- Case
Retraction of the first article in the case of duplicate publication
Earlier this year it came to our attention that a published article in our journal (journal A) had also been published in another journal (journal B). The article in journal A was published later than the article in journal B, so following COPE guidelines on duplicate publication, we contacted the authors for an explanation. Their response was to blame the editor of journal B for publishing the… - Case
Confidentiality breach by an associate editor
The authors of a manuscript sent an official complaint to our journal regarding a breach of confidentiality by an associate editor (AE). The authors had been informed by the supervisor of a reviewer of a manuscript. After submission of the review, the reviewer received a confidential email from AE asking whether the favourable recommendation made by the reviewer would have been different if the… United2Act launches action against paper mills
…on the identified areas. We are all committed to delivering real progress over the next 12 months and will be reporting on these actions regularly.” There are five key areas for working groups to plan action and execute: education and awareness, improve post-publication corrections, research paper mills, enable the development of trust markers, and continue to bring together the many voices…- Case
Late addition of co-authors
An article was submitted to our journal with two authors listed. Proofs were approved with these two authors listed. However, two months after publication the corresponding author claimed that the article had actually been submitted on the website with six authors. The journal considers the final list of authors to be those listed on the title page at the first submission step. The autho… - News
Standards in Authorship webinar summary
…familiar with CRediT, 44% had not used CRediT but would try it in future, 12% had already used CRediT and 2% had not used CRediT and would not use in future. The CRediT project encourages feedback here. Authorship issues remain one of the most common concerns for COPE members and COPE has created dedicated… - News
Reflections on the COPE North American Seminar 2019
…that have come to the COPE Forum. There were many highlights for me from this day, but here are a few of my Aha moments and insights (see the agenda for the day here). Karin Wulf,… - Case
Serial plagiarism by an experienced author
…similarity index of less than 30%. Over 12% have a similarity index in excess of 40%—the level at which iThenticate gives a plagiarism alert. Excluding the eight submissions from Dr J, there were 9% falling into this category. The remaining 16% fall in the range 30–39% and have been investigated. In all of these cases, the overlap was in acceptable quotations and in the bibliography and no further action… - News
Announcement of COPE Council elections
…are expected to attend. Annual seminars are held in a number of locations worldwide and it is hoped that Council Members will attend one of these. COPE has subcommittees, and Council Members will also be expected to be involved in other COPE related tasks, which are undertaken electronically. It is anticipated that the work of Council Members should amount to about 1–2 days per month, in addition to… - News
Upcoming CrossRef webinars
…the web. Learn more about this new exciting initiative from CrossRef. Date: Tuesday, February 12, 2013Time: 8:00 am (San Francisco), 11:00 am (New York), 4:00 pm (London)Moderator: Rachael Lammey - News
Announcement of COPE Council elections
…attend. Annual seminars are held in a number of locations worldwide and it is hoped that Council Members will attend one of these. COPE has subcommittees, and Council Members will also be expected to be involved in other COPE related tasks, which are undertaken electronically. It is anticipated that the work of Council Members should amount to about 1–2 days per month, in addition to attendance at… - News
Announcement of COPE Council elections
…Council Members are expected to attend in person. Annual seminars are held in a number of locations worldwide and it is expected that Council Members will attend one of these. COPE has subcommittees, and Council Members will also be expected to be involved in other COPE related tasks, which are undertaken electronically. It is anticipated that the work of Council Members should amount to about 1–2 days… Vacancies on COPE Council
…Members will be expected to join a subcommittee of interest and actively help to achieve the subcommittee’s objectives. Other general Council tasks, such as the Forum and responding to member queries, are undertaken electronically. It is anticipated that the work of Council Members should amount to about 1–2 days per month, in addition to attendance at meetings. Council Members will be appointed…- News
Peer Review Week 2018: new and revised COPE resources
…12px Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999; text-decoration: none;"> Create your own user feedback survey The COPE eLearning module on Reviewer Misconduct has been revised, peer reviewed and updated. Although eLearning is a member benefit, this module will be freely available to all for the month of September. We are also in… - News
Tackling the problem of paper mills
…Koers described the Research Integrity Collaboration Hub recently launched by STM which will access content from multiple publishers during the editorial process and check for integrity issues. However, as… - News
In the news: March & April 2022
…href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/2/e057854">bias against women authors and research related to women's health. Retractions and corrections Piotr Rzymski makes the case for hard retraction in cases of extremely flawed science. To address concerns that the Rights and permissions policy
…href="#photo">Photography and copyright Reproducing or translating COPE materials Our COPE materials are available to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This means that you are free to copy…- Case
More than a breach of confidentiality?
A journal received two manuscripts on the same topic in short succession.Manuscript A was rejected after peer review; manuscript B, submitted a few months later, was accepted after peer review. When manuscript B was published, author X contacted the journal to express concern about similarities between both papers and the fact that the first had been rejected and the second accepted. The… - Case
Publication of data without permission
A director of an institute in France has expressed concern about a paper published in our journal. One of the authors (not the corresponding author) of the paper, person A, visited his laboratory in France for 5 months in 2009 to carry out some work. The director says that some methods used and results obtained in his laboratory have now been included in the paper without his knowledge or permi… - 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 dir… - Case
Fraudulent data presented in a manuscript
Author A submitted a trial comparing the safety and feasibility of two delivery techniques in patients. The trial, which was done at author A’s institution, was assessed by inhouse editors, who decided to send it out for peer review. During the peer review process, some reviewers pointed out that “this work seems premature, experimental and hard to believe”, and also expressed suspicion…