- Seminars and webinars
Publication misconduct tools
In this panel the audience heard from five representatives from organisations which produce tools to detect publication misconduct. Together they showed that while technology is creating new challenges for academic publishing, it can also be part of the solution. This discussion is one of eleven sessions hosted by COPE during Press
…="https://publicationethics.org/increasing-number-fraudulent-papers-produced-paper-mills">Increasing number of fraudulent papers produced by “paper mills” 16 October 2020 Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via "paper mills" is emerging as a growing issue. Paper mills produce and sell fraudulent manuscripts that seem to resemble genuine research. They may be similar in layout, experimental approach and have similar images or figures.- Case
Handling self-admissions of fraud
In November 2014, the first author of a decade old paper in our journal and a 15-year-old paper from another journal informed us that he faked the data in two figure panels in the paper in our journal and one figure panel in the paper in the other journal. The main gist of the manipulation was loading unequal amounts or delayed loading of gel lanes. Self-admission of data falsification… - Translated resources
Cómo reconocer la potencial manipulación del proceso de revisión por pares
…Guias eticas para revisores pares Qué considerar al ser invitado a hacer una revisión por pares de un manuscrito FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
…/group/joint-declaration-data-citation-principles-final">https://www.force11.org/group/joint-declaration-data-citation-principles-final) are working towards. Most recently, questions about the legitimate requests for and re-use of data have been explored systematically and thoughtfully by Lewandowsky & Bishop (2016). In light of the above concerns about implementing a data sharing policy, COPE invites discussion on this topic, specifically relating to the…- News
Peer review focus
…href="https://publicationethics.org/files/plagiarism%20A.pdf">Reviewer informs an editor about suspected plagiarism An additional flowchart addresses how to spot potential manipulation of the peer review process and there is one for potential reviewers on What to consider… - Case
Suspect author
…A’s work Following an April 2010 editorial in one of the specialty journals about research fraud in general, that mentioned this particular author by name, a correspondent raised the lack of investigation into author A, stating that his update of a systematic review was being hampered by the (suspect) influence of author A’s work in this area. The current editor-in-chief of that journal… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: January 2019
…encourage COPE members to use the updated COPE Journal Audit Tool to more systematically review your guidelines and processes around publication ethics issues. Revised to align with COPE’s Core Practices and the recently revised - Case
Publication of misleading information and publication
This is not within COPE’s remit as the case was not submitted by an editor. Suggest that the complainant submit a letter to the editor of the journal concerned. A systematic review of published studies would expose the flaws.… - Case
Suspected data fabrication
A manuscript was received from a group of authors who had not submitted to the journal in question before. The review was extremely critical and the paper was rejected. In a covering letter the reviewer said that not only was the experimental design flawed, but he was also convinced that the experiment described had never been done. He had scanned Medline 1997–2001 and found seven other papers… - Case
An investigation into results that were “almost too good to be true”
A general medical journal received an RCT from a seldom-published, single-author, in an eastern European country. The results were striking, with an effect size that surpassed that of established medications for this condition, so the manuscript was sent for peer review. One reviewer commented that the results were “so highly statistically significant it is almost too good to be tr… - Case
Profusion of copied text passages
Recently, our journal has introduced systematic analysis of all submitted manuscripts for plagiarised text, using anti-plagiarism software. We had noticed increased incidences of recycling of existing text which is why we introduced the systematic check. It turns out that a large proportion of the submitted manuscripts (an estimated 30–50%) yield positive results, with copy values of somewhere… - News
In the news: August 2021
…target="_blank">prevalence of misconduct, and the other at the prevalence of responsible research practices. In 2018, FEBS Press started to observe manuscripts that displayed possibly systematically fabricated data and which followed a recurring template. These manuscripts pointed at the existence of paper mills. Based on analysis of the… Projects Funded
…a large sample of currently active researchers submitting articles to several BMJ journals. We intend this study to be one of the largest undertaken involving a variety of ethical issues on authorship, conflicts of interest, access to data, redundant publication, non-publication, dual submission, salami publishing, plagiarism, image manipulation, informed consent, fabrication, and falsification. We will…- Case
Potentially unethical publication
…markers of endocarditis, and echocardiogram. He did not seek permission for the study from an ethics committee, and did not obtain informed consent formally from the patients, though the study’s purpose was discussed with them all. The report is of considerable scientific and clinical importance, being the first in which the presence of endocarditis after treatment X was systematically sought, and its… - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around watchlists
…scale of systematic manipulation is leading to more calls for information sharing to protect the published record. Benefits and potential risks Watchlists of individuals carry more sensitivities than those of journals or publishers as they can have an impact on scholars’ reputation and professional future, as well as issues over sharing of personal information. Watchlists… - Case
The single authored, unbelievable, randomised controlled trial
A randomised controlled trial submitted to a journal showed that a nutritional supplement could dramatically improve one aspect of the health of the elderly. The study was a follow up to a trial reported in an international journal eight years previously. Why had there been so much delay? Why were the results reported in this study not reported in the previous study? There was only one author a… - News
Artificial intelligence: Lightning talk summary
…for signs of conflicts of interest or manipulation. Both companies see their tools as powerful supports to human judgement because they can check submissions against a large body of data, spotting patterns not visible to the human eye. However, they do not replace human decision making; in fact, according to Nishchay they are seen as giving humans greater power to monitor the integrity of the… - Discussion documents
Responding to anonymous whistleblowers, January 2013
…via the use of anti-plagiarism software. Other emails have alleged figure manipulation. The pattern of the cases is not clear; they range across many different types of journals and publishers; cases may be very old or more recent. Whistle blowers may copy COPE council or staff on the emails. A link to the readout from software is sometimes provided; often information is only provided for abstracts.… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair and Vice-Chair
…fraud” when we find out the impact fraud has on publication integrity. Speakers will discuss how we can deal with post-publication corrections, image manipulation, and paper mills. The week continues on day 3 with a panel discussing post-publication critiques, and the week progresses with sessions sharing insight on “Caste and publishing: an ethics gap?” and “Ethical concerns in publishing on…