The Munin Conference 26.11.19

1. Introduction to COPE and
Publication Ethics
Mirjam Curno, PhD @C0PE
www.publicationethics.org

2. About me
Competing interests: None. Frontiers funded my travel to attend the meeting.
COPE council member and trustee 2012-2019
Publishing Director, with Frontiers since 2014
@MirjamCurno

3. COPE’s mission
To educate and advance knowledge in methods of safeguarding the
integrity of the scholarly record
Three core principles:
• Providing practical resources to educate and support our members
• Providing leadership in thinking on publication ethics
• Offering a neutral, professional voice in current debates
AIM: to move the culture of publishing towards one where ethical practices become the norm,
part of the culture itself, not something imposed from outside.

4. Who is COPE?
Charitable company limited by
guarantee
Trustee Board and Council (Volunteers)
+ Staff
Membership organisation [Not a
statutory body , no regulatory
authority]
12’500
Members
in +100 countries

6. COPE membership
COPE membership by subject area

7. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Zero 1 to 2 3 to 6 7 to 20 21 or more
Total (484) Econ., Fin., Bus. and Industry (15*)
Engineering, Maths and Tech (18*) Life sciences (45)
Other sciences (27) Medicine and Veterinary (120)
Arts, Humanities, Social Sci. (24)
Base: All with an opinion ()
* Indicates caution: low base of less than 20 respondents
Number of ethics cases seen annually

12. 2017
COPE celebrating
20 years

13. COPE membership survey

14. Publication ethics is an integral part of
research integrity

15. Mandates to change behaviours
[The Proposed Rule for U.S. Clinical Trial Registration and Results Submission; Deborah A. Zarin,
M.D., Tony Tse, Ph.D., and Jerry Sheehan, M.S.; N Engl J Med 2015; 372:174-180]

16. Top 5 publishing ethics challenges faced by today’s journal editors. Exploring publication ethics in the arts, humanities,
and social sciences https://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/COPE%20AHSS_Survey_Key_Findings_SCREEN_AW.pdf

17. 72%
62%
59%
55%
50%
43%
36%
34%
29%
16%
12%
10%
12%
8%
8%
7%
0% 100%
Lack of training and education in publication ethics
among authors/reviewers
Lack of training and education in research ethics among
authors/reviewers
Lack of understanding about the publication ethics
standards of international journals
Increase in plagiarism
There are not enough peer reviewers
Increase in online publication
Too many papers are being submitted to journals
Decline in quality of papers submitted
All that are important
Single most important
Base: All with an opinion (633)
Issues of importance in publication ethics today
Lack of training and education is seen as the most important current issue, followed
by that in research ethics. The international angle features highly as a perceived
source of errors in publication ethics.

18. Issues in publication ethics
1. Carelessness
Includes: Citation bias, understatement, negligence
Examples: Faulty statistical analyses, research methods incomplete, selective
citation, unread references
Consequences: Request for correction, letter to editor

19. 2. Plagiarism
Includes: Undisclosed sources
Examples: Copying of text without references,
unattributed data
Consequences: Rejection or retraction of article,
notification of institution
Issues in publication ethics

20. 3. Redundancy
Includes: Salami publications, self-plagiarism
Examples: Publish several papers with minimal data from one study
Consequences: Rejection of manuscript, copyright infringement
Issues in publication ethics

21. 4. Unfair authorship (ghost and guest authors)
Includes: Failure to include eligible authors, honorary authors
Examples: Head of department
Consequences: Angry colleagues, complaints to editor or institution
Issues in publication ethics

22. 5. Undeclared conflicts of interest
Includes: Personal, professional and financial
Examples: Stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel,
board membership
Consequences: Notification in the journal, possibly retraction of the
article, mistrust among readers
Issues in publication ethics

23. 6. Subject violations
Includes: Human and animal
Examples: No ethical review board approval for study
Consequences: Rejection of manuscript, notification of
institution, legal case
Issues in publication ethics

24. 7. Fraud
Includes: Fabrication and falsification
Examples: Selective reporting, altering or fabricating data
Consequences: Retraction of manuscript, notification of
institution, funding ban
Issues in publication ethics

25. We need a culture of
responsibility for the
integrity of the
literature… it’s not
just the job of editors
Ginny Barbour
COPE Chair 2012-2017

26. Forums and flowcharts…
10 core practices
• Flowcharts
• Infographics
• Best practice guidelines
• Discussion documents
• Newsletter, presentation archives
• COPE Forum cases
For members:
• E-Learning modules
• Letter templates, Self-audit tool for journals
• Seminars/workshops and webinars
• COPE Forum

27. Infographics
How to recognise
potential
manipulation of the
peer review process
The features or patterns
of activity shown are
suggested to help
recognise potential
signs of peer review
manipulation.
Often it is the
occurrence of these
features in
combination that may
indicate a potential
issue.

28. Flowcharts

29. Guidelines

30. Discussion papers

32. COPE assists editors of scholarly journals and publishers - as well as other parties, such as
institutions - in their work to preserve and promote the integrity of the scholarly record through
policies and practices. COPE describes these in 10 Core Practices. These should be considered
alongside specific national and international codes of conduct for research.
COPE’s Core Practices
https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

33. 1. Allegations of misconduct
Journals should have a clearly described process for handling
allegations, however they are brought to the journal's or publisher’s
attention. Journals must take seriously allegations of misconduct
pre-publication and post-publication. Policies should include how to
handle allegations from whistleblowers.
2. Authorship and contributorship
Clear policies (that allow for transparency around who contributed to
the work and in what capacity) should be in place for requirements
for authorship and contributorship as well as processes for
managing potential disputes.

34. 3. Complaints and appeals
Journals should have a clearly described process for handling
complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher.
4. Conflicts of interest
There must be clear definitions of conflicts of interest and processes
for handling conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors,
journals and publishers, whether identified before or after
publication.

35. 5. Data and reproducibility
Journals should include policies on data availability and encourage
the use of reporting guidelines and registration of clinical trials and
other study designs according to standard practice in their discipline.
6. Ethical oversight
Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on
consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical
conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research
using human subjects, handling confidential data and of
business/marketing practices.

36. publicationethics.org
7. Intellectual property
All policies on intellectual property, including copyright and
publishing licenses, should be clearly described. In addition, any
costs associated with publishing should be obvious to authors and
readers. Policies should be clear on what counts as prepublication
that will preclude consideration. What constitutes plagiarism and
redundant/overlapping publication should be specified.
8. Journal management
A well-described and implemented infrastructure is essential,
including the business model, policies, processes and software for
efficient running of an editorially independent journal, as well as the
efficient management and training of editorial boards and editorial
and publishing staff.

37. publicationethics.org
9. Peer review processes
All peer review processes must be transparently described and well
managed. Journals should provide training for editors and reviewers and
have policies on diverse aspects of peer review, especially with respect
to adoption of appropriate models of review and processes for handling
conflicts of interest, appeals and disputes that may arise in peer review.
10. Post-publication
discussions, corrections
Journals must allow debate post publication either on their site,
through letters to the editor, or on an external moderated site, such
as PubPeer. They must have mechanisms for correcting, revising or
retracting articles after publication.

38. Marcovitch et al Croat Med J. 2010 doi: 10.3325/cmj.2010.51.7
Staircase of misconduct

39. Serious consequences
http://bit.ly/PzhCKK

40. Retractions
• Most serious consequence by journals
• Correcting the literature not punishment
• Retractions cover both honest errors and misconduct
• Standards of retraction of mixed quality

41. In the news
?

42. Is misconduct on the rise?
J Med Ethics 2011;37:567-570 doi:10.1136/jme.2010.040964
J Med Ethics 2011;37:249-253 doi:10.1136/jme.2010.040923

43. How common is misconduct?
• Systematic review (screened 3207 papers)
• Meta-analysis (18 studies)
• surveys of fabrication or falsification
• NOT plagiarism
• 2% admitted misconduct themselves
(95% CI 0.9-4.5)
• 14% aware of misconduct by others
(95% CI 9.9-19.7)
Fanelli PLoS One 2009;4(5):e5738

44. Yet infrequently detected
PubMed retractions 0.02%
US Office of Research Integrity
(ORI)
0.01-0.001%
(1 in 10,000 / 100,000 scientists)
Image manipulation
in J Cell Biology
1%
(8/800)
FDA audit – investigators guilty
of serious scientific misconduct
2%

45. Is it getting more complicated?
• Pressure to publish, academic incentives
• International submissions
• Blogs, tweets, pre-publications
• Big datasets, data publications and ownership
• Vulnerable populations
• Multi-center collaborations
• Citizen science
• Different quality of journals

46. “...scientists feel tempted or under pressure to
compromise on research integrity and
standards … Suggested causes include high
levels of competition in science and the
pressure to publish.”

47. Ten principles to guide
research evaluation and
establish best practice
in metrics-based research
assessment
Nature (2015) vol 520, p 429-31

49. An author had created
fake email accounts
for reviewers… people
were jaw-dropped…
It represented a
turning point.
Charon Pierson,
COPE Secretary 2015-2019
Comments on COPE case #12-12 in What happens before a retraction? A behind-the-
scenes look from COPE https://retractionwatch.com/2016/03/22/what-happens-
before-a-retraction-a-behind-the-scenes-look-from-cope/

50. Reviewer and author
perspectives on peer review
Mirjam Curno, PhD @C0PE
www.publicationethics.org

51. Global State of Peer Review 2018 by Publons and Clarivate Analytics

52. Peer review types
• Single-blind
• Reviewers’ names not revealed to authors
• Double-blind
• Reviewers and authors anonymous
• Open
• All names revealed throughout
• Review process public
• Transparent
• Review reports published
• Reviewer names published

53. Peer review types
• Pre-publication
• Traditional
• Collaborative
• Transferred / Portable
• Post-publication
• Pre-submission

54. What Constitutes Peer Review of Data: A survey of published peer review guidelines
Todd A Carpenter (pre-print on Arxiv)

56. Global State of Peer Review 2018 by Publons and Clarivate Analytics

57. Global State of Peer Review 2018 by Publons and Clarivate Analytics

58. “…when evaluating a reviewer’s work and contribution, the authors seem
to be strongly influenced by the final decision on their paper: if the paper
is accepted, the authors are satisfied with the review reports; if it is
rejected, they judge that the wrong reviewers were chosen or that they
did not perform well”

59. “Several tools are available to assess the quality of peer review
reports; however, the development and validation process is
questionable and the concepts evaluated by these tools vary
widely. ”