- Case
Dual submission and editor’s failure to take action
…to which he sent a two line reply asking as to what should be done. We suggested that the copyright of the article is still with us so he should remove the article from the journal’s website until the article is withdrawn in the correct manner. The editor has not taken any steps and the article is still displayed on the other journal’s website. Question(s) for the COPE Forum Membership subscription fees
…a discrete journal product published in intervals will be charged according to the number of articles that they publish a year. If a company wishes to register fewer than five journals then cumulative journal by frequency of publication rates apply. Number of articles Fees per…- News
Letter from the COPE Chair: December 2019
…We look forward to working in partnership with all of our members and the larger scholarly community in the coming years. We send you all best wishes for the New Year. COPE Chair - News
Standards in Authorship webinar summary
…best to provide that guidance and disseminate it. Can more be done to support Research Integrity Officers proactively, perhaps with assistance from designated Publications Officers? Image: Trextron Flickr Liz Allen… - News
In the news: February 2021
…of a scientific manuscript or grant proposal from one of the volunteers; experienced current and former journal editors. 5 JEDI awards will be given monthly to early career principle investigators who face disproportionately high and unfair obstacles to career progression in academic science, including but not limited to women, people from historically underrepresented races or ethnic groups,… - Case
Author trap/fabrication detection
…should have considered handling the matter himself rather than passing it on to another journal. The chair of COPE agreed to contact the editor of the UK journal to determine if the issue of data fabrication is being investigated by them.… - Case
Retraction of article from 1994
…group of patients from a paper already published and a selected group of patients from professor A’s hospital that had not given consent to be part of a research project. Professor A has claimed that his patients were not part of a research project, since the treatment he gave them was available to all at that time. Both cases were handled by the national board of research misconduct at the time (in… - News
Text Recycling Research Project: update March 2021
…Author guidelines: This short document lays out fundamental principles and best practices for text recycling, with links to a more extensive document for those wanting a deeper understanding. Educational documents: These will present relevant definitions, discuss why text recycling can be valuable in some situations but problematic or illegal in others, and explain why some commonly suggested… - News
Welcome new COPE members April-June 2019
Welcome to our new members who have joined COPE between April and June 2019. The new members have been assessed against criteria outlined in the Principles of Transparency and signing up to COPE shows that they intend to follow the highest standards of publication ethics and to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
…part of a PhD or other academic thesis which has been published according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification." American Chemical Society “Publishing policies” http://pubs.acs.org/page/policy/prior/index.html (varies by journal on attitude to theses as prior publication). This will be…FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
…This will be discussed at the start of the next COPE Forum on Monday 30 April 2018. Please do leave any comments below, whether or not you are planning on joining the meeting Comments are reviewed and, on approval, added below. Please login as a member of- Event
COPE Forum: July 2023
…will be held at 12:00-13:30pm (BST / UTC+1) 1. Update on COPE activities Update on COPE activities by the Chair. 2. Forum discussion topic We begin the COPE Forum with a discussion on the topic of Best practices for guest edited collections. - Case
Developing novel approaches to improve the assessment of absolute risk among patients with cardiovascular disease
…proofs so that they could be compared with the original sent to Journal B. Under the circumstances, and following further discussion, the editors agreed they should pull both papers from publication and wrote to the senior author to inform him of this decision.… - Case
Palestinian refugee conditions
- There was no evidence of political bias, but it might have been possible to take a more careful approach, with more extensive peer review given the strong political context. - Medicine does not exist in a political vacuum and these issues need to be discussed and published.… - Case
Allegation of fraudulent publication
…B in 2001 was almost an exact copy of an article published in Journal C in 1990. The Editor of Journal A examined copies of the articles from Journals B and C and concluded that this appeared to be a case of plagiarism. How should the Editor of Journal A act in this situation, given that Journal A is not the victim of the alleged plagiarism and that Journal C has ceased… - Seminars and webinars
WCRI 2019: Preprints and their place in the publication ethics landscape
…href="http://www.imr.no/" target="_blank">Austevoll Research Station), including the potential harm of non-peer-reviewed work being accepted as fact. Following the presentations there was a lively discussion with the panel and the audience, spanning the range of views on preprint ethics. - Case
Handling undisclosed peer reviewer conflict
…during the peer review process on whether they had any conflicts of interest related to the research. The editor confirmed the reviewer had a valid email address. Question for the Forum What process should be undertaken when a peer reviewer does not disclose their relationships with a company, provides a suspicious review, and at the same time, where the authors (who… - Event
COPE Forum: December 2023
…Forum is: Tuesday 21 November 2023. --> Forum agenda On Tuesday 5 December 2023 the COPE Forum will be held at 10:00-11:30 (GMT / UTC) 1. Update on COPE activities Update on COPE activities by the Chair. 2. Forum discussion topic: Claiming affiliations We begin the COPE Forum with a discussion on - Case
Potential peer reviewer misconduct
…and author are considered inappropriate. Questions for COPE Council How serious is the misconduct of the reviewer? What action should be taken? … - News
Guest article: Research misconduct
…headlines there is renewed interest in the causes and consequences of research misconduct. Research misconduct wastes time and money, contaminates the published scientific record, hinders scientific advancement and ultimately risks harming us all as consumers of research. What is the true extent of research misconduct, and should we be concerned? Is research misconduct on the increase, or are we…