- Webform
Journal membership application form
…1 year before they can apply for membership Applicants must agree to apply the COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the Core Practices. Only complete forms will be considered How applications are assessed: The - News
COPE Officers 2019-2021
…years and we're pleased they will be with us for another year. Charon Pierson has come to the end of her time with COPE, having joined COPE Council in 2012 followed by two terms as COPE Secretary. We owe a huge thanks to Charon for her contribution to COPE, in developing guidance and writing commentary for Digest newsletter, presenting at seminars and workshops as well as regularly chairing the… - News
Guest article: Inclusion in Scholarly Practice
…that we better understand how a very different spectrum of disciplines is confronting some new challenges—and some of the same, old challenges newly revealed. In so many aspects of our world we need to be thinking with the very tools that AHSS puts at our disposal, and in ways that will benefit our colleagues in STEM fields as well. Inclusion is not only about the who of our inquiry… - Event
COPE Forum: March 2023
…%3ESubmit%20a%20case%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fa%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3EThe%20deadline%20to%20submit%20a%20case%20for%20this%20Forum%26nbsp%3Bis%3A%20Thursday%2024%20November%202022.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%0A%2D%2D%3E--> Forum agenda On Thursday 23 March 2023 the COPE Forum will be held at 15:00-16:30pm (GMT / UTC) 1. Update on COPE activities Update on COPE activities by the Chair. - Case
Victim of article theft wants correction to list their name, not retraction
…preparation of the article for publication (submitting, revising, etc) and the author(s) who stole the paper may have made changes to the paper. The editor may wish to direct the author to their authorship criteria and peer review process to explain why transferring authorship is not appropriate. To prevent theft of a paper, one idea put forward was for the DOI to be reserved in advance, with the… - Guidelines
Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers
Peer review guidelines provide basic principles and standards to which all peer reviewers should adhere during the peer review process in research publication. Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer-review process, but too often come to the role without any guidance and unaware of their ethical obligations. These guidelines are intended to be applied across… - Discussion documents
Predatory publishing
…journals may include community education or criminal charges. Guidance, training, and safe lists should be updated regularly as new journals frequently emerge. Predatory publishers often use the author publication charge business model. Related resources COPE webinar: Understanding text recycling
…="http://publicationethics.org/resources/seminars-and-webinars/european-seminar-2019-text-recycling-research-project">they presented at COPE's European Seminar in 2019. “I've been ‘iThenticating’ all revised papers for several years now, and am continually frustrated by self-plagiarism… You’d think that researcher/authors with MDs and PhDs would be bright enough to know how to reword.” Managing editor of a medical journal- 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 History and context of the COPE guidelines
…retired. A checklist for the Code of Conduct in 2005, and the first flowcharts in 2006 The Code of Conduct set out standards of good editorial conduct. It called on editors to take all reasonable steps to ensure that allegations of research misconduct were properly investigated. It also established a mechanism for dealing with complaints against COPE member editors that could not be resolved…- Case
Allegation of reviewer malpractice
The Editor provided a signed declaration stating the journal’s practice of asking authors to suggest reviewer(s) who may or may not be used for that purpose. The Editor’s declaration stated that the reviewer in question was nominated by the authors and that no competing interest was declared by either the authors or the reviewer.… - Discussion documents
Citation manipulation
…roles, or removal or rejection of journals from citation indexes. Journals should develop policies and standards to determine self-citation thresholds, provide educational resources to support best practice and establish procedures to respond to potential misconduct. There may be instances where self-citation and requests for citations are legitimate … - Flowcharts
Authorship and contributorship of unpublished data: dealing with concerns
… This flowchart has been developed by the FORCE11 and COPE Research Data Publishing Working Group. Key points Concerns may relate to a change in author order or other authorship and contributorship issues. Where agreement cannot be reached, consider contacting the… - Flowcharts
Authorship and contributorship of published data: dealing with concerns
… This flowchart has been developed by the FORCE11 and COPE Research Data Publishing Working Group. Key points Concerns may relate to a change in author order, or other dataset contributor or authorship issues. Where agreement cannot be reached, consider contacting the… - Flowcharts
Concerns about risk in unpublished data
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7896759 Concerns are raised about a dataset that may be harmful or breach privacy. The flowchart offers data publishers, such as a journal or a data repository, a step by step guide on how to handle these concerns. - Flowcharts
Concerns about risk in published data
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7896759 Concerns are raised about published data that may be harmful or breach privacy. The flowchart offers data publishers, such as a journal or a data repository, a step by step guide on how to handle these concerns. - Case
Alleged plagiarism
…different authors and were not the sole provenance of that author. Although it is true that employers may have vested interests, this does not necessarily mean they are corrupt. The notion of conscious plagiarism implies that the plagiarism is intentional; unconscious plagiarism is unintentional. It is the former that attracts sanction, and the intention must be proven. The point of requesting an internal… - Case
A patient was given an experimental course of complementary medicine when a standard treatment was available
…the authors’ medical practice and judgement into question. _ The editor should write to the authors again with a short deadline, informing them that the matter would be referred to both the authors’ employers and the appropriate regulatory body. _ Even if the patient had pleaded for the alternative therapy, the fact that the disease is infectious and potential fatal means that public interest would… - Case
Clear case of duplicate publication?
…not acceptable behaviour. Some of the members of the Forum suggested taking the matter further and contacting the authors’ institution, informing the Dean of the Faculty of the facts of the case. The Forum also raised the question of the three new authors on the second paper and suggested that the author should be reminded of the criteria for authorship.… - Case
Author creates bogus email accounts for proposed reviewers
The Forum agreed that this was a serious form of misconduct and may even be criminal, as the author was impersonating the reviewers. The advice was to contact the author’s institution and inform them of the situation, explaining the author’s inappropriate behaviour. Other advice was to look at the peer review of previous submissions/publications from this author in case they also involved…