- Guidelines
Guidelines for managing the relationships between society owned journals, their society, and publishers
The journals of ‘Learned Societies’ and ‘Professional Associations’ are an important part of the scientific literature. Regardless of the publication arrangements (ie, self-published by the society, published under contract with a professional publishing house, or some combination of both) and the number of journals affiliated with that society, the policies of and the relationships among the j… - Guidelines
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing
Introduction The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) are scholarly o… - Guidelines
Journals’ Best Practices for ensuring consent for publishing medical case reports: guidance from COPE
Introduction The publication of case reports is a common practice in medical journals, and increasingly in basic science journals when an article illustrates a specific scientific point (e.g., a genetic phenotype). There is no doubt that case reports are valuable in the academic literature. However, they pose a specific ethical challenge for journals because, by their ve… - Guidelines
Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct
…Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct Introduction This guidance has been drafted following a COPE Discussion Forum (4 September 2013) and - Guidelines
Text recycling guidelines for editors
A common issue encountered by editors is overlap of text with an author’s own previously published work, particularly with the increasing use of plagiarism detection software. This practice is known as ‘text recycling’ (also sometimes referred to as ‘self-plagiarism’). Opinions on the acceptability of text recycling vary greatly and it can be a challenge for editors to know how to deal with it… - Guidelines
A short guide to ethical editing for new editors
Background/structure Becoming an editor of a journal is an exciting but daunting task, especially if you are working alone without day to day contact with editorial colleagues. This short guide aims to summarise key issues and to provide links to relevant pages of the COPE website as well as those of other organisations. 1. Initial assessment of journal wh… - Guidelines
Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity cases: guidance COPE
Summary Institutions and journals both have important duties relating to research and publication misconduct. Institutions are responsible for the conduct of their researchers and for encouraging a healthy research environment. Journals are responsible for the conduct of their editors, for safeguarding the research record, and for ensuring the reliability of everything t… - Guidelines
Guidelines for the Board of Directors of Learned Society Journals
The journals of Learned Societies are an important part of the scientific literature. Their management should be of the highest quality and ethically sound. First, the relationship of Editors of the journals of Learned Societies to those Societies is often complex. However, notwithstanding the economic and political realities of their journals, directors of Learned Societies should respe… - Guidelines
How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers
One of the main tasks of COPE’s education committee is to reduce unethical behaviour. This involves the rather bold step of defining when people have been behaving unethically, and then providing suggestions on how they can avoid doing so in the future. To this end we have written, and tested on a group of authors, a guide for young researchers on the area of authorship, which many people agree… - Guidelines
Retraction guidelines
…Summary Editors should consider retracting a publication if: They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation) It constitutes plagiarism The findings have previously been published el… - Guidelines
Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers (English)
Peer review in all its forms plays an important role in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. The process depends to a large extent on trust, and requires that everyone involved behaves responsibly and ethically. Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer-review process, but too often come to the role without any guidance and unaware of their ethical obligations. COPE… - Guidelines
Guidance for Editors: research, audit and service evaluations
Regulations regarding what type of study requires ethical approval vary worldwide. In some countries all studies require ethical approval but in others not. This may lead to submission to journals of manuscripts relating to such studies that do not satisfy the journal’s normal requirement for independent ethical approval, and rejection of the manuscript because of misunderstanding of local regu…