Welcome to the February issue of COPE Digest
This is my first opportunity to open the Digest, so welcome everyone. In this issue, we are releasing the final version of the COPE Strategy for 2020-2023. This document is the end product of months of hard work by your volunteers (COPE Council and Trustee Board) to develop a focus for the next three years. Our four strategic priorities over this period can be summarised as:
Range – Extend the range and develop new resources to meet the needs of current and future members
Reach – Increase and extend the awareness of COPE across all disciplines and geographical areas
Responsiveness – Be more responsive to issues of publication ethics as they arise
Revenue – Expand our membership and create more sources of revenue to sustain our mission beyond 2023
We intend to use these years to broaden our membership and develop new resources that will be attractive to a greater breadth of disciplines and to university and institutional members. This growth will allow us to establish more sources of revenues that will sustain the organisation well into the future. This document is short and to the point, so I hope you will read it and embrace the activities that allow us to fulfil our goals.
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Of course, our strategy did not form out of thin air but was based on an environmental scan and the results of our 2019 member research...
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COPE Vice-Chair Daniel Kulp
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EDITING PEER REVIEW COMMENTS
This month we highlight two cases from the COPE archive that tie into the theme of our next COPE Forum discussion and a survey we’ll be sending to you in March, to find out what COPE members think about editing peer review comments.
The first case relates to a reviewer who writes comments that he/she doesn’t want the author to see, and the second regards transparency of peer review to co-authors.
READ MORE >
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DISCUSSION TOPIC: EDITING OF REVIEWER COMMENTS
Peer reviewers are asked to contribute intellectual work to assess and improve scholarly publications. As with all work, the quality and characteristics of peer reviews vary. Editors responsibilities include support not only to the peer reviewers who typically volunteer the time and knowledge but also to the authors, who reasonably should expect non-conflicted, thoughtful, unbiased, thorough reviews of the work in question and not be subjected to hostile or personal attacks.
Read more for examples of problematic reviews and questions we'll be asking at the Forum. We welcome comments on this discussion from both members and non-members whether or not you are planning on joining the Forum.
READ MORE AND COMMENT >
MARCH FORUM
FRIDAY 6 MARCH 2020: by webinar
4.00pm-5.30pm GMT
(COPE Members only)
The March Forum will include cases submitted by members. Our Forum discussion topic is "Editing of reviewer comments".
If you have a case and need advice on your next steps, you can submit it to be discussed, anonymously, at this Forum. The deadline to send in your case is 21 February.
Registration to attend the forum is now open to members.
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LATEST PUBLICATION ETHICS NEWS
This month COPE Council members have gathered news items that include articles on misconduct, predatory publishing, peer review and retractions. Here are just a few:
- experiences with peer review where 58% of researchers surveyed reported receiving at least one unprofessional review;
- translation plagiarism, a type of disguised plagiarism which occurs when authorship credit is taken by someone who republishes the work of someone else, but in a different language. The difficulty of identifying this type of plagiarism is explored and the potential damage done by it in the field of philosophy examined;
- a tool that can be used both before and after publication to assess the integrity of publications, the REAPPAISED check list;
- an open letter to cOAlition S articulating problems for humanities and social sciences journals.
READ ALL NEWS >
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COPE WORKSHOP: MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
3 MARCH 2020
Following on from the success of previous COPE workshops with ISMTE (International Society of Managing and Technical Editors), we are running another half day publication ethics workshop in Melbourne.
The workshop is hands-on, with attendees working through publication ethics issues from real cases raised by COPE members including cases on retractions, authorship and predatory publishing. You will identify what next steps should be taken, with the help of COPE Council members.
COPE Council members Michael Wise and Trevor Lane will run the workshop using the collective advice and guidance from COPE as well as their own perspectives.
REGISTER FOR THE WORKSHOP >
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COPE SEMINAR: OHIO, USA
15 JUNE 2020
The theme of the seminar is “Working together: issues in scholarly research and its publication”, with plenary talks covering text recycling, post-publication corrections and the relationship between research integrity and publication ethics.
READ MORE & REGISTER >
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INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF EDITORS IN HEALTH SCIENCES
21 February 2020
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA
Nancy Chescheir, COPE Council, will speak at this meeting on the ethics in health science publishing and predatory journals in health sciences.
MORE INFORMATION >
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CSE ANNUAL MEETING
2-5 May 2020
PORTLAND, USA
Heather Tierney, COPE Council, is a panellist discussing retractions at the CSE editorial policy ethics clinic.
MORE INFORMATION >
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Visit our events page to read more about upcoming events which include discussions on publication ethics:
- American Physical Therapy Association's 2020 Combined Sections Meeting, 12-15 February 2020 in Denver, Colorado
- American Academy of Pain Medicine Annual Meeting, 28 February 2020 in Washington DC
- International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE) Asia-Pacific Conference, 2-3 March 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. ISMTE are offering a discount to COPE members.
- Council of Science Editors (CSE) Annual Meeting, May 2020, in Portland, USA.
- The Ninth International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication, September 2021 in Chicago, USA
EVENTS >
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COPE Digest Editor:
Nancy C Chescheir, MD, Editor-in-Chief, Obstetrics and Gynecology
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