The manuscript was submitted to our journal 3 months after the project was finished. Project reports were also submitted to the national agency through the sub-contractors. The second author was the primary conduit of communication between the sub-contractors and the national funding agency.
The Forum agreed that it would be unwise for this paper to go forward given the authorship conflicts, the questionable timeliness or veracity of the data, the status of the permissions from the federal funding agency, and the lack of response from the second author (presumably because he had left the agency). The first and third authors could be encouraged to write a different paper in light of the problems. While the Forum recognized the editor’s wish to try and help the author get their paper published, the process should stop at the point of consent or lack thereof and when the authorship issues became questionable. Further changes by the programme officer would likely change the paper significantly such that it would need to be re-reviewed.
An editor received a query from an author: “Your guidelines are clear that presenting data at a society meeting does not preclude publication. But what if the society records the presentation, retains copyright of that recording, and posts it online? Is asking presenters to turn over copyright of a recording of data presented at a prepublication stage and disseminating the recording as they see fit crossing the "prior publication" line?”
There is a similar situation with dissertations. Do poster presentations have the same copyright rules? Generally, previous presentations in the form of papers presented at a conference are allowed although there might be some text overlap with the abstract, which is usually all that is printed. In other situations, a published abstract in English might accompany an article written in another language, but with appropriate credits, a complete translation of that article might be appropriate for publication.
We have received a number of manuscripts involving a published scale where the scale’s developer is known to comb the literature and ask those who used the scale for research to pay for a retroactive license, sometimes asking for very large sums of money.
因为他们发现了大量的来源quotations from the interviews that they conducted as being from 15 year olds, I contacted the first author for clarification. I also asked where the statute is listed that states 15 years as the age of consent in your country and also asked if the study was reviewed by an ethical review board.
One view was that parents should have been informed for the younger aged participants (15 and 16 year olds). However, another view was that the benefits outweigh the risks, and that if the parents had been informed, that may have prevented the participants taking part in the study. The age of consent varies widely in different countries. If participants are over the age of consent for that particular country and the study was done according to national standards, then the authors should be allowed to publish. A suggestion was that if the paper is accepted for publication, the editor could put a statement or note on the paper around the issue of consent, in the cultural context. It may also be useful for the editor to write an editorial comment as readers may also have similar questions.
The cohort was 2500 patients, all with one syndrome, in one hospital. The paper contains two tables that display data from 12 patients: sex, age, presenting symptom, as well as laboratory parameters and outcome.
COPE论坛的问题 • As the publisher of the journal where authors B, C, D and E wish the article to be published, would it be acceptable to publish the paper with a full statement about the authors’ contributions to the article, and the fact that authors B, C, D and E have not been able to contact A? Thus there would be complete transparency.
建议：
The Forum agreed that the suggested course of action by the editor is a reasonable way to proceed. This issue often arises with deceased authors. The Forum suggested approaching a senior member of the institution to guarantee that the work was carried out as described. Also, it would be advisable to have someone vouch for any conflicts of interest that the author might have. A full statement on the article covering these issues would be sufficient.
The editor was satisfied with the guidance the Forum provided. Based on feedback from the Forum, the journal is creating a sample parental consent form for authors to use as a template. The journal hopes to clarify what it means to give consent to publish a child’s case in the journal so that the parent is fully aware. The editor would be interested in any formal guidance on consent issues from COPE. The editor considers the case closed.