知识产权

单个作者向我们的期刊提交了一篇论文。相似性检查显示与另一个已发布的纸张相似的48％。已发布的论文总作者-5总数为5。论文之间的相似性在引言，方法和讨论部分中。提交作者未提及已发布的文章。

我们查询相应的作者，但尚未收到响应。

Question(s) for the COPE Forum
•在这种情况下我们该怎么办？
• Should we withdraw/reject the article and embargo the author.
• Should we contact the author’s institute without receiving any clarifications from the author?
• How long should we wait for a response from the author before reporting to the institute?

We received an email from a whistleblower notifying us about possible plagiarism in two chapters published by us, both authored by the same two authors. The whistleblower accused the authors of substantial plagiarism.

In both chapters there were, indeed, certain unattributed parts of the text, although the majority was properly attributed. Some of the unattributed parts were authored by the authors themselves, while some were taken from third parties. The whistleblower highlighted some properly cited parts of the text, as he claimed they were directly copied from other sources.

As a first step we contacted both authors for an explanation. The authors admitted their mistakes but also explained that they did not have any malevolent intention, and that it was a simple oversight on their behalf. They explained that they were willing to correct (publish a correction of) their chapter.

然后我们联系了这本书的编辑。在他看来，这不是一个大量抄袭的案例，并建议发布惩罚。举报人对编辑的意见并不满足。

Question(s) for the COPE Forum

• 这种不端行为严重足以保证撤退，或者会足以发布修正吗？