- 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… - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around book publishing
…volume?). Should proposal review count as peer review? Does selected chapter review count as peer review? Do we need to develop a taxonomy of book publishing practices and parallel advice on publishing ethics in books? Where do we go from here? Back to top Key differences between books and journals Some key differences between books… - Case
Unusually frequent submission of articles by a single author
…letters. In the remaining one he is a co-author. The articles are on very diverse subjects. This set us thinking that, apart from his clinical work and studies, how he had time to conduct research, analyse the results and write the articles. The journal first wrote to Mr X for the necessary justification. He responded promptly, “I am one of the best researchers of my country and have… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Trustworthy AI for the future of publishing
…trustworthy AI: respect for human autonomy prevention of harm fairness explicability The Group has seven key requirements to guide the realisation and application of trustworthy AI, which call for an active awareness of human agency, technical robustness and safety, privacy and data governance, transparency, diversity and non-discriminatory practices, societal… - News
Case discussion: critiques after publication
…institution to investigate. Case Discussion This COPE Forum case is categorised under two COPE Core Practices: Allegations of misconduct: “Journals should have a clearly described process for handling allegations, however they are brought to the journal's or publisher’s attention. Journals must take seriously allegations of… - Case
Handling self-admissions of fraud
In November 2014, the first author of a decade old paper in our journal and a 15-year-old paper from another journal informed us that he faked the data in two figure panels in the paper in our journal and one figure panel in the paper in the other journal. The main gist of the manipulation was loading unequal amounts or delayed loading of gel lanes. Self-admission of data falsification i… - Case
Request for a retraction of a retraction
…also ruled that it was wrong for the main author to have been dismissed (I understand that he got his job back). One court ruled that signing other people’s signatures was “according to ongoing practice”, an act that caused “no harm”. One court ruled that “there is no regulation that requires the permission of an ethical board”. One court ruled that the fact that not all the case files could… - Forum discussion topics
Editing of reviewer comments
…the reviewer first, to work with them and see if they can change their review to something more appropriate. If the reviewer is not willing to do so, the editor might explain to them why their review is not appropriate and acceptable practice. If a journal has a policy, it is then easy to reach out to reviewers and explain why their comments are problematic. Reviewers may not always be aware that… - Forum discussion topics
Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills”
…or 20 manuscripts that seem very similar in structure and title, submitted on the same day or within a few days. The documents properties might show that the revision number of the manuscript is very high. Also, the initials of the last person who made changes to the document may not match any of the authors. These issues do not confirm that this is a paper mill article but could raise suspicions… COPE Privacy notice
…will always refer you to their privacy policies, which will detail how they will process your data. If you wish to exercise your rights, please contact COPE, who is the data controller. For online events where you do not wish to disclose your identity to other attendees, we recommend that you familiarise yourself with the platform and their privacy notice, to understand how you can best…- News
In the news: September 2018 Digest
…arial,<br /> #PeerReviewWeek18<br /> <br /><a data-cke-saved-href=" submit="" successful="" target="_blank" that="" the="" they="" to="" twitter="" twitter.com="" ty="" uptake="" versus="" view="" when="" with="">Measuring openness: is the best way of incentivising open scholarship to measure it? - News
In the news: February Digest
…climate is seen differently by academics with different ranks and fields. The authors conclude that leaders in the humanities and social sciences should set fairer expectations and that senior scientist should socialize junior researchers into research integrity practices and that a climate that does not tolerate suspicion among colleagues should be developed.