2023

An article published in a journal in 2023 appears to have been plagiarised in a possible predatory journal but the publishers are unable to get a response from the predatory journal or affiliated Institute. 

What should a journal do if an old (more than 15 years old) published paper is flagged on PubPeer for image concerns, but the case cannot be resolved due to the time lapsed? For example, if only low quality images are available online that cannot be analysed conclusively; some of the key authors may no longer be contactable; the raw data is no longer available; an institutional investigation is unlikely.

Questions for the Forum

We have been contacted by an author of a published article who has requested to be removed from the author list. The author is third in the author list and is neither a lead author nor a corresponding author. The CRediT statement for the article reports that the author’s contribution to the work included investigation, validation, formal analysis and data curation.

A research paper was submitted to our journal and underwent several rounds of peer review and editorial curation. We were on the point of acceptance when we realised there were some images that were submitted along with the paper where patients were perfectly identifiable but we did not have the signed informed consent forms. We therefore asked the authors for the consent forms (corresponding to about 10 different patients). We received these on the same day of the request.

Some authors from a company recommended a peer reviewer on submitting their manuscript, who was then asked to review the manuscript. This reviewer recommended acceptance without change. One other reviewer recommended major revision (a methodological reviewer not a content expert) and the third reviewer recommended rejection.

An author of a coauthored article published in our journal ten years ago contacted the outgoing editors with a request to have their name removed. The author in question is Dr A of University 1 and they are the paper’s first author. Their stated reason for doing so was that they had recently discovered errors in a table in the paper. The second author on the paper, Dr B, provided the original data and conducted the analysis.

A journal received a request from University A for a published paper to be retracted, citing ethical issues with the grant application submitted by an author from University B.

A journal has received a submission which is based on patient data (CT scan images). The data have been found to have been taken from an open-source repository. The authors are refusing to sign an Ethics Approval and Consent for Authors form.

Questions for the Forum

• Is a signature in these cases compulsory?

• How would the Forum recommend we handle this case?

This is a general scenario which has been observed in increasing numbers at our journal. We are finding that some reviewers provide a referee’s report which include a request to cite a number of papers, which on closer inspection are all authored by the referee.

We would like to hear whether Forum participants have any policies or procedures for reviewers who are clearly manipulating citation data by asking authors to cite a number of the reviewer’s own papers.

We have been approached via email by a company promoting authorship for sale. The email describes the service as providing 'co-authorship' of an existing article that has been submitted for publication in an indexed journal. The articles cover a range of disciplines and the company claims a high success rate for publication.

Question for COPE Council:

• What steps should publishers take in cases of such overt promotion of paper mills?