2010

Search results

  1. Author of rejected letter to the editor blames global bias against his message and undisclosed conflicts of interest

    On-going 2010 ...

  2. Ethical approval

    10-36 We have received an article on health care access and availability in prisons of country XX. In the first version of the manuscript there was no mention of ethics approval. On request, the revised version included a statement that ...

  3. Questionable ethics related to clinical trial raised by peer-reviewer

    10-34 You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right ...

  4. Submissions from members of the editorial board

    10-33 You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right ...

  5. Author misconduct

    10-32 You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right ...

  6. Authorship order dispute

    10-35 You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right ...

  7. Nuisance author

    10-31 You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right ...

  8. Breach of peer review confidentiality

    10-25 This case concerns a submitted review article that proposes a new theory in a field of research where there are two polarised positions. ...

  9. No ethics committee approval of a study

    10-28 Our journal received a manuscript describing a comparison of two different techniques for patients in the intensive care unit. There was no information on ethics committee approval and so we asked the authors if approval was ...

  10. Falsified references

    10-29 An article was submitted to my journal and was sent for peer review. An editorial board member realised that a number of the references were incorrect: publication dates had been changed to make them more current. ...

  11. Claim from an author that his name should not have been included as author on a paper

    10-30 Dr R submitted a paper to our journal and has since expressed unhappiness about the way in which our journal has dealt with the issue. ...

  12. Authorship dispute

    10-27 Professor X claims that he should have been a coauthor on one of two peer reviewed publications and the senior author on the other. The situation is unusual in that Professor X is now retired and his name was omitted from ...

  13. Lack of acknowledgement of contributor

    10-23 Our case relates to a paper (by author’s A and B) that was retracted because of lack of acknowledgement of the contribution of another author (C). The retraction statement noted: “While the A/B paper is largely the work of A and B, ...

  14. A claim of stolen data and a demand for retractions

    10-22 The publishers received an email from author B about a recently published paper, which passed peer review and had been available online for about a month. In this email, author B claimed that he and another colleague C had ...

  15. Retract, correct, or both?

    10-12 Like many journals, we do not collect actual signatures of each co-author, asking the corresponding author to declare on a form that, among other things, he/she has the authority to submit on behalf of the others ...

  16. Suspect author

    10-13 Author A has published approximately 150 original articles since ~1994, with ~100 on one particular topic. Since some of these events were up to 16 years ago, and there are no formal records from then relating to these studies, the ...

  17. Plagiarism of published paper

    10-20 My subeditor handling this case told me he had found similarities with the protocol of a paper published elsewhere. The subeditor decided to send the paper for review to one of the authors of this published paper. The reviewer ...

  18. Is it unethical to reject unregistered (or late-registered) trials?

    10-17 We would like other editors’ opinions as to whether adhering to the journal’s policy on trial registration may contribute towards the non-publication of trial results (and thus bias in the literature). ...

  19. Suspicion of breach of proper peer reviewer behaviour

    10-26 An author submitted a paper for peer review with journal X on a topic that refers to a very recently published paper (ie, highly timely). The peer review was rather protracted because of long response times, reviewer substitution ...

  20. The ethics of drug/medication use evaluation audit cycles and publication of the results

    10-11 We are seeking guidance on the ethical issues surrounding drug/medicine use evaluation (DUE or MUE) audit cycles, particularly with respect to the publication of findings but also perhaps with regard to the conduct of these audits ...

  21. Author non-disclosure by editor in chief

    10-10 Please note, this case is being submitted by the Publishing Director of the journal based on the advice of a senior COPE member because it relates to the conduct of the editor in chief of the journal. The editor in chief of the ...

  22. Inadequate reporting of a trial, despite earlier rejection from a different journal

    10-15 We have been contacted by a reviewer after he spotted a paper he had reviewed for us (journal 1) now published in a second journal (journal 2). Both journals are members of COPE. The reviewer had advised we reject the paper when it ...

  23. Supervisor publishes PhD students work

    10-14 The PhD supervisor and a co-supervisor published a paper. The paper contained the work of a PhD student; approximately 90% of the paper was from the thesis. The PhD student found out when the paper was electronically pre-published. ...

  24. Question of paper retraction due to proven fabricated data

    10-16 A published paper has been under legal scrutiny due to fabricated data. The court has concluded that the evidence presented undermined the credibility of the study. We have read the COPE guidelines for retracting an article and ...

  25. Dual publication

    10-21 The authors submitted a paper to our journal which went through the review process and was accepted for publication. It was then placed online in corrected proof. While online we were informed by a reader that the paper appeared to ...

  26. Self-plagiarism?

    10-18 A paper was published with four authors from two universities and the contact author provided an exclusive license form on behalf of all of the authors. After publication, one of the authors contacted the editor claiming a case of ...

  27. What constitutes authorship?

    10-19 Author X submitted a paper to another journal, and included author Y, a student in the same institute, as a courtesy. Author Y had drawn two figures for the paper and discussed some of the observations (all made by author X) with ...

  28. Parallels between unpublished manuscript and a published article from other authors

    10-24 I am seeking advice on a confidential ‘letter of concern’ from an author (X) of a manuscript submitted before I was appointed editor of the journal but rejected by me on the advice of the associate editor. ...

  29. Possible dual publication

    10-08 As editor of journal A I am handling a manuscript by an author and it is likely to be accepted, although this is not yet decided. As a reviewer for journal B, I have since been asked to review a manuscript by the same author that ...

  30. Conflicting claims of intellectual property?

    10-03 Dr R, of University 1, has written an ‘official complain’ to Editor E alleging that a paper he was invited to review employs without permission a method that is the ‘background intellectual property’ (BIP) of University 1. He ...

  31. Case of duplicate publication detected after 9 years

    10-01 An original research article was published in a journal in 2000. This is a quarterly, non-indexed journal. The abstract is available on a national indexation website. ...

  32. Retraction or expression of concern?

    10-05 Shortly after publishing a short report, another group involved in similar work accused one of the authors (A) of the short report of fabricating and/or stealing data from their lab. The other group also stated that author A’s ...

  33. Concerns over research by an author in numerous, separate publications

    10-06 The authenticity of the content of numerous publications by Author K has been questioned by ‘concerned researchers’ in an anonymous email sent to the Editor of Journal A in December 2009. ...

  34. Dispute over authorship and usage of research protocol

    10-07 In November 2009, the Editor of Journal X received a letter complaining of a serious breach of publication ethics regarding an article already published a month earlier on the Journal’s website. The paper concerned had not yet been ...

  35. Author dispute over data presented in paper

    10-04 A manuscript was submitted to our Journal in 2008. The six authors signed the author form for the Journal which accompanies all submitted manuscripts. The author form gives information on the role each author played in the study ...

  36. A case of child abuse

    10-02 Child abuse is a common but underdiagnosed problem in our country. The abuse ranges from minor injury to severe head trauma. The true incidence of intentional head injury in children remains uncertain. ...

  37. What involvement should a journal have in a dispute about an article published in the journal?

    10-09 Our journal published a manuscript as part of an editors’ forum which, as an invited forum paper, received reviewer feedback but did not follow our usual double-blind peer review standard for regular submissions (the reviewers were ...