A published a paper in Journal X, which presented evidence of failure by another research group to declare a serious conflict of interest in a paper that had been published some years before in Journal Y. This conflict of interest centred around the undeclared involvement of a third party with a vested interest. Evidence for this was presented in the form of correspondence from the… - Case
Institutional investigation of authorship dispute
…investigated by the institution. They agreed we could contact the authors and institution. We did, and the claimant stated the authors threatened them. The submitting author said the claimant should not have been an author and the claimant agreed to this, and provided signed statements from the other removed authors agreeing to being removed. We contacted these removed authors and they each confirmed they… - Case
License for using a published scale
…scale, she was contacted by a person claiming that he was representing the scale's developer and asked for a retrospective license and license fee, and threatened that if the she did not apply for a retrospective license and pay the license fee, she may need to take legal responsibility and retract the published paper. He also said that if she does not pay the fee, then the team’s lawyer would contact… - Case
Request for removal for one author but a coauthor cannot be reached
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. In general, changes to a manuscript’s list of authors… - News
Understanding your needs: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
…href="https://publicationethics.org/AHSS-Study">results of the survey. One of the priorities identified in COPE’s strategic plan was to increase diversity: culturally, geographically and by discipline. Although COPE provides publishing ethics guidance that spans all subject disciplines, we recognise that our resources may need to be enhanced in specific… - Case
Duplicate submission of a paper
…a substantial number of submissions. Papers may go in the first instance to be read by anyone of a number of editors, so there is a strong possibility that related papers like this will go to different editors and will get a long way down the line of assessment before someone realises that there is major overlap between them. It happened in this case that both papers went to the same editor, but usually this… - Case
Redundant publication
_ Why not send both papers to an independent reviewer? _ The excuse given by the authors is inadequate; not disclosing the previous publication is misleading. _ When the journals publish a notice of duplication, publish the authors’ reply alongside. _ Only one of the papers needs to be withdrawn—the paper with the later publication date, or the one that is incomplete. _ It’s rather heavy… - Case
Inadequately supervised research?
Neither the lead author nor one of the supervisors accepted that there was any problem with the research. The case was referred to the journal’s ethics committee. All the authors denied there was a problem with the research. The supervisor expressed concern that (1) the editorial committee felt it had a remit to question the adequacy of the PhD supervision; (2) that by writing directly to… - Case
Duplicate submission to two journals and previous duplicate publication uncovered
An identical paper was submitted simultaneously to two journals. Both editors had received a signed statement from the authors declaring that their paper had not been submitted elsewhere. Duplicate submission became evident only when the associate editor of one of the journals was sent the paper to review by the editor of the other journal. The author also cited two papers within this… - Case
Attempts to draw attention to potential duplicate publication
- Good practice would be for all journals involved to publish a notice of duplicate publication. - The journal editors’ actions were inadequate. The options were: (a) seek to publish the story of the duplicate publication—this is difficult as it is effectively trial by media; (b) contact the owners of the journals; (c) go directly to the authors’ institutions. - Draw the journal editors and…