- News
Letter from the COPE Chair: December 2019
…manner. This year, COPE closes its pilot project with six universities and research institutes. We are now ready to develop a next step of implementation. In September 2019, COPE partnered our European Seminar with our biannual face to face Board and Council meetings at the University of Leiden. In June, 2020, we will continue this pattern by holding our North American Seminar the day before a small… - News
Editing, reviewing and writing during COVID-19
…Forum if you have a particular publication ethics case that has come about recently, whether created by the current situation or not. Support and guidance How swamped preprint servers are blocking bad coronavirus research Nature: repositories screening more closely May 2020 COPE, like… Cookie policy
…different types of cookies, benefits of cookies and how you can manage cookies in your browser, so that you can view, delete or even block certain types of cookies. Cookies on the COPE website We use cookies to determine whether you have already consented to our cookie policy. Other cookies may be set by our content management system to support the technical…- Event
COPE webinar: managing paper mills
…are revisiting this topic to provide an update on progress and initiatives that are underway to address the problem. We will share the outcome of the first industry-wide research on paper mills carried out by Maverick Publishing for COPE and STM. There will also be updates on the latest guidance for editors… - Case
Duplicate submission, overlap of papers, and a referenced paper that was not in press
A paper was submitted that reported a randomised controlled trial of a treatment for a blood disorder in a group of children. Better psychomotor development was achieved in the treated group. This paper went through considerable revisions, which were requested by the editorial committee, and a revised version was finally submitted a year later. But the revised version now included a new… - Case
Is it duplicate publication when the first study is referenced in the second paper?
A paper entitled: “X and Y versus X alone for condition A in children” was submitted to Journal A and published in 2001. Journal A has since been alerted to a paper published in Journal B in 1999, entitled: “Comparison of combination of X and Y with X alone in the treatment of condition A, ” written by two of the four authors in conjunction with another author not listed on paper A. Most of… - Case
Plagiarism in a review article
…not convinced that the extent of the plagiarism is as serious as the peer reviewer was suggesting. Some sentences in the review manuscript were similar to the teaching syllabus, as was the structure of the review, but as far as the editor could see, large chunks of the text had not been copied, as claimed by the reviewer. - Should the editor inform the authors’ institution of the allegations? The… - Case
Ethical approval and parental consent
…point the author asked to withdraw the paper. Several emails followed, and then the author made the statement that in fact the paper referred to cases operated on in the USA and were covered by a blanket ethical approval in the institution in that country where he had worked previously, as a subset of a larger study group. The editor has instituted enquiries with the director of that… - Case
Lack of patient consent for a case report, patient confidentiality
…a public interest defence, the editor must be prepared to defend their decision in the event of a complaint by the patient or a regulatory body. In summary, the advice from the Forum to the editor was that in deciding to publish, the editor should consider carefully the legal and data protection issues and also the medical value in publishing the case report.… - Case
Possible case of fraud
…and protocol. This they did very willingly, and they sent files of primary data too. The authors then withdrew the related paper submitted elsewhere. Although this seems suspicious, it seems that the authors thought we would be less favourably inclined to the paper they had submitted to us if a related paper from them was accepted by another journal first. - Case
Potential case of plagiarism
The editor-in-chief wrote to all the authors asking each of them for an explanation as to why the text was identical to that of the other paper and why the percentages were identical. None of the authors responded by the set deadline. We have subsequently sent a reminder email and none of them has responded. We are now in the process of writing to the Deputy Director of the Research Institute… - Case
Multiple publication of research
…lead author’s PhD thesis. This paper was accepted by Journal A in October 2003 and a copyright assignment form was signed in November 2003. This article appeared in Journal A in January 2005. • In July 2002, the lead author presented a conference paper based on the same PhD research and submitted it to Journal B. This too was accepted and a copyright agreement was signed in June 2003. This… - Case
Duplicate submission
…submission. We subsequently emailed the authors of the paper asking for an explanation, especially considering they had confirmed at the time of submission that their manuscript was not under consideration in any other journal. The authors withdrew their paper from the second journal and responded to us by saying that they were very sorry for their “low-level error” in submission and apologised for the… - Case
How to correct a published paper
A paper was published in July 2012. The author was told by their institution that one of the figures had to be replaced, in the interests of national security. Failure to do this would result in imprisonment. The editor checked with one of his reviewers who said that replacing the figure will not affect the results or conclusions of the paper. So, can we replace the published version… - Case
Possible breach of reviewer confidentiality
…how and why. Within a few hours, both reviewers replied that they kept the paper confidential and did not share it with anyone else. We take their assertions as valid and true, as we do with so many other statements by authors and reviewers. I informed the authors about the outcome of my investigation. I also suggested that if they still think that a reviewer may have broken confidentiality,… - Case
Institutional review board approval needed?
…received a note from the author with the information that in the country of origin, no ethical approval was required on a master’s thesis. The study was conducted in accordance with ethical principles of the Helsinki declaration. The author noted that the results of the master’s thesis might be of importance and could make a contribution to the literature. It was supported by the university that… - Flowcharts
Addressing concerns about systematic manipulation of the publication process
…href="https://www.stm-assoc.org/stm-integrity-hub/"> STM Integrity Hub). The management of cases collectively rather than on a case-by-case basis. Transparency in retraction notices related to manipulation of the publication process. Editorial decision making based on all evidence (including circumstantial) relevant to the batch-level concerns, and empowering editors to use judgement on whether primary data or other… - Guidelines
Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct
…the same work submitted to different journals. compare the explanations provided by investigators/authors to questions resulting from concerns over submitted work. collaborate and share effort in investigating cases of suspected misconduct. work together when approaching investigators/authors and/or their institutions. A joint approach to suspected… COPE Privacy notice
COPE is committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring that any personal data you provide to us is safe, and complies with UK data protection legislation. Personal data is any information about you by which you can be identified or be identifiable. It includes information such as your name, email address, and location. This privacy notice describes what personal data COPE collects,…- 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