Al percatarse de un alto volumen de envíos del autor A, el editor X mostró su preocupación sobre los revisores sugeridos por el autor y sus comentarios. El autor A había sugerido en la mayoría de los casos los mismos revisores para todos los envíos, los revisores sugeridos tenían direcciones de correo electrónico imposibles de verificar, los comentarios se devolvían muy rápido (en 24 horas) y eran, por norma general, breves y positivos, limitándose a errores gramaticales. Todos los revisores sugeridos se decantaban por la aceptación inmediata o sujeta a revisiones menores.
An author submitted a manuscript and stated that he was the sole author. The manuscript received a favourable peer review and eventually was accepted. Some time after the article was published, a co-author told the author to contact the journal to correct the author list. The author of record (AOR) did this and supplied co-author names to the journal.
The editor worked with the author group to determine the source of the error and to resolve the list and order of authors. The AOR acknowledged that he should have credited additional authors. All authors agreed with the corrected list of authors, but the AOR insisted on being the first author and the other authors did not agree.
Pursuant to COPE guidelines, the editor contacted the university of the AOR for assistance and found that the author had left and was now a resident of another country. The university was unable to assist in resolving the authorship issue. The AOR then contacted the journal and stated that due to disagreement on the order of authorship, he was requesting a retraction of the article.
One more attempt was made by the editor and a co-author to resolve the dispute, but the AOR refused to acknowledge any other lead author. However, the AOR agreed that, following retraction, the manuscript could be resubmitted with another lead author. Attempts to negotiate another solution and education about the consequences of retraction have been unsuccessful in resolving the problem.
Question(s) for the COPE Forum
Are there any remaining options other than retraction?
What is the recommendation should the authors wish to resubmit to the same journal, as has been expressed?
Aside from the existing extensive author guidelines required by the journal, is there another way to prevent this in the future?
What other steps should be taken to address the authors in the case?
Advice:
The Forum agreed that the editor followed the correct route in terms of handling this case. If the article itself is sound and there is nothing wrong with the research or the integrity of the data in the article, it is usually not appropriate for an article to be retracted for an authorship dispute. The purpose of retraction is to rectify the scientific record not to resolve an authorship dispute.
Also, it is not the role of publishers or editors to resolve authorship disputes. These issues need to be investigated and resolved by the authors’ institutions. The editor may wish to push this request back to the institution and indicate that the journal will not retract the article unless specific reasons for retraction are given.
The COPE retraction guidelines include a section on “Should retraction be applied in cases of disputed authorship?” The guidelines state that “If there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings or the reliability of the data, it is not appropriate to retract a publication solely on the grounds of an authorship dispute.” The ideal situation would be for the authors to agree on a course of action. Failing that, the institution should be asked to investigate. If the institution fails to investigate, or does not respond, the journal should consider publishing an expression of concern or a corrigendum, which transparently states that the journal has become aware that there is an ongoing authorship dispute.
Another view was to consider if there are grounds for retraction based on copyright infringement or some other legal issue (eg, libel, privacy). If the publisher finds there is infringement on the other authors' rights to have been included as authors on this list, retraction might be justified. The Forum would advise the publisher in consultation with their legal department to determine if there is a serious legal issue that necessitates that the article be retracted. Whether the article is republished with another author list is another issue that would need to be resolved but it would mean that the research is not lost but the authorship is corrected.
For future submissions, the journal may wish to update their instructions to authors to state that a signed statement by all of the authors is required on submission, recognising the order of authorship, that there is no one else that should be included as an author in the manuscript and that manuscripts will not be retracted on the sole basis of an authorship dispute.
Follow up:
Thejournal chose to republish the article with a corrected author list and a corrigendum. The corrected article has been published online and will later appear in a print issue of the journal.
A publisher is responding to allegations about a particular group of authors. The complainants have accused this group of authors of wide scale research fabrication and misconduct, relating to a large number of their papers across many different journals (published by a variety of publishers).
The publisher and the journals that are investigating and responding to these claims have referred the concerns to the institution responsible for the research governance of the authors. The institution said they would investigate and respond by a certain date, but their response is slightly overdue.
Question(s) for the COPE Forum
Should an expression of concern be published while waiting for the outcome from the institution?
One of the journals has received another submitted paper by the same group of authors. Should the paper undergo normal peer review, or should it be delayed because of the unresolved investigation about the other papers?
Should different publishers/journals share information with each other about cases that involve multiple papers and journals? If so, how should the information be shared with others?
Advice:
COPE typically advises that cases should be handled and judged individually. A new submission should not automatically be dismissed from being peer reviewed, but the editor may wish to consider additional precautions in its review. One suggestion is to ask the author to provide all of the raw data or any underlying images. The journal may wish to do additional statistical analysis to see whether there are unlikely patterns in the data.
Communication with other editors might be fruitful where there are duplications among different papers in different journals across publications. Otherwise, the editor should try to respect confidentiality. The editor should look at their own journal independently of other journals. It is not appropriate to correct or retract a paper just because there are problems with other papers.
There is existing COPE guidance on Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct which explains how to share information. It may be appropriate to share some amount of information with other editors perhaps not with the intent of a full investigation but rather for notification and documentation to the institution regarding these claims.
Follow up:
After a delay, the journal heard back from the authors’ institution who carried out the investigation. However, the institution’s response has not given the journals enough information to fully evaluate the articles. The publisher is reaching out to other publishers who have been affected by this case to see whether the institution has given other publishers any more information that might be useful. The journal is waiting to receive responses.
A manuscript was published in our journal in 2015, and at the time of publishing (as now), the author was a faculty member of a university. The author's affiliation was not declared in the article, just the author's qualifications. Now the author wishes us to correct the paper and list her affiliation in the article.
Question(s) for the COPE Forum
What is the Forum's advice?
Should the journal correct the affiliation of the author in the paper after publication?
Advice:
Correcting the paper is important for maintaining the accuracy of the published record and to maintain consistency and clarity. Authors make mistakes all the time. There is nothing unethical in a missed affiliation. A formal correction/erratum is appropriate here. It is considered good practice that author affiliations should be published for all articles. This information is important for identifying conflicts of interest.
Downloaded versions of the paper may be available, and therefore a formal erratum, linked directly to the online article, should be done. The correction should state the facts, that the affiliation was not included in the original paper, but it was the affiliation at the time and remains the affiliation now. Issued corrections are good for a journal as they provide proof that the journal is doing what it must do to keep the public record straight, accurate and transparent.
The journal might like to consider requiring all authors to use ORCID IDs. This way, affiliations can be updated, but the ORCID ID stays the same.
Follow up:
Following the advice from the Forum, the journal complied with the author’s request. The journal changed the affiliation in the online version and re-uploaded the article on the journal’s website.
My initial introduction to COPE many years ago occurred when, as an editor of a peer reviewed journal, a reviewer called to my attention, a blatant example of fabrication in a manuscript in which years and volumes of references had been altered to make them more current. I contacted COPE, presented the case at a Forum, and received excellent advice and consultation. This ultimately resulted in numerous retractions of manuscripts published by this researcher, across three journals.
Author Developed by COPE Council in collaboration with Springer Nature Version 1 October 2018 How to cite this
COPE Council. What to do if you suspect image manipulation in a published article. Version 1. 2018 https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.2.21
Our COPE materials are available to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Non-commercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works —
You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. We ask that you give full accreditation to COPE with a link to our website: publicationethics.org
Manipulation of the publication process is a relatively new form of misconduct affecting the publishing industry.
These guidelines represent an important first step towards encouraging openness and collaboration between publishers to address this phenomenon.
Systematic manipulation of the publication process is where an individual or a group of individuals have repeatedly used dishonest or fraudulent practices to:
Author Developed by COPE Council in collaboration with Springer Nature Version 1 November 2018 How to cite this
COPE Council. Systematic manipulation of the publication process. Version 1. 2018 https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.2.23
Our COPE materials are available to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Non-commercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works —
You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. We ask that you give full accreditation to COPE with a link to our website: publicationethics.org
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