- Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 10 March 2015: Coming back from disgrace
…research misconduct, would you agree to review the paper? If you did agree to review the paper, and the author asks for blind reviewing as he/she could not otherwise be assured of an unbiased process, would you agree to the request (assuming you don’t have blind reviewing already)? This was a recent COPE case. Flowing from that, should there be a process for researchers who have… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 9 December 2014: Publication ethics issues in the social sciences
…researchers disagree with the requirement of prior ethics approval saying that their research is low risk and needs no review. These researchers sometimes do their work under the auspices of community groups and avoid institutional ethics review. As well, there are disciplines which object to all such requirements or find them problematic to their particular fields of study. Many of the complaints… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 4 March 2014: Issues related to papers submitted to “discussion” journals
…Discussion section of the journal Within 2–8 weeks, the paper is up online with a DOI, ready for the open peer review process Two referees are invited to post their reviews online Anyone else can comment on the paper whilst it is going through review A decision is made on the paper based on the review comments, with the normal “major,” “minor,” “accept” and “reject”… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 4 September 2013: Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct
…Such a Code might consist of the following: — Editors-in-Chief and journals have a duty towards authors to treat their work in confidence, except where sharing it is a necessary part of the review/publication process; — However, Editors-in-Chief should be able to inform other Editors-in-Chief of current enquiries relating to possible data fabrication, lack of ethical approval, serious… - Discussion documents
Handling competing interests
…a conflict of interest (COI) as a situation in which a person or organisation is involved in multiple interests, financial interest, or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation of the individual or organisation. PLoS defines COI as anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial… - Discussion documents
Addressing ethics complaints from complainants who submit multiple issues
On occasion a journal may get not one, but a series of complaints from the same source. Complaints may be directed at an author, an editor, or the journal in general. If these complaints turn out to be well founded, investigations should proceed as warranted. However, there are also cases where a complainant makes repeated allegations against a journal, editor, or author that turn out to be bas… - Case
Service evaluation as research in a controversial area of medicine
…review was not required. Using the reference number cited in the article, the reader obtained the relevant documents from the research ethics committee via a freedom of information request. The reader argued that the documents from the ethics committee related to data that predated what was presented in the article. A review of the documents indicated that this appeared to be the case. In… - Case
Unethical withdrawal after acceptance to maximize the 'impact factor'?
…PhD student”, as well as “going to negatively affect my prospects [for promotion and tenure]”. The editor is not impressed by these arguments as they illustrate a misuse of the impact factor, and PhD students should be taught to respect the journal submission and peer review/publication process and not taught that it is acceptable to waste editorial resources in order to play impact factor… - Case
Authors referring readers to an objectionable version of an article on a preprint site
…Most people use a preprint server for the purpose it is intended—to get work out for comment before publication. However, in this case the authors took advantage of the absence of a policy, and violated the spirit both of publication in a reviewed journal and of the purpose of preprint servers. The authors seemed to want to bypass the editorial process to be able to continue to make their derogatory… - Case
Should this paper be retracted?
Journal Y received an original article for review, which was subsequently published online. The editorial office was then contacted by Professor Y, not included in the coauthors’ list, who referred to research abuse in the article and requested its retraction. In particular, Professor Y presented a careful evaluation of the article available online, finding that more than half… - Case
Dispute between two authors
A manuscript was submitted by author A to our journal. The content of the paper was controversial. We sent this manuscript for peer review by two clinical reviewers. We wrote back to author A requesting major revisions to address the concerns and issues raised by the reviewers. A revised paper was submitted and accepted for publication. Because the article was controversial,… - Discussion documents
Preprints
…to scout upcoming work or facilitating transfer of papers to journals, alongside the challenges such as ‘scooping’, screening, industry-wide standards and credibility of non-reviewed research. There are questions about the status of preprints in various disciplines, and the implications for submission, subsequent publication, copyright and licensing and links to peer review. - Case
Licence for a published scale
…considered for publication must be submitted to the developer first to check that all copyright requirements are included. We felt it would be editorially irresponsible to allow these changes to the manuscript after peer review and have had to withdraw the manuscript (the developer also indicated that he "will not allow" the authors to publish the version of the manuscript that was accepted). The authors… - Case
Retrospective registration, outcome switching and ethical approval
Journal A received a number of concerns from a reader regarding a paper published in the journal. These concerns were reviewed and sent to the authors of a paper, along with additional comments from the editorial board. The concern was largely around retrospective registration, and an inconsistency between the trial registry record and the published paper. An editorial board member conducted… - Case
Undisclosed conflict of interest
…incentives” from CMG. We consulted the original peer reviewers, showing them the updated COI. They said they would not have accepted the manuscript had they known about these extensive COIs. We suggested to the authors that we feel that both articles should be retracted, and we would prefer to do this with their consent. The lead author rejected this with the argument that “we originally… - Seminars and webinars
Australian Seminar 2018: Levers for transparency: from funding through research to publication
…At the COPE Australian Seminar 2018, Professor Ralph Horne, Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor for research and innovation at RMIT, presented on transparent institutions and the risks, challenges and opportunities that arise for institutions striving for transparency. Deborah Wyatt, the Vice President for society research publishing at Wiley, presented her principles for transparency in an evol… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 30 April 2018: Preprints: continuing the conversation
…discussion and with respect to peer review. To continue the conversation, COPE has developed a new ‘Preprints’ discussion document that sets out some of the benefits and challenges associated with the posting of preprints.… - Case
Late addition of new author to article
Journal A was contacted by the sole author of an article that had been peer reviewed and accepted requesting the addition of a second author. The original author claimed that he had forgotten to include the co-author earlier. The journal is concerned about the risk that the new author has not done any work on the article and might get undue credit if their name was added. Questions… - Seminars and webinars
COPE webinar 2018: Creating and implementing data research policies
…most relevant policy, implement standardised guidelines and processes, and then guide authors, researchers, and reviewers. Authors are encouraged to deposit data in community repositories rather than as online supplementary files and to cite public datasets in the references. They can email questions to a dedicated Research Data Helpdesk at - Case
Are copyrighted conference audiotapes considered "prior publication"?
…example, journals can decide to publish papers arising out of a dissertation or an audit that has been circulated internally in an institution, but they should be transparent and disclose previous publication or copyright of any portion of the material. One view from the Forum was that copyright issues support paternalistic ideas of protecting people from something that has not been peer reviewed, and…