- Case
Correction, retraction, or expression of concern?
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. The feedback received from PubMed Central should be… - Case
Complaint over protocol used in special issue
We launched a Special Issue (SI) focusing on the application of a particular clinical protocol, with guest editors that have an extensive clinical history in applying this protocol. This specific protocol is currently used and promoted by a small subset of practitioners, with limited wider recognition. The SI concluded with a substantial number of published articles, including several case repo… Projects Funded
…Doug Altman, Dr Iveta Simera, Dr David Moher, Dr John Hoey and Dr Kenneth F. Schulz. The EQUATOR Network is an international initiative set up to advance high quality reporting of health research studies; it promotes good reporting practices including the wider implementation of reporting guidelines. January 2010 Prevalence and attitudes…- Case
Unethical withdrawal of a paper
…future and wanted to verify with them that his intended action—a ban for double submission—was suitable. On returning from meeting with the publishers, Editor A discovered that the paper had never been withdrawn from consideration and the review process was now complete (entire review process 28 days). The reviewer comments warranted rejection. Editor A sent a rejection letter to Authors A and… - Case
Meta-analysis: submission of unreliable findings
A meta-analysis was conducted of about 1000 patients included in a number of small trials of a drug for emergency management administered by route X compared with route Y. The report concluded that administration by route X improves short term survival. Chronology The paper was submitted to our journal in September 2011 and after peer review was retur… - Case
Authorship dispute
A manuscript was published by journal X and submitted by author A (last author). Author B claims that fraud occurred in relation to authorship for the following reasons. (1) Author A did not take part in producing the data for the paper and has never been a co-author on any version of the manuscript.(2) A paper with very similar content ,which was part of the PhD thesis of author C… - Case
Possible violation of the Helsinki Declaration on Scientific Research with Humans
A manuscript underwent peer review and the resulting reviewer comments raised grave concerns about the ethical legitimacy of the study.The reviewer: questioned the authors’ impartiality, suggesting that there was an undeclared conflict of interest; raised serious concerns about the extent to which participants gave informed consent; strongly doubted that the… - Case
Undisclosed conflict of interest
…read “Conflicts of interest: None declared”, because “attending events” is not normally something that would be considered a COI. The authors approved the galleys and did not object to these copyediting changes. Shortly after publication, we received a 12-page letter from a journalist, detailing extensive undisclosed COIs of the authors. The letter was also addressed to another journal which… The COPE Case Taxonomy
…the COPE European Seminar 2014)Download presentation [PDF 552kB] | Watch presentation [14:19] Publication Ethics: 16 years of COPE — Irene Hames, Charon A Pierson, Natalie E Ridgeway and Virginia Barbour(Presented at the 7th International…- Case
Author refuses to comply with editorial review prior to production and publication
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. The editor has the right to edit, for journal style,… - Case
Boundaries of duplicate submission
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. It is certainly unprofessional behaviour on the part of… - Case
Post-publication correction because of lack of consent
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. We would suggest first consulting the legal department… - Case
Image manipulation case
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. The fact the authors have readily admitted their errors… - Case
Plagiarism case
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. COPE Council noted that plagiarism is not a black and… - Case
Citing a retracted paper
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. There are a number of issues here. Firstly, the authors… - Case
Should we allow pseudonymous authorship?
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. COPE Council was unanimous in their feeling that the… Equal Opportunities Policy
…href="https://publicationethics.org/cope-policies">All COPE policies Page history First published: 31 December 2022 Back to top…- Case
Case histories and post publication debate
…carefully as it can be distressing for the patient and the patient’s family. COPE has a discussion document on Best Practice for Consent for Publishing Medical Case Reports. What patients can expect when they give consent will be included in the… - Case
Authorship issue
The editors of a scientific journal were sent a letter of complaint from Drs A and B who noticed that a paper had been published online ahead of the print edition authored by Dr C. Their primary complaint was that they were not included in the authorship and should have been. Other points made in their (rather confusing letters) were that: they had contributed to the paper in the sense t…