Before the publication of the editorial comment, the journal held a conference call with the complainant. The complainant had published a paper on a related issue in the preceding year, but the study published in the journal was different from the previous meta-analyses from the complainant’s own group. This had not been disclosed to the journal previously. It became also clear that the complainant had not contacted the authors of the article to share his concerns, and the journal encouraged him to do so.
What is a journal’s responsibility to minimise potential damage that readers can do to the reputation of the author where the reader disagrees with the editorial team and the authors of the original article on whether an error has been made versus a difference in opinion?
What are the options for a journal to respond to (unreasonable) requests from readers regarding the content published in the journal and/or request to retract a paper if the editorial team considers the concern not sufficiently problematic to result in retraction?
The Forum mentioned that often journals encounter individuals who are persistent—they raise one issue, the journal addresses and potentially corrects the issue, but the complainant is not satisfied and refuses to accept that the issue has resolved. All journals can do is follow due process: the journal should have a process, have documentation of having followed that process, be transparent, and keep good records. Ultimately, editors have the right to decide what they publish, and the editor's and publisher’s decision is final. Has the journal communicated this clearly to the complainant? The complainant requested that the journal involve the publishers’ ethics committee, so the editor might consider this option, if an ethics committee exists at the publisher.
These situations can be very difficult for journals, especially with a persistent complainant. If the journal has completed its due process and determined that the article stands, with or without an erratum, then due process has been done. If the complainant comes back with new concerns or issues that were not considered or were not covered by the prior assessment, that might be a reason to look at the article again. But if they are simply reiterating the issues that were raised previously, it is reasonable for the editor to say they have already considered those issues and that the case is closed.
What is the journal's responsibility to minimise damage? The journal’s responsibility is to the content of the article. What the reader does external to the journal cannot be managed by the journal.
Version 1Published 10 January 2014; 如何引用: COPE Council, OASPA, DOAJ, and WAME. Princípios de Transparência e Boas Práticas em Publicações Acadêmicas. September 2018 Our COPE materials are available to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 归属-你必须以作者或许可人指定的方式对作品进行归属（但不能以任何方式表明他们认可你或你对作品的使用）。 非商业性-您不得将本作品用于商业目的。无衍生作品- You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. We ask that you give full accreditation to COPE with a link to our website:m.lang0752.com
Version 1Published 10 January 2014; 如何引用: 国会、OASPA、DOAJ和WAME。透明和透明原则。2018年9月。https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.13 Our COPE materials are available to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 归属-你必须以作者或许可人指定的方式对作品进行归属（但不能以任何方式表明他们认可你或你对作品的使用）。 非商业性-您不得将本作品用于商业目的。无衍生作品- You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. We ask that you give full accreditation to COPE with a link to our website:m.lang0752.com
Our COPE materials are available to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 归属-你必须以作者或许可人指定的方式对作品进行归属（但不能以任何方式表明他们认可你或你对作品的使用）。 非商业性-您不得将本作品用于商业目的。无衍生作品- You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. We ask that you give full accreditation to COPE with a link to our website:m.lang0752.com
作者COPE/DOAJ/OASPA/WAME公司 Version 3Published January 2018 Version 22015年6月22日出版 Version 1Published 10 January 2014; 如何引用: COPE Council, OASPA, DOAJ, and WAME. Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. Version 3 January 2018.https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.12
Our COPE materials are available to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 归属-你必须以作者或许可人指定的方式对作品进行归属（但不能以任何方式表明他们认可你或你对作品的使用）。 非商业性-您不得将本作品用于商业目的。无衍生作品- You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. We ask that you give full accreditation to COPE with a link to our website:m.lang0752.com
Full page history
The topic for discussion at this Forum was ‘Publishing offensive material’. Specifically, what constitutes bad taste, indecency or obscenity? How do you deal with expletives (as part of interviews or transcripts)? Where is the line between censorship and freedom of expression?
A submission in the economics field to an interdisciplinary social science journal was accepted, following full external review. Subsequently, the publisher wrote to the author stating that during editorial checks, it had come to their attention that a full manuscript of a paper with the same name was available in a discussion paper series and kindly asked that this version be removed from the website so that the publisher has the right of first publication.
The publisher stated that upon acceptance for publication, authors may deposit the abstract of their paper or an executive summary on this website. They said that in accordance with the publisher policy for online deposit of work, preprints or post-prints should only be deposited into institutional repositories or faculty websites following an embargo period effective on official publication of the paper. The publisher said they will not be able to proceed to publication of the paper until this issue has been resolved.
In the economics field, as in many other fields, it is standard practice to deposit in such a series an early version of a paper that is subsequently submitted for journal publication. The present case concerns a prestigious discussion paper series that has approaching 9000 entries. Since a published version would have undergone substantial changes following external review, researchers would inevitably seek out and cite the later journal version; indeed, leading websites in the field provide details of subsequent journal publication, as available. Generally, leading repositories, including this one, are unwilling to remove papers from its series.
Question(s) for the COPE Forum •出版商的立场是否合理？ •即使研究经费可能来自大学或外部来源，出版商能否合理地坚持“首次出版权”？ •期刊编辑的反应是什么？ •跨学科的公认实践是否存在差异？
If the editor wishes to publish the paper, and it is standard practice in his field, then the Forum agreed he should have full editorial independence. The publisher should not interfere in the decision, especially if a consensus or joint solution has not been agreed by the editor and publisher.
The Forum advised that the journal needs a very specific and transparent policy, stating clearly in its author instructions what the journal will publish and in what form. The issue can be very complicated for authors when different publishers or even different journals within the same publisher have different policies. The advice was to have a discussion and resolve the issue with the publisher.
编辑把论坛上提出的建议提请出版商注意。经过内部讨论，出版商采纳并公布了一项新政策，该政策与COPE论坛上提出的建议非常一致。 The new policy (edited version) states: “出版者不会在发表前考虑一篇工作论文，在线工作论文的存在也不会取消一篇文章被考虑发表的资格。此外，出版商不希望从其服务器或会议网站上删除工作文件。但是，本政策仅适用于以下情况： - The author declares to the journal editor on submission of their article that a working paper upon which the paper is based is publicly available; - It is expected that the submitted article is substantially developed from the working paper, be it with further discussion or a different conclusion; - Any working paper must be fully referenced on the submitted article, such as ‘This article is based upon a working paper X, hosted on X.’; - Authors should not assign copyright when uploading their work to a preprint server or conference website. - This policy does not apply to any working paper that has been included in a conference proceeding volume or publication which has received an ISSN or ISBN.”
At the 2017 COPE European Seminar, Deborah Kahn, Publishing Director of Medicine and Open Access at Taylor & Francis presented her thoughts on what the arts, humanities and social sciences need from an organisation such as COPE.