I informed the authors involved in the incident that this issue was taken to the COPE Forum and that the suggestion was that the recommended manner for dealing with situations in which there is a question of academic dishonesty was that the paper be rejected and that information regarding the incident be forwarded to the host university(s) so they can conduct an investigation and act as they see fit. I then indicated that we have adopted this recommended procedure to address future cases and as this case entered prior to the onset of this policy, the original submission ban is lifted and we will not be submitting the information to the universities.
I am a trainer and author of books on medical writing. It was brought to my attention that a chapter in a German-language book published in Switzerland was based almost entirely on my teaching. The first author is director of a privately funded research institution and the second author a member of staff. The second author attended one of my courses. There is a general statement at the beginning of the chapter where the authors ‘refer to’ me (with a reference to one book and my website) and one other specific reference when they talk about macro and micro editing. However, there is one diagram copied from a course overhead and some original research published without reference, including a table reproduced directly from one of my books without acknowledging the source. Descriptions of several other specific concepts from my work (eg, storyboarding, 2-7-7-6) that appear in the chapter to be theirs, not mine. At one stage they write ‘We recommend’ giving a clear implication that it is theirs to recommend.
A paper was accepted and published in journal A which dealt with a cohort of patients with an unusual respiratory pathogen. A similar paper had been published in a US journal B a few months before. It dealt with more or less the same patients (a few more had been added) and provided some extra secondary outcome data but with the same conclusions.
论坛由编辑器,在被告知received no responses to his emails, he had mailed a letter to the institution but had still received no response. The Forum questioned whether or not he had evidence that the institution had in fact received the complaint. Was it sent by courier? Was it signed for? The Forum noted that there are limited options available to an editor as the paper is not published (ie, he could retract the paper if it had been published). The advice was to write to the institution every 3 months until a response is received. Other advice was to contact the Grant or Funding Body or to write to the rector of the university explaining the case. All discouraged the editor from publishing details of the case in his journal until the results of an investigation are available as he could be in breach of confidentiality.
·Should Journal A have offered to conduct an investigation into how the paper in question was peer reviewed to allay the concerns of the scientists who have contacted them to request this?
There was a general feeling that the authors should do something, and if nothing else is available, they should be encouraged to post a comment on the website, which might at least spark some debate. Having done so, if the authors continue to believe the editor has treated them unfairly, then they could complain to a higher authority, perhaps to the publisher or society, if it is a society owned journal.
One of our journals has published several articles describing use of a particular cell line X, which belongs to company Y. The authors included employees of company Y. A reader at a university, Dr Z, wished to gain access to cell line X, and requested it from company Y. He was informed by the director of science of company Y that ‘...it is Y’s intention to keep control of the integrity of the X materials as much as possible, thereby taking care of our licensees’ interests. Hence, Y does not widely disseminate the X material to academic institutions.’
We recently published article A by author group X on our website ahead of print publication and subsequently received a formal complaint from author group Y alleging that the paper constitutes a breach of their intellectual property rights.
C contacted journal T with several allegations regarding A’s paper in journal T. These were: (1) A在离开X研究所后提交了论文 (2) A从未和C讨论过他打算公布C实验室的这些数据 (3) 在T杂志上发表的材料是“完全基于”他们以前一起发表的数据 (4) A未经批准使用发表在T杂志上的材料 (5) Questions two of A’s methods/techniques and the data that resulted (6) 一个从未承认的资助机构
An editor on journal T reviewed these allegations and believes that A’s paper was a follow-up paper, and that it appears to take further the research A and C had previously published in journal S. The paper had undergone peer review on journal T by one specialist referee, who provided a full and penetrating report.