高级编辑委员会审查的建议from the COPE Forum and agreed with the suggested actions. The authors have drafted a Corrigendum, and this is currently undergoing review and revision by a board member with expertise in the field. Members of the editorial board are currently drafting an editorial for publication alongside the Corrigendum. An Expression of Concern will be published shortly to alert authors while the Corrigendum and editorial are drafted.
We received the first set of proofs and made all corrections. At that time, because of the extensive number of changes required, we requested that we have the opportunity to review a second and third proof. When we received the second proof of the excerpt, some corrections had been made, but other, new errors appeared. We made all of the required corrections and forwarded them to our publisher's production editor. The production editor acknowledged receipt of the corrections to the second proof. When we repeated our request to see a third proof, the publication editor assured us that all corrections would be made before publication.
I have told author X that it is not acceptable to replace correctly labelled images with ‘better versions’ and that we will only deal with those that are incorrectly labelled.
I am not convinced by author X’s explanation and did look to see whether there were any other published corrections associated with author X’s previous publications but did not find any. If the Investigatory Committee confirms that they did not find evidence of fraudulent intent, however, then I feel I have to accept that decision and will proceed according to our plan outlined above. I would very much appreciate COPE’s advice on how we have handled the situation so far, and whether our plan of action could be/have been improved.
建议：
The Fourm agreed that the editor had done all he could and had handled the case well. The institution has investigated and found no fraudulent intent. The editor should publish corrections, stating the facts and avoiding accusing any of the authors, and then let readers draw their own conclusions. Regarding the whistleblower, the editor does not have a duty to keep him/her informed of all of the details of the case. The whistleblower cannot expect to be involved in the case. The whistleblower can contact the institution if they want. The editor should keep correspondence with the whistleblower as formal as possible, reply only to direct questions and not involve him/her in the investigation.
We published a randomised trial by six authors. Some years later, we received a letter from a researcher who had been looking into the trial in the context of a meta-analysis. She noted “implausibilities of serious concern”, including “a highly unusual balance in the distribution of baseline characteristics”, 95% CIs that were non-symmetrical about the effect estimate, and use of a stratification variable the value of which could not have been known in all patients if the trial was conducted in the way reported.
2008年8月 We have managed to find details of whom to contact regarding informing the author's institution, and the deputy editor has written to him. We await a reply with anticipation.
Members of the Forum agreed that the editors should accept the explanation of the authors and believed that the case has probably arisen out of cultural differences. From an educational point of view, the editors could point out to the authors that it is not good practice for anyone to sign on behalf of an author. However, in the absence of any other evidence of misconduct, the Forum believed this was a minor discretion that could be overlooked.