- Case
Data manipulation and institute’s internal review
…explained that ‘cleaning’ spectra to remove impurity peaks was not a practice that was carried out by their research group, and they did not believe that it had occurred in this instance. However, the researcher who had carried out the analysis had now left the group and the original data files where no longer available. As a comparison with the original data files could not be made, the journal… - Case
Should this paper be retracted?
Journal Y received an original article for review, which was subsequently published online. The editorial office was then contacted by Professor Y, not included in the coauthors’ list, who referred to research abuse in the article and requested its retraction. In particular, Professor Y presented a careful evaluation of the article available online, finding that more than half of… - Case
An ambiguous plagiarism case
A paper was published in journal A. The plagiarism check tool did not show any similarity during the peer review process. Some time after publication of the paper, the editor-in-chief was contacted by an author who had published a paper in journal B. They claimed that the paper published in journal A was plagiarised from their MSc research project thesis and asked journal A to ret… - Case
Authorship issue
…approval of the manuscript version to be published. The editors of the journal told the authors that they would adopt the following procedures in resolving this issue: (1) Given the guidelines above, the editors hoped that the authors might reach an agreement among themselves as to the appropriateness of co-authorship for Drs A and B. Such an agreement would be the best option for… - Case
Author requests for certain experts not to be included in the editorial process
…the expert in the field. If an editor does contact non-preferred reviewers, other reviewers are also included. A non-preferred individual should not handle a paper as editor. The Forum noted that these types of situations can end badly if the author has certain expectations. Hence a suggestion was to inform the author that the journal will do their best to accommodate his requests, the… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: Issues related to papers submitted to “discussion” journals
…outlined on the journal homepage, discussion papers published in XXXD remain permanently archived, citable, and publicly accessible. Normally, they cannot be withdrawn after publication. This approach has been chosen for a number of practical and conceptual reasons, and it has proven to be beneficial for scientific communication and quality assurance as explained above and in more detail elsewhere.…- Case
Two cases of double submission
…course of action might depend on their seniority and therefore the degree to which they ought to have known better. A simple email setting out that this type of conduct is considered unacceptable practice might do if they are junior authors. If they are more senior authors or if the editor feels that this was blatant behaviour on the part of the authors then it might be additionally… - Case
Dispute arising from peer review of a rejected comment and published correction
…nothing at all. The groups have been informed of this, and that the journal remains amenable to publishing a statement if the two parties are able to agree a form of words between themselves. Nevertheless, the publisher regularly reviews its working practices and editorial policies, and this case has contributed to a change of the policies enacted by the publisher to reduce the likelihood of… - Case
Request to remove an author post-publication
A paper was submitted to a journal by authors A and B. The paper was accepted and then published in the journal. Several months after final publication, author A contacted the journal asking for their name and their biography to be removed from the article. Author A stated that they wished to distance themselves from the research. Author B also contacted the journal separately to… - Case
Questionable authorship information
…the corrected proofs it is stated that this author only made critical revisions to it. This suggests that they do not meet the criteria to qualify as an author outlined by EMWA, which states that a writer must ‘have made a substantial contribution to the analysis or interpretation of the data and feel able to take public responsibility for their research. In practice this means that professional… Dealing with editor misconduct
…it neglects the responsibility of authors. If published in an author's name, the author is ultimately for what it says; the editor only monitors the process, and this case illustrates why the editor can't interfere with judgments made by the author. The responsibilities of authorship are outlined in the Guidelines on Good Publication Practice…Common editorial dilemmas: hypothetical cases
…this was not research, just an extension of clinical practice. The nub of the issue was the consent form, which the journal requested, but on receipt found it to be "hopelessly inadequate." For this reason, the ethics committee chairman was criticised by the investigation. This case took three years because the NHS had reorganised in the interim, and ethics…- Case
Unethical withdrawal of a paper
…author is allowed to present his case. Otherwise sanctions can be seen to be unfair and could provoke litigation. All agreed that the best sanction is to decline publication of the paper. If the editor feels he would like to take it further, then he could contact the author’s institution and request an investigation.… - News
In the news: May Digest
…recent release of A Faster Path to an Open Future, in response to Plan S. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/05/08/another-response-to-coalition-s/ Peer review A recent preprint on BioArxiv looking at the practice of ECRs ghostwriting peer… - News
Guest editorial: the challenge of AI chatbots for journal editors
…href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/technology/google-bard-ai-chatbot.html">Google is already engaged in this process. Academic publishers and editors, with the help of bodies such as COPE, need to start a big conversation about how we are going to react to the use of chatbots…SOON! Roger Watson, Editor-in-Chief, Nurse Education in Practice Gregor Štiglic, Associate Editor, AI in Medicine Conflict of interest: the authors declare… - Case
Authorship issue related to misleading action of one author
Our journal received a manuscript which was a report of an evaluation and enhancement of an online clinical decision support system (CDS) for a specific population at risk of a disease. The online CDS had been developed by a national agency with a mission to support health promotion and disease prevention activities. Evaluation of the CDS was supported through contracts and sub-contracts. The f… - Case
Disputed change in authorship
…The article was published accordingly. Shortly after publication, author D contacted the editor accusing the journal of unethical practices. Author D also said that the Dean who had provided the letter from the ASRB had some personal differences with author D and that this influenced their actions. Author D sent their grievances in writing, asking the journal to retract the article as… - Flowcharts
All Flowcharts
…COPE Flowcharts COPE flowcharts offer a step by step process, for practical use on handling different aspects of publication ethics issues. Allegations of misconduct Reviewer suspected to have appropriated an author’s ideas or data… - News
New COPE members Jan-March 2019
…ethics outlined in the Core Practices. Journals Accounting and Financial Control (Business Perspectives) ACS Materials Letters (American Chemical Society) - News
In the news: May 2021
…target="_blank">Joint Position Statement on medical publications, preprints and peer review. They make a number of recommendations with the aim of providing “practical and implementable suggestions to uphold data integrity and quality, and the transparency of medical publications”. A key recommendation concerns the citation of preprints, which they suggest should not be used as references in any medical…