- Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Introduction to publication ethics
…10px; float: left; width: 90px; height: 90px;" />Simon Linacre is Director of International Marketing & Development at Cabells having previously spent 15 years at Emerald Publishing, where he had direct experience in journal acquisitions, open access and business development. Simon is an ALPSP tutor, currently leading courses… - Case
Call for retraction of a commentary
A journal received two emails from different individuals, both critical of a commentary published in the journal. One cited serious errors, the other noted inaccurate statements, incorrect literature citations and fundamental flaws regarding misinterpretations or over-interpretations which could affect public health. The second email also cited the potential for the commentary to be used for (u… - News
In the news: February Digest
…-babies-show-need-for-more-specific-rules/ Plan S A review of the current (as of Jan 3,2019) world status on endorsement of Plan S, documents that as of now, <4% of global research articles published in 2017 were payed for by the first 15 funders to back Plan S. However, as more funders join, the more pressure there will be to flip from paywall subscription model to an open access model. China now, the country that contributes… - Forum discussion topics
Dealing with complaints about the integrity of published research
…can take a lot of time to determine which complaints are credible, especially comments received via social media. Some journals categorise complaints based on when the article was published. If the article is <6 years old it might be prioritised over articles older than >6 years. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a data retention policy of 6 years. Journals should… - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around watchlists
…that all parties consult legal counsel for individual cases. COPE is exploring the need for guidance on ethical issues surrounding watchlists and welcomes comments on this topic. Resources and further reading
…India, 9 December 2013Kusal Das, International Advisory Group COPE/IAMJE Seminar, New Delhi, India, 15 November 2013Charlotte Haug, Vice Chair COPE International Conference on Medical…- News
Case discussion: Suspected plagiarism
…a cut-off value of 15% to be useful. Well trained editorial and publishing staff could monitor trends in submissions for specific journals to make a good guideline for efficient plagiarism checking. If the editor believes that there was no malicious intent on the part of the authors, an educational approach may be appropriate (e.g., junior researchers, students, first-time authors). The editors… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Authorship for sale
…the paper mills webinar, 14:00pm - 15:30pm (BST / UTC +1) on Tuesday 20 September Useful links Systematic manipulation of the publication process, COPE guidance, updated 2022 - News
In the news: October-November 2021
…approached as a meta-category with a variety of meanings, but generally referring to "decolonised nations roughly south of the old colonial centers of power". Preprints The Scholarly Kitchen reposted a 2017 article as "Revisiting: When is a preprint server not a preprint… - News
In the news: February 2018 Digest
…January 15, 2018 that stated that “the systematic replication of other researchers’ work should be a normal part of science." The academy called for funding agencies, researchers, and research institutions to work together to facilitate replication studies. With this statement, the Netherlands joins other international efforts, including in the US and Great Britain, calling for ways to improve… - News
Case discussion: Editor manipulation of impact factor
…The Forum noted that Clarivate Analytics takes action against journals for citation manipulation. However, because up to 15% of citations are allowed to be journal self-citations, editors could purposefully promote journal self-citation without exceeding that level. A link to the Citation Manipulation section of a Council of Science Editors white paper was provided ( - News
In the news: August 2018 Digest
…one group of authors in Science showed that 1/5 respondents were coerced into adding citations and findings were similar in a study of PLOS ONE authors. The specter of citation cartels among participating journals—you scratch my back, I’ll cite your paper. The author of this post suggests that an automated algorithm, similar to what is used by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to detect… - News
Case discussion: self-plagiarism and suspected salami publishing
…should not rely solely on a certain cut-off percentage score (as advised in COPE Forum cases 15-16 profusion of copied text passages and - News
Artificial intelligence in the news
…how AI can interact with other unethical practices like paper mills and authorship for sale. It is possible that AI tools will actually lower the incidence of some of… - News
A vision for a more trans-inclusive publishing world: guest article
…From a practice and implementation standpoint, this principle reduces the overall labor involved in a name change for everyone involved. 2. Comprehensiveness Name changes should remove all instances of an author's previous name from the records maintained and disseminated by the publisher. Due to the aforementioned risks of disclosure, publishers must take care to not… - Forum discussion topics
Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills”
…for 15 years at Stanford University and two years in industry before becoming a science integrity volunteer and consultant in 2019. Her work with her team in scanning the biomedical literature for images and other data concerns has been instrumental in detecting paper mill activity. Paper Mills are becoming a real problem. There are likely thousands of these papers and our team has… - News
In the news: June 2018 Digest
…Review The theme of Peer Review week, September 10-15, 2018, is “Diversity and Inclusion in Peer review. The announcement about the week and ways to participate is at https://peerreviewweek.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/prw-press-release1.pdf Deborah Sweet published a blog bost on CROSSTALK… - News
In the news: October 2018 Digest
…October 15, 2018. Responders on Twitter are pushing the NIH to make sure grantees with similar misconduct have their funding revoked. (#TIMESUPNIH) Peer Review This Scholarly Kitchen author argues that transparency in peer review is the single most important requirement for diversity. This include ideas of open peer review, but also that in making the processes of peer… - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2022: Managing paper mills
…19:05-33.20 Sarah Elaine Eaton, COPE Council Member, and Editor of the International Journal of Education Integrity, explained the parallels between student contract cheating and paper mills, and how some of what we know about contact cheating can be transferred to our understanding of paper mills.There has been around 15 years of…