Publication ethics: case studies from COPE

Moderators:  Irene Hames, UK, Mirjam Curno, Switzerland, and André van Steirteghem, Belgium

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, http://publicationethics.org/) provides advice to editors and publishers on all aspects of publication ethics, along with the support and resources they need to implement good publication practice. It holds a quarterly Forum to which its members (there are now more than 8500, from over 80 countries) can bring challenging cases for discussion and advice. Over 17 years, COPE has built up a searchable database of more than 500 cases, covering a wide range of issues in research integrity and publication ethics, such as duplicate publication, authorship disputes, and plagiarism. In this interactive workshop, a number of cases based on real-life examples brought to COPE, and covering some of the most pressing problems currently faced by editors and journals, will be discussed. The new COPE Case Taxonomy, comprising 18 main classification categories and 100 keywords, will be introduced, and an analysis of the cases presented.