When Is an Expression of Concern (EOC) Issued?
An Expression of Concern (EOC) is a notice published by the editors to alert readers to serious concerns about, or potentially misleading information in, a published article. It is a distinct instrument, not a form of correction: it does not amend the article and it does not withdraw it. It records that a serious question about the article is open and not yet resolved.
Where an investigation concludes quickly, the editors publish the resulting correction or retraction directly and no EOC is needed. Where it does not conclude quickly, an EOC is the normal interim step: where a case is referred to the Secondary Ethics Committee and the article concerned is already published, an EOC is published, so that readers are not left reading the article without notice while the matter is unresolved. An EOC may also be issued at any earlier point if the editors judge the concern serious enough to warrant it.
Who Writes an EOC and Where Is It Posted?
An EOC is written by the journal's Editor(s)-in-Chief or the Head of the Ethics Department. When published, an EOC is posted at the top of the article's webpage and linked to the article's publication record, similar to a correction.
There is no charge to publish or to read an expression of concern.
Impact of Publishing an EOC
Publishing an EOC does not change the status of the linked published article. After an EOC is published, the same article may be corrected or retracted, or the EOC itself may be corrected or retracted, depending on the editors' assessment of information, data, and/or materials received in subsequent discussions.
Author Notification and Data Publication
We also attempt to inform the authors of the affected article before publishing an EOC, but we do not require the authors' approval or agreement. We commit ourselves to publish data or other materials received from the authors as supporting files with an EOC; in such cases, authors are consulted and can elect not to have their files/materials published, though this may affect the editorial decision to resolve the issue with an EOC.
Notifying Affected Third Parties
Brieflands may notify affected third parties of an Expression of Concern. This could include, for example, the authors' institution(s), and affected data repository or another journal/publisher that has an article or submission involved in the case.
Brieflands publishes an Expression of Concern as a new, citable article of its own type — “Expression of Concern” — with its own DOI, linked in both directions to the article it concerns.
It is not typed as a correction. A correction amends the record; an Expression of Concern amends nothing and records that a serious question is open. The two are distinct types in Crossref and in PubMed, and typing an EOC as a correction mis-codes it in both — a reader filtering for corrections would see it, and a reader looking for open concerns would not. Brieflands deposits it as expression-of-concern, and the notice is surfaced through Crossmark: see Crossmark Update Policy.
References:
- Post-publication discussions and corrections
- COPE case 17-02 Data manipulation and institute's internal review
- COPE case 15-10 Handling self-admissions of fraud
- Errata, Retractions, and Other Linked Citations in PubMed