- Case
Authorship dispute
The Forum agreed that the current paper cannot stand in its present form—some form of correction of the literature needs to be done. It is clear that the data are the intellectual property of Dr B, but this is essentially an authorship dispute, and it is up to the authors to resolve it. Although the results of the paper are not in dispute, the editor could decide to retract the paper and tell… - Case
Self-plagiarism and suspected salami publishing
…can the editor do?• Should the editor inform the other journal editor?• In such cases, should the article be retracted from both journals? … - Case
Removal of an author
…Question(s) for the COPE Forum What course of action would the Forum advise? If author C is removed without their permission, could they ask for the article to be retracted? If author C remains on the article but they have been ill and not signed off on the final accepted version, could they ask for retraction of the article because they did not agree to the final article… - Case
Ethics approval and consent
…asked what triggered the complaint? The complainant requested retraction of the papers, but did the complainant supply evidence of problems with the ethics approval or conflicts of interest in the paper? Without specific evidence, the editor cannot assume there is a problem. The Forum advised that the complainant needs to provide evidence before any further action is taken by the journal or publisher.… - Case
Ethical issues of responding to government agency request for information
…request. If the journal has reasonable evidence that the peer review process has been compromised, and the articles have been retracted, it would seem reasonable for the agencies to accept this. Sending the government agencies the retraction notices and the reasons should satisfy the agencies. Confidential treatment of author manuscripts is a fundamental aspect of scholarly publishing and hence COPE… - Case
Dual publication
…not been plagiarised. _ The letter authors knew that their comments had been passed on by journal B. _ The editor felt that the authors of the letter would want their concerns published. _ The authors should be asked to respond to the issues raised by the letter authors about duplicate publication and then the editors should publish a notice of retraction. _ If the article in journal B was—as the… - Case
Publication of expression of concern
A university institutional review board (IRB) investigation found that there was extensive data fabrication in connection with a clinical research study. Three articles and one abstract reporting results from this clinical study were published. Our journal published the abstract, which we intend to retract. The three articles have been retracted by the journals that published those… - Case
Self-plagiarism of review article
…advice on whether to pursue this as we would an original article case of self-plagiarism (ie, retract the paper) or whether it would suggest an alternative course of action(s). We have not investigated the allegation made about journal Z as it is outside of our remit.… - Case
An ambiguous plagiarism case
…retract the paper. The paper was checked again and a high rate of similarity was found between the paper in journal A and the thesis, and the article in journal A had used the content of the thesis. The similarity between the papers in journal A and journal B was also checked: these papers were found to be almost identical but with different authors. The paper in journal B was submitted about a week… - Case
Unethical withdrawal of a paper
…that if a retraction of the statement of double submission and journal ban is not made, he may take legal action. Editor A’s position is that double submission occurred because Authors A and B demonstrated their intent to have their paper considered by both journals simultaneously by withdrawing their paper as soon as Editor B expressed an interest in it. If either Author A or Author B asked… - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2022: Managing paper mills
…href="https://www.stm-assoc.org/stm-integrity-hub/">STM Integrity Hub). The management of cases en masse rather than on a case-by-case basis. Transparency in retraction notices related to manipulation of the publication process. Editorial decision making based on all evidence (including circumstantial) relevant to the series-level concerns, and empowering editors to apply judgement as to whether primary data or… - Case
“I was acknowledged but I should be an author”
…the complaint. The journal feels unhappy with the situation. Given that both accounts as currently being presented cannot be true and that this makes arbitrating between the two accounts very difficult, we are considering retracting the paper if this dispute cannot be resolved. We envisage publishing some note regarding a dispute between the authors and a complainant that could not be… - Case
Dispute over authorship and usage of research protocol
…a journal issue. Professor X replied saying that only a full retraction of the paper would be a satisfactory outcome for him because his reputation was damaged by the publication of work that had not followed the originally agreed research protocols that he had developed. On gathering both sides of the story, the Publisher decided that the two parties (Professor X and Drs Z and W) should… - Case
Claim from an author that his name should not have been included as author on a paper
The advice from the Forum was that the editor should act as if the paper has been published, as it was published online. Hence the first thing the editor must do is reinstate the paper on the website, as taking it down amounts to retraction, and there are no grounds for retraction of this paper. The editor needs to decide if there is anything wrong with the data of the study. What are the… - Case
Findings of a published trial called into question by a subsequent audit of trial conduct
The Forum advised that if the editor cannot decide what to do, a statement of concern could be published in the interim. If the editor thinks the methodology was insufficient (to detect side effects), then he should consider retracting the paper. Clearly a correction needs to be done. The expression of concern should mention the fact that the table of side effects may not be correct, in… - Case
Stolen article
…reviewers and editor are not the authors of article B. The authors of article A said they spoke with the first author of article B, who promised to withdraw it. Article B was retracted, with the abstract being removed and a retraction notice posted. However, the stated reason for retraction was errors. The authors of article A said they were surprised by this. What we know appears to be… - Case
Unresponsive authors delaying publication
…especially if there are no grounds for retraction. The note could state that the authors have been unresponsive. The note would also serve as a warning for other readers who wished to cite the article. The Forum agreed the journal had done due diligence in attempting to contact the authors. There could be a dispute around the paper or the authors that the journal is not aware of. A suggestion was to… - Case
Plagiarism and possible fraud
…to the co-authors’ head of institution as they seemed to have taken complimentary authorship. - The journal should retract the article if it felt that there was sufficient evidence to suggest fraud; but if not, it should certainly publish a notice of concern.… - Guidelines
Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity and publication misconduct cases
…Institutions should investigate allegations of research misconduct, and journals should correct or retract findings that are invalid or unreliable (whether the errors are because of misconduct or honest errors) to prevent readers from being misled. Research reports that are incorrect or misleading may require post-publication amendment, even when allegations of misconduct by the researchers are not upheld… - Case
The missing author
Authorship should have been resolved before. The authority needs to hold an inquiry. The true facts or a retraction should be published.…