Research and Publication Ethics [1 ed.] 9783031269707, 9783031269714, 9789389212686

Table of contents :
Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
1: Philosophy of Research: An Introduction
Overview
Phases of Research
Features of Good Research Study
Educational Research and Philosophy
Concept of Educational Philosophy and Theory
A Philosopher in the Classroom?
The Philosopher in an Interdisciplinary Research
Educational Research: Pursuit of Truth
Pragmatic Perspectives of Research
Ethical Codes and Academic Independence
Review Questions
Further Reading
2: Research Ethics
Overview
Being Ethical and Moral
Nature of Moral Judgment
Nature of Ethical Reactions: Applied Settings
Research Ethics and Positionality
Epistemology, Ethics, and Educational Research
Validity-Versus-Reliability Tradeoff
Commodification of Educational Research
Publishing and Coaching in Intercultural Settings
Ethics and Feminist Research
Review Questions
Further Reading
3: Ethics in Scientific Research
Overview
Scientific Integrity and Research Ethics
Issues of Authorship
Peer Review´s Role
Research Ethics in Human/Animal Subjects (Care)
Issues of Intellectual Property and Science
Conflicts of Interests
Autonomy
Dignity
Beneficence/Non-maleficence
Vulnerability and Justice
Research Ethics Committees
Science and Society
Review Questions
Further Reading
4: Intellectual Honesty and Research Integrity
Overview
Environment and Bases of Research Integrity
Promoting Integrity in Research
Evaluation by Self-Assessment
Integrity of the Individual Research
Support of Integrity by the Research Institution
Research Environment and Its Impact on Research Integrity
Fostering Integrity in Research
Promoting Honesty in Research
Principles of Adult Learning
Review Questions
Further Reading
5: Scientific Misconduct
Overview
Poor Practices vs. Misconduct
Fabrication/Falsification
Stealing Credit
Institutional Responses to Scientific Misconduct
Administrative Responses to Scientific Misconduct
Misconduct in Regulated Research
What is Plagiarism?
Types of Plagiarism
What to Look For
Review Questions
Further Reading
6: Redundant Publications
Overview
Authorship Issues
Problems Caused by Redundant Publication
Acceptability and Consequences of Redundancy
How to Prevent Redundancy?
Salami Slicing
Simultaneous Submission
Competing Interests
Misrepresentation of Data
Publish Ethically
Review Questions
Further Reading
7: Publication Ethics
Overview
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
How to Deal with Misconduct in COPE
The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE)
Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS)
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
The European Association of Science Editors (EASE)
Conflicts of Interest
Editorial Independence and Commercial Issues
Review Questions
Further Reading
8: Publication Misconduct
Overview
Misconduct by Editors, Publishers, and Peer-Reviewers
Types of Publication Misconduct
Human Rights, Privacy, and Confidentiality
Cultures and Heritage
Registering Clinical Trials and Animals in Research
Editorial Independence and Commercial Issues
Appeals and Corrections
Violation of Publication Ethics
Concept of Spin
Predatory Publishers and Journals
Review Questions
Further Reading
9: Global Intellectual Property Law
Overview
The International Law and Political Economy of Intellectual Property
Legal, Philosophical and Economic Justifications
Copyright
Patents and Trade Secrets
Trademarks
International Human Rights and Intellectual Property
Information Technologies and the Internet
Intellectual Property and Development
Education, Culture, and Knowledge
Review Questions
Further Reading
10: Open Access Publishing
Overview
Promoting Open Access
Institutional Repositories: Content and Culture
The Changing Information Environment
Changing Information Seeking Behaviors
The Organizational View
Infrastructure, Sustainability, and Advocacy
Content Decisions and Legal Issues
Conceptual Models of Information
Metadata Standards
Types of Material and their Differences
Gray Literature and Journal Article
Preprint and Other Modes
Open Archival Information System Model
Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies (PREMIS)
Access Tools and Services to Open Access
Role of Libraries
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
The Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR)
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR)
The SHERPA/RoMEO Application Programmer´s Interface
Elsevier Journal Finder
Springer Journal Suggester
Review Questions
Further Reading
11: Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism
Overview
Plagiarism: Issue and Facts
Referencing Styles
Name-Date (Harvard) Style of Referencing
Abbreviations in References
Reference Foreign Author Names
Avoiding Plagiarism as an Author
Detecting Potential Plagiarism
Critical Analysis
Referencing Electronic Sources
The Future of Plagiarism
Review Questions
Further Reading
12: Database and Research Metrics
Overview
Bibliometrics
Bibliometrics Milestones Year by Year
Calculating Journal Impact Factor
Immediacy Index
Cited Half-Life, Eigenfactor, and Article Influence Score
SCImago Journal Rankings
Source Normalized Impact Per Paper
H-Index
H5-Index and H5-Median
Fuzzy Metrics: Non-citation-Based Bibliometrics
The Categories of Bibliometrics Tools
Web of Science
Journal Citation Reports
Scopus
Google Scholar Citations, Profiles, and Rankings
Additional Bibliometric Tools
Altmetrics
Research Gate (RG Scores)
Mendeley
The Leiden Manifesto
How to Interpret Research Metrics
Altmetrics and Open Access
Indian Citation Index
Review Questions
Further Reading
References
Index

Citation preview

Santosh Kumar Yadav

Research and Publication Ethics

Research and Publication Ethics

Santosh Kumar Yadav

Research and Publication Ethics

Ane Books Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi

Chennai

Santosh Kumar Yadav Shri Jagdishprasad Jhabarmal Tibrewala University Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, India

ISBN 978-3-031-26970-7 ISBN 978-3-031-26971-4 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4

(eBook)

Jointly published with Ane Books Pvt. Ltd. In addition to this printed edition, there is a local printed edition of this work available via Ane Books in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan) and Africa (all countries in the African subcontinent). ISBN of the Co-Publisher’s edition: 978-938921-268-6 0th edition: # author 2020 # The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020, 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

In the month of December 2019, University Grants Commission (UGC) circulated a letter to the Vice Chancellors of all Indian Universities [D.O.No.F.1-1/2018 (Journal/CARE)], referring its 543rd meeting which approved two credit courses for awareness about publication ethics and publication misconduct entitled “Research and Publication Ethics” to be made compulsory for all Ph.D. students for pre-registration coursework. The entire course has 6 units focusing on philosophy of science and ethics, research integrity, and publication ethics. Hands-on-sessions are designed to identify research misconduct and predatory publications. Indexing and citation databases, open access publications, research metrics (citations, h-index, Impact Factor, etc.), and plagiarism tools to be introduced in this particular course. The present book meets with all contents suggested by University Grants Commission in its letter and blueprint. The significant contribution of research deals with the progress of the nation as well as an individual with commercial, social, and educational advantages. The major objectives of research are to find out a hidden and undiscovered truth of the nature. As a long and continual process, the driving factor of research is motivation and passion. For organizations including defense and research laboratories, research is an important aspect for the nation and sustainability. To the philosophers and thinkers, research means the outlet for new ideas and insights. Research is a random walk, but the scholars need to systematically continue toward the destination. It is quite easy to see or to represent action research as something standing in contrast with, or, more strongly, in opposition to, more theoretical or philosophical approaches to classroom practice. As a form of practice, action research can appear to have a disarming philosophical innocence. The philosophical attitude can critically reacquaint policymakers with the resources of their own ethical tradition and in doing so enable them to test proposed prescriptions against those traditions. Ethical codes appear to be designed to protect the weak and the vulnerable from exploitation or harm, which is entirely proper. Educational research is not focused exclusively on community’s defined or self-defined as disempowered, communities which lack either legal or psychological ownership of research or the research process. Most of the philosophers have examined abstract concepts, while sociologists and psychologists have

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focused on extreme cases and research scandals in the course of locating ethical issues in their research experience. Ethics and morality have similarly been developed from terms that pertain to customary or usual practice in research. The conception of science as a value-free enterprise has been seriously challenged and important questions have been raised about the appropriate relationship between scientific inquiry, objectivity, and the role of scientist’s values and beliefs. Science is considered as an amorphous, distributed, and dynamic institution, composed of many other institutions and falling under the control of no central body. Body of knowledge that science develops becomes a part of our common heritage. Practicing the professions, investigating nature and society, depends upon a trust placed by the general public in scientists who will pursue the truth dispassionately and with an eye toward the general good. Intellectual honesty is honesty in the acquisition, analysis, and transmission of ideas. A person is being intellectually honest when he or she, knowing the truth, states that truth. For the individual scientist, integrity embodies above all a commitment to intellectual honesty and personal responsibility for one’s actions and to a range of practices that characterize responsible research conduct. Scientific misconduct and fraud are prevailing problems in science and it threatens to undermine integrity, credibility, and objectivity in genuine research. It also risks undermining trust, among researchers and the general public. It becomes important to consider the possible means of countering fraud and misconduct in the research. By criminalization we meant the decision of making some action like a criminal offense for which one may merit criminal punishment, such as fines, community service, or even incarceration. Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted practices within the scientific community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research. It does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretations or judgments of data. In a nutshell, I have tried the best to provide ample information regarding research and publication ethics through various sources, organizations, and research councils. I can hope that the present book will be highly useful and informative to all researchers in home and abroad as a text cum help reference. Reviews and suggestions are cordially invited for the betterment of the book. Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, India

Santosh Kumar Yadav

Acknowledgments

A number of intellectuals, including my fellow professors and researchers have played a major role in substantially improving the quality of the manuscript through its development. I am truly grateful to each one of them for their unfailing encouragement, cooperation, and moral support. To begin with, I am sincerely indebted to the following for their unblemished enthusiasm and constructive suggestions in higher education and research: Prof. Sunder Lal (Former V.C., V.B.S. Purvanchal University, Jaunpur), Prof. Dinesh Singh (Former V.C., University of Delhi), Prof. C.P.S. Yadav (Former V.C., Bikaner Agriculture University and D.G., Uttar Pradesh), Prof. Yogesh K. Tyagi (V.C., University of Delhi), Prof. Girishwar Mishra (Former V.C., MGAHVV, Wardha), Prof. P. Kaniappan (Former V.C., Alagappa University), Prof. Sushma Yadav (V.C., BPSMU, Khanpur, Haryana), Prof. K.K. Aggarwal (Former V.C., GGSIPU, Delhi and Chairman NBA), Prof. P.B. Sharma (V.C., Amity University, Gurugram), Prof. R.B. Mishra (Former V.C., RML Avadh University, Ayodhya), Prof. A. K. Gwal (V.C., AISECT University, MP), Prof. A.K. Singh (V.C., Sri Sri University, Odisha), Dr. Jagannath Patnaik (V.C., ICFAI University, Sikkim), Prof. Rana Krishna Pal Singh (V.C., DSMNR University, Lucknow), Dr. Mohd. Aslam Parvez (MANUU, Hyderabad), Dr. Vinod D Tibrewala (Chairman, J.J.T. University, Rajasthan), Prof. Achyuta Samanta (Founder KIIT & KISS, Bhubaneswar), Mr. Vijay Pal Yadav (Chairman, Shridhar University, Rajasthan), Er. Anil Singh (Chairman, Bhagwant University, Rajasthan), Dr. Ashok Chitkara (Chairman, Chitkara University), Mr. Ashok Gadiya (Chairman, Mewar University), Mr. Varun Yadav (SKD University, Rajasthan), Er. B.S. Yadav (IEC University), Prof. Amita Dev (V.C., IGDTUW, Delhi), Prof. Anu S. Lather (V.C., Ambedkar University, Delhi), Prof. Tarun Dass, Dr. Mamta Sharma, Dr. Sandeep Kumar Sharma, Prof. Umesh Rai, Prof. Sudhish Pachauri, Prof. Devesh Sinha, Prof. J. P. Khurana, Prof. Neeta Sehgal, Prof. M. L. Singla, Dr. B. S. Yadav, Prof. M. M. Chaturvedi, Prof. Ramesh Chandra, Dr. Satish Verma, Dr. Raj Kumar, Dr. Anju Gupta, Dr. Rama Sharma, Dr. Vibha Singh Chauhan, Dr. Meena Singh, Dr. C. P. Mishra, Dr. H. V. Jhamb, Prof. R. K. Vyas, Prof. Geeta Singh, Dr. Kaushal Pawar, Dr. Yuvraj Kumar, Dr. Manish Kumar Vats, Dr. D. P. Sharma, Dr. Neelam Rathi

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(all from University of Delhi), Dr. Kamal Pathak (Delhi Tech. University), Prof. Prerna Gaur, Prof. Raj Senani (NSUT, Delhi), Dr. M.K. Gupta, Prof. S.C. Aggarwal, Dr. Jaimala Bishnoi (C.C.S. University, Meerut), Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, Dr. Sanjay Chaudhary, Dr. K. K. Goel, Dr. Kuldeep Bhardwaj, Dr. M. P. Singh (Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University, Agra), Prof. M.N. Hoda (Bharti Vidyapeeth, ICAM, New Delhi), Dr. Devendra Tayal (IGDTUW, Delhi), Dr. Gurpreet Singh Tuteja (SGT University, Haryana), Dr. Omar Farooq, Prof. M.U. Bokhari (AMU, Aligarh), Prof. S.M.K. Quadri, Dr. S.A.M. Rizvi (Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi), Prof. A.K. Nayak (IIBM, Patna), Prof. Afshar Alam (Jamia Hamdard, Delhi), Dr. Dharmender Kumar, Dr. D. N. Mishra (G.J.U.S.T, Hisar), Prof. A. K. Saini, Dr. Vijay Kumar, Dr. Rashmi Bhardwaj, Dr. A. P. Singh (GGSIPU, New Delhi), Prof. R.S. Chillar (M.D. University, Rohtak), Dr. K. Perumal (MKU, Madurai), Dr. Poonam Kumar Sharma (DAV College, Jalandhar), Dr. Romesh Kumar, Prof. B. S. Komal, Dr. Vibhakar Mansotra, Dr. Pawanesh Abrol (University of Jammu), Prof. B.D. Sharma, Prof. Vipin Tyagi (J.P. University), Dr. Vijay Singh Rathore (SKSMT, Jaipur), Dr. Naveen R. Seth (Saurashtra University), Prof. P.K. Kaithal (HSGU, Sagar), Dr. Deepak Garg (Bennett University), Dr. V. Shekhar (Osmania University, Hyderabad), Prof. A. Goverdhan (JNTU, Hyderabad), Dr. H. S. Saini (GNI, Hyderabad), Prof. Sumant Katyal, Dr. Durgesh Kumar Mishra (DAVV, Indore), Prof. Y. P. Kumar (Graphic Era University), Dr. Kunasekharan (Periyar University), Prof. M. Sunderasan (Bharathiar University), Prof. R.R. Deshmukh (Dr. B. S. Ambedkar Marathwara University), Prof. Shivaji Namdeo Deore (North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon) Prof. Subhash Chandra Yadav (Central University, Jharkhand), Dr. R. Srinivasan (MSRIT, Bangalore), Prof. H.R. Vishwakarma (VIT University, Vellore), Dr. R. Sridharam (Marwadi University, Gujrat), Prof. U.K. Singh (GOU, Nagaland), Dr. P. K. Sinha (Dr. S. P. M. I. I. I. T., Raipur), Dr. V. S. P. Shrivastava (IGNOU), Dr. Cheki Dorji, Prof. Lhato Jamba, Phanchung, Prof. Lhuendup Dorji (Royal University of Bhutan), Dr. R.N. Pandey (Tribhuban University, Nepal), Prof. Yagyanath Rimal (Pokhara University, Nepal), Prof. Avireni Srinivasula (JECRC University), Dr. Vijaya Lakshmi Mohanty (Sri Sri University), Prof. P. K. Bhatnagar (S.V. Subharti University), Dr. Rajdeep Singh Rawat (NIE, Singapore), Dr. Pratap Kumar Pati (GNDU, Amritsar), Dr. Gajanan M. Sabnis (Howard University, USA), Dr. Puneet Mishra (University of Lucknow), Dr. Pratibha Singh (NAAC), Prof. M. S. Prasad Babu (Andhra University), Prof. Aman Sharma (H.P. University, Shimla), Dr. Rajeev Sharma (DST), Dr. Sanjay Yadav (ITS, Noida), Dr. V. K. Jain (Mody University, Rajasthan), Dr. Vikas Nath (BVIMR, New Delhi), Dr. Prakash H. Patil (D. Y. Patil COE, Pune), Prof. K.T.V. Reddy (SVIT, Nashik), Dr. Charu Verma (CSIR-NISCAIR), and many more. I would be failing in my duty without thanks to my publishers Mr. J. R. Kapoor and Mr. Sunil Saxena of Ane Books Pvt. Ltd. including entire team for providing me liberty to express my views and experience in higher education and research with ample time. I am grateful to my wife Seema, kids, Ayan and Akshita for errorless proof readings and emotional support.

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Last but not least, I am thankful to my gentle readers who have always encouraged me with appreciations for my work. I must accept responsibility, for any errors that might still remain. I would certainly appreciate receiving comments and suggestions about entire material to improve in the next edition of the book. Dr. Santosh Kumar Yadav [email protected]

Contents

1

Philosophy of Research: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Phases of Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Features of Good Research Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Educational Research and Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concept of Educational Philosophy and Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Philosopher in the Classroom? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Philosopher in an Interdisciplinary Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Educational Research: Pursuit of Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pragmatic Perspectives of Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethical Codes and Academic Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 4 8 9 13 14 16 17 18 19 21 22

2

Research Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Being Ethical and Moral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nature of Moral Judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nature of Ethical Reactions: Applied Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Ethics and Positionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Epistemology, Ethics, and Educational Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Validity-Versus-Reliability Tradeoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Commodification of Educational Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Publishing and Coaching in Intercultural Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethics and Feminist Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

23 23 25 27 28 29 30 32 34 35 37 38 39

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3

Ethics in Scientific Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scientific Integrity and Research Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Issues of Authorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peer Review’s Role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Ethics in Human/Animal Subjects (Care) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Issues of Intellectual Property and Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conflicts of Interests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dignity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beneficence/Non-maleficence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vulnerability and Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Ethics Committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Science and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4

Intellectual Honesty and Research Integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Environment and Bases of Research Integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Promoting Integrity in Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evaluation by Self-Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Integrity of the Individual Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Support of Integrity by the Research Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Environment and Its Impact on Research Integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . Fostering Integrity in Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Promoting Honesty in Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Principles of Adult Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

59 59 62 63 65 66 69 71 73 75 77 78 78

5

Scientific Misconduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Poor Practices vs. Misconduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fabrication/Falsification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stealing Credit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional Responses to Scientific Misconduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Administrative Responses to Scientific Misconduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Misconduct in Regulated Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What is Plagiarism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Types of Plagiarism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What to Look For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Contents

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Redundant Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Authorship Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Problems Caused by Redundant Publication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acceptability and Consequences of Redundancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How to Prevent Redundancy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Salami Slicing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simultaneous Submission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Competing Interests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Misrepresentation of Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Publish Ethically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95 95 96 98 98 100 100 101 102 104 106 106 107

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Publication Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How to Deal with Misconduct in COPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE) . . . . . . . Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) . . . . International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) . . . . . . . . . . . The European Association of Science Editors (EASE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conflicts of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editorial Independence and Commercial Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

109 109 112 116 118 121 121 125 126 127 127 128 129

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Publication Misconduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Misconduct by Editors, Publishers, and Peer-Reviewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Types of Publication Misconduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Human Rights, Privacy, and Confidentiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cultures and Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Registering Clinical Trials and Animals in Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editorial Independence and Commercial Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appeals and Corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Violation of Publication Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concept of Spin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predatory Publishers and Journals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

131 131 132 133 136 137 138 139 139 140 141 143 144 145

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Global Intellectual Property Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The International Law and Political Economy of Intellectual Property . . . . . Legal, Philosophical and Economic Justifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Copyright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patents and Trade Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trademarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . International Human Rights and Intellectual Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Information Technologies and the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intellectual Property and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Education, Culture, and Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

147 147 149 150 152 156 158 160 162 165 166 169 169

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Open Access Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Promoting Open Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional Repositories: Content and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Changing Information Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing Information Seeking Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Organizational View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Infrastructure, Sustainability, and Advocacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Content Decisions and Legal Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual Models of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Metadata Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Types of Material and their Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gray Literature and Journal Article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preprint and Other Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Open Archival Information System Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies (PREMIS) . . . . . . . . . . . . Access Tools and Services to Open Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Role of Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) . . . . . . . Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The SHERPA/RoMEO Application Programmer’s Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . Elsevier Journal Finder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Springer Journal Suggester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

171 171 173 176 177 180 181 181 185 185 186 188 189 190 191 192 193 196 196 198 198 199 200 201 202 203 204

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Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plagiarism: Issue and Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Referencing Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Name–Date (Harvard) Style of Referencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviations in References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reference Foreign Author Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Avoiding Plagiarism as an Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Detecting Potential Plagiarism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critical Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Referencing Electronic Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Future of Plagiarism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

205 205 209 212 214 216 217 218 221 222 224 225 226 227

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Database and Research Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliometrics Milestones Year by Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Calculating Journal Impact Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Immediacy Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cited Half-Life, Eigenfactor, and Article Influence Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SCImago Journal Rankings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Source Normalized Impact Per Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H5-Index and H5-Median . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fuzzy Metrics: Non-citation-Based Bibliometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Categories of Bibliometrics Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Web of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Journal Citation Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scopus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Google Scholar Citations, Profiles, and Rankings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Additional Bibliometric Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Altmetrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Gate (RG Scores) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mendeley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Leiden Manifesto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How to Interpret Research Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Altmetrics and Open Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

229 229 231 231 232 234 234 235 236 236 237 237 238 238 239 239 240 241 241 243 244 245 246 247

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Indian Citation Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

248 249 249

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Philosophy of Research: An Introduction

Overview The word research itself is a combination of “re” and “search,” which is meant by a systematic investigation to gain new knowledge from already existing facts. Frankly speaking, research may be defined as a scientific understanding of existing knowledge and deriving new knowledge to be applied for the betterment of the mankind. In the words of Wernher von Braun (a German philosopher), “Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” It is basically the search for truth/facts. The significant contribution of research deals with the progress of the nation as well as an individual with commercial, social, and educational advantages. Albert Szent Gyorgyi (Hungarian Biochemist, Nobel Prize 1937) writes “Research is to see what everybody else has seen and think what nobody has thought.” Research may be an important parameter to judge the development of any nation/generation. According to Clifford Woody (American philosopher, 1939), “Research comprises of defining and redefining problems, formulating the hypothesis for suggested solutions, collecting, organizing and evaluating data, making deductions and reaching conclusion and further testing the conclusion whether they fit into formulating the hypothesis.” The major objectives of research are to find out a hidden and undiscovered truth of the nature/society. There are various objectives behind undertaking research by individuals as well as various organizations/universities. Some philosophical objectives behind any research include: • To propose and test certain hypotheses to provide causal relationships between certain variables; • To discover and establish the existence of relationship, association, and independence between two or more aspects of a particular situation or phenomenon; • To understand different phenomena and develop new perceptions about it;

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_1

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Philosophy of Research: An Introduction

• To study and describe accurately the characteristics of situations, problems, phenomena, services, groups, or individuals; • To explain unexplored horizons of knowledge; • To test reported findings and conclusions on new data and novel conclusions on previously reported data; • To study the frequency of research that is connected with unspecified objectives. As a long and continual process, the main driving factor of research is motivation and passion. For some researchers and postgraduate students, the main objective behind the research remains only to earn a degree. For organizations including defense and research laboratories, research is an important aspect for the nation and sustainability. To the philosophers and thinkers, research means the outlet for new ideas and insights, whereas to the intellectual people research can be the development of new styles and creative work. Research is a random walk, but the scholars need to systematically continue toward the destination. Failure is an inevitable step in the research phase/process, but may be a pillar of success. Creativity, good written and verbal communication skills, and in-depth knowledge of the subject are essential for successful completion of research work. A researcher must have sound fundamental knowledge of the domain to be undertaken. A querying attitude is one of the important factors. Anything and everything are questionable in a research process. This questioning attitude of the scholar is essence of research and invention. Practical intelligence is the ability to adopt day-to-day requirements while persistent, tenacious, uncompromising, and stubborn are some of the characteristics of creative people. Important ingredients for a good researcher are: • • • • • •

Dedication and commitment; Consistency and patience; Good written communication; Domain knowledge; Good verbal communication; Creativity.

There are different types of research which are classified into various categories including applicability, the mode of enquiry in conducting the study and major objectives of the study. Main research types include: • Basic Research: – pure or fundamental research; – no immediate need; – new theories can be added to the knowledge cluster; – may solve problems but may not have practical applications; – broader scope as compared to applied research.

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• Applied Research: – tries to solve an immediate specific problem faced by industry or society; – obtained solution can be deployed to solve the problem; – duration is shorter as a quick solution is expected; – optimized search type problem (e.g., engineering domain); – either address the unsolved problem or improve the existing solution. • Descriptive Research: – used in business analysis or social problems; – does not have any control over the parameters or variables; – just tries to represent or analyze the previous and/or current facts; – correlational methods, survey methods, and comparative studies are used. • Analytical Research: – uses existing information to explain a complex phenomenon or to perform a critical evaluation; – identified hypothesis can be accepted or rejected depending on the analysis; – from experience the hypothesis can be redefined; – observed in historical study, forensic work, food, in the medical domain, etc.; – summarizes and evaluates the ideas in historical research for accessing both witness and literature sources to document past events; – data can be presented to support the data in comprehensive model. • Correlational Research: – focuses on exploring the relationship or association between incidences, variables; – from the collected data, researchers may come up with a number of observations and analytics. • Qualitative Research: – mainly deals with the quality or the types of the parameters considered for the research; – differences in the parameter may occur with time; – related to human behavior; – more complicated and requires more guidance; – less emphasis is given on generalization and more focus is toward individual; – focus of the work is to find results with respect to qualitative parameters. • Quantitative Research: – involves measurements of quantities of characteristics that can be used as features for the research study; – assumes that the world is stable and uses statistical analysis on parameter values for conclusions; – statistical quantities that can be measured are involved. • Experimental Research: – focuses on the fieldwork and experiments that can control the independent variable; – can be tested and trained with pre- and post-experimental research design.

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• Explanatory Research: – tries to analyze and justify the reason behind the occurrence of particular phenomenon or association between the variables; – answers the “Why” type of questions; – aims to explain why a relationship, association, or interdependence exists; – a causal research with three important components like time-to-time sequences which will occur before the effect, concomitant variations, where the variations will be systematic between two variables. • Exploratory Research: – explores the areas that have required meager attention; – for checking the possibility of research in the particular domain or area; – a small-scale study is done to decide the further scope of advancement in domain. – depending on outcomes of study, domain is further explored for in-depth research on the specific topic.

Phases of Research As a known verse “Efficient and well-planned activities always see success.” Well begun is not only half done but often fully cooked. To grab the success, researchers need to: • • • • •

efficiently plan a research activity; formulate a tentative research problem; execute it meticulously; publish it for outside world; follow research process to get optimized research outcomes. General steps in the research process are:

• Selection of Domain/Area of Research: – Very first step in the process of research; – Different purposes behind undertaking particular research; – High possibility to select the domain of the research supervisor or the guide to suggest selection of the particular domain; – Research domain can be selected from the area of interest, identified gap in the literature, and individual skill set; – Design and develop the new product, to upgrade available one, to study and analyze the effects of the product specifications. • Formulating a Research Problem and Identification of Keywords: – Define tentative research problem definition and identify the related keywords for literature;

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– – – – –

Equip with all the tools and domain knowledge required for research; Requires ability to go in depth on particular topic; Discussion of the state-of-the-art with colleagues and domain experts; Prepare the research tentative plan of research work; Objective of research must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). • Literature Survey: – Comprehensive study of technical and authorized content related to research keywords; – Revisited by researcher number of times during research journey; – Provides details of research progress of particular domain; – Helps the researcher to understand the approaches, methodologies, algorithms, and datasets used by other scientists; – Important to identify where the gap is; – Helps the researcher to understand the progress of domain and state of the art in the domain; – Helps to avoid duplication of work; – Can be done with respect to: What (process to be followed); How (process schematic/standard procedure); Discussion on major steps involved; Design criteria and performance measures; Techniques currently in use; Comparative analysis (table/any suitable tool to discover and list pros and cons/ strength/weakness/future scope of existing techniques); Scope for research/gap in research. • Redefining Research Problem, Objectives, and Outcomes: – Problem definitions should be unambiguous, clear statement that states the major objective of the research; – There should be four to six subobjectives defined for research work; – There should be a clear indication of the research work which should not be the recurrence of the same research; – There should also be an outcome which has been initialized while mentioning the research objective; – Objective should be given pointwise (four to six points); – After domain selection and identifying the problem definition, researchers should formulate a hypothesis. • Research Proposal: – Should be able to convince people for selected topic and objectives; – To be reviewed by different expert committees;

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– Mandatory document submitted to the university or research organization during the registration for a PhD degree as a layout plan of further research; – Generally, includes the following sections: Introduction (250–300 words)/Proposed Topic of Research; Literature Review of Research Topic (1500–2000 words); Gap in Existing Research; Objective of the Proposed Research; Outcome; Methodology. • Identifying Variable/Parameters and Research Design: – Basic quality or attribute to differ in values under different circumstances; – To identify all related variables or parameters; – To define the domain and range of each variable; – To decide on the design strategy of research; – To shift the paradigm from “what is my research?” to “how am I going to conduct it?”; – Systematic plan designed to obtain a solution to the research problem; – Blueprint of the entire research. • Data Collection and Representation: – Data can be either directly collected afresh (primary data) or already collected and used data (secondary data); – Depends on problem definition and research objectives; – Can be represented in simple text, tables, graphs, audio, video, or images. – The reliability can be tested by finding out the following: Who collected the data? What were the sources of the data? Were they collected by using proper methods? At what time were they selected? What level of accuracy was desired? Was accuracy achieved? – Tabulation can conserve space and reduce explanatory and descriptive statement to provide the comparison from one state to another with importance: Each table will give a clear title that does not require an explanation; Each table will be provided with a separate number that will be easy for referring; Graphical representation helps to understand the data easily. • Testing of Proposed Design on Collected Data/Hypothesis Testing: – To prove or disprove the research, hypothesis testing, expressed as either a null hypothesis or alternative hypothesis; – The procedure for hypothesis testing is undertaken for making a choice between the rejection and acceptance of a null hypothesis observing the following steps:

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Setting up of hypothesis consists of the data that makes the statement of a null hypothesis, which should clearly state the nature of the research problem; Particular expression of the hypothesis is an important aspect while considering a goal or purpose of the considered problem; Hypothesis can be validated when the values are decided in advance for the significance of the work when they are directional and nondirectional; Test statistics will be conducting hypothesis test for means and variance. The formula for test statistics and their distributions are discussed depending on the value of test statistics using observations selected by the researcher and the parametrical value stated under null hypothesis; Using different types of critical value for test statistic, level of significance, and the type of test we obtain a critical value; The null hypothesis is rejected or accepted by comparing the distribution of test statistics. – Some of the important limitations of hypothesis testing are: Results cannot be expressed with full certainty (probabilistic); Testing is not a decision-making activity in itself, the researcher should not use it in a mechanical way; Tests don’t explain the reason why the dissimilar result has been obtained due to fluctuation; Significance of the results is been validated on the basis of the probabilistic conditions which cannot be explained fully; Inference the statistical data cannot provide the evidence for the truth of the hypothesis. – There exist a number of statistical tools like t-test, F-test, chi-square test, D-W test, etc. to test the validity of the hypothesis. • Results and Analysis: – The most important and appealing section of the conducted research; – The hypothesis should be tested with multiple approaches and that results can be compared; – Should be represented in the visual format using tables, figures, and/or graphs; – May include the problems faced during collection of data and complete analysis of results. • Research Report Writing: – The research report is a medium to convey research outcomes, contributions, findings, and results to the outside world to decide the quality of research work done by the researcher; – Patents, copyrights, and white papers are also possible outcomes of the research; – A research report may include the following sections: Abstract; Introduction; Review of Literature;

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Philosophy of Research: An Introduction

Problem Definition and Objectives; Research Methodology; Observations and Results; Discussion; Summary; Conclusion and Future Trends; Publications; Bibliography/References; Appendices. Note Researchers must be aware of plagiarism issues, copyright issues, procedures, and penalties. Plagiarism is literally stealing the work of another person, presenting it as original research without proper citation and it comes under professional misconduct. There are different agencies including Turnitin, Urkund, PlagScan, etc. to verify the copied content in written document with its source. After completion of writing, a plagiarism check of the written document by an authorized agency must be recommended.

Features of Good Research Study Research inculcates scientific, curious, and inductive thinking of any objective. Being an important component of the development of nation and individual, research has special significance in deciding government policies in economics, in solving various operational and planning problems of business and industry, and in seeking answers to various social problems. Research opens different avenues in particular domain for the betterment of mankind and world. Research activity develops critical thinking about the problem, systematic examination, developing and testing new theories, and draw important meaningful conclusions. At glance during research process researcher should monitor the following stage-wise details: • First stage: – Where do you start? – Area of interest should be decided; – Check out why this area is of interest; – Discuss your idea with local R&D staff. • Second stage: – From the existing source systematic reviews should be considered carefully before starting the research; – Duplication of research which is not of sufficient quality is itself unethical. • Third Stage: – Research domain should be determined;

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Educational Research and Philosophy

– – – – – – – – – –

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Data should be arranged for a specific purpose and statistically analyzed; Determine top-down or bottom-up approach or combination; Data should be compared and validated on the work done; Data should provide the information and action performed for comparison of the work; Results should deal with a means of solving the problem; Research validation should be verified with surveys; Perform research validation using research methods (interviews, surveys, etc.); Appropriateness of the work should be justified; Cost should be specified; Test practicality.

A good research clearly defines the methodologies used, should be replicable, should be time-bound and realistic. Good research should have systematically chosen methodologies and datasets to prove the proposed hypothesis. Validity and reliability of data should be checked and researchers should consider an adequate amount of data. Common features of good research are: • Research purpose should be clearly defined; • Procedure for the research should be detailed sufficiently which should help the other to continue the work by referencing our work; • Research work should be carefully planned to get the results related to the specified objectives; • Reports should be created by a researcher stating that what was the procedure adopted for completing the work which should also include errors in their findings; • Conclusions should be confident to those justified by the data of research. • The entire research work should either form foundation for further advancement in the domain to draw some concrete conclusions; • It should be beneficial from the social, commercial, or educational point of view. • Good research is always systematic and logical; • The report should be well written and it should be published through refereed journal.

Educational Research and Philosophy Educational research more often has become the focus for mass academic attention throughout the world. More than 1.5 million conferences/workshops/research seminars on various themes are being organized by universities/HEIs in a calendar year as per record of American Educational Research Association, European Education Research Association, Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, Comparative and International Education Society and Conference Alert forum. Since methodology is viewed as the theory of organization of an activity, we should start with the basic notions connected with an

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Philosophy of Research: An Introduction

activity. An activity is an active interaction of a human being with an external environment, where the former acts as a subject exerting a purposeful impact on an object to satisfy his/her own needs. In philosophy, a subject is defined as a bearer of the object-oriented practical activity and cognition (an individual or a social group); as the source of active behavior directed toward an object. According to dialectics, a subject is remarkable for inherent self-consciousness, indeed, he/she has mastered the world of culture created by the humanity as the tools of the domain practical activity, the forms of a language, logical categories, the norms of aesthetical or moral judgments, etc. The ac tive behavior of a subject forms a condition ensuring that a certain fragment of objective reality acts as an object given to the subject in the forms of his/her activity. Philosophy determines an object as the entity opposing a subject in his/her object-oriented practical activity and cognition activity. An object appears nonidentical with the objective reality, merely acting as its part which interacts with a subject. Philosophy studies an activity as the comprehensive way of a human life; accordingly, a human being is defined as an active being. The human activity covers material-practical and intelligent (spiritual) operations, external and internal processes. The human activity lies equally in thinking and working, in cognition process and human behavior. Through activity a human being reveals his/her own (special) role in the world, asserting oneself as a social being. Needs are defined as the requirement or lack of a certain entity being essential to sustain vital activity of an organism, an individual, a social group or society as a whole. Biological needs are subject to metabolic conversion as a prerequisite for the existence of any living organism. The needs of social subjects, i.e., an individual, a social group and society as a whole, depend on the development level of a given society and on specific social conditions of their activity. The needs are stated in concrete terms via motives that make a man or a social group act; in fact, activity is performed for the sake of motives. Motivation means the process of stimulating an individual or a social group to fulfill a specific activity, actions, and steps. Motives cause formation of a goal as a subjective image of the desired result of the expected activity or action. The goal-implementation process is characterized by its content, forms, as well as by specific methods, means, and technologies. A particular position within the activity structure is occupied by those components referred to as either self-regulation or control. Self-regulation is defined as reasonable functioning of living systems. Psychical selfregulation is the regulation level for active behavior of such systems to express the specifics of psychical means of reality reflection and modeling. Control is treated as an element, a function of organized systems of different nature (e.g., biological, social, or technical ones), ensuring retention of their structure, maintenance of activity, and implementation of a program or a goal of activity. The notion of an external environment turns out to be an essential category in system analysis. Conditions of activity (material and technical, financial, informational, etc.) are related to the external environment. The following groups of conditions are invariant for any activity in educational research:

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Educational Research and Philosophy

• • • • • • • •

Motivational; Personnel-related; Material and technical; Methodical; Financial; Organizational; Regulatory and legal; Informational.

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In general principle, human activity can be performed spontaneously, learning by one’s own mistakes. Methodology generalizes rational forms of activity organization that have been verified in rich social and historical practice. During different epochs of civilization development, various basic types of organizational forms of activity have been popular. In modern scientific literature, they are often referred to as organizational culture. A technology is a system of conditions, forms, methods, and means to solve a posed problem. Methodology rests upon scientific knowledge. A researcher involved in scientific activity must have a clear and conscious conception of science, its organization, the laws of science development, and the structure of scientific knowledge. A researcher must conceive the criteria of scientific knowledge, as well as the forms of scientific knowledge to-be-used for expressing the results of investigations. The field of science studying science itself is called the science of science to include several disciplines such as epistemology, the logic of science, semiotics (the theory of signs), the sociology of science, the psychology of scientific creation, and others. Epistemology is the theory of scientific cognition, a branch of philosophy. Epistemology studies the laws and capabilities of cognition, as well as analyzes the stages, forms, methods, and means of cognition process, the conditions and criteria of scientific knowledge validity. Scientific cognition is considered as a sociohistorical process and represents the subject of epistemology. The philosophical scientific knowledge may be classified as under: • According to the groups of problem domains, knowledge is classified as mathematical, physical, humanity-type, and technical knowledge; • According to the way of reflecting its essence, knowledge is classified as phenomenological (descriptive) and essentialist (explanatory) knowledge. Phenomenological knowledge represents qualitative theories with par excellence descriptive functions (many branches of biology, geography, psychology, pedagogics, and so on). Contrariwise, essentialist knowledge makes up explanatory theories with application of quantitative analysis tools; • According to the activity of certain subjects, knowledge is classified as descriptive and prescriptive, normative knowledge; the latter contains regulations, direct instructions for an activity. We underline that the material regarding the science of science (epistemology) presented in this subsection has a descriptive character. Nevertheless, first, this material is necessary as a guideline for any investigator. Second, it provides a certain

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Philosophy of Research: An Introduction

base for further exposition of prescriptive, normative material related to the methodology of scientific activity; • According to functional purposes, scientific knowledge is classified as fundamental, applied, and development knowledge. Empirical knowledge is the established scientific facts, as well as the empirical laws formulated on their basis. Theoretical knowledge is the general laws stated for a given problem domain, enabling to explain the facts and empirical laws established earlier, as well as to predict and foreknow future events and facts. Some philosophical definitions are as under: • A thesis is a scientific assertion, a formulated idea. • Particular cases of a thesis are axiom and theorem. • An axiom is an initial thesis of a scientific theory taken to be valid without a logical proof and used to prove other theses of the theory. • The issue regarding validity of an axiom is solved either within the framework of another theory or by means of interpretation, i.e., a meaningful explanation of this theory. • A theorem is also a thesis whose validity is established through a logical proof. • Auxiliary theorems serve to prove a basic one is called lemmas or statements; • A concept is an idea reflecting objects, phenomena and their interconnections by fixing general and specific attributes, the properties of objects and phenomena; • A category is an extremely wide concept reflecting the most general and essential properties, attributes, interconnections, and relations of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world (e.g., matter, motion, space, time, etc.); • A principle is a concept playing a dual role and acts as a central concept representing the generalization and extension of a thesis to all phenomena and processes in a domain used to abstract this principle; • A law is an essential, objective, general, stable, and repetitive relation between phenomena and processes; • A metatheory is a theory which analyzes structures, methods, properties, and ways of constructing scientific theories in a certain field of scientific knowledge. • An idea is the supreme form of cognizing the world, not just reflecting the object considered, but being directed to its transformation; • A doctrine is almost a synonym of a concept, a theory; • A paradigm also acts as a concept, a theory, or a model of a problem statement accepted as standard solution of research problems. • Semiotics is the science studying the laws of designing and functioning of systems of signs.

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Concept of Educational Philosophy and Theory

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Concept of Educational Philosophy and Theory Wilfred Carr (Chair, Philosophy and Education Society of Great Britain, 1993–1996) observed succinctly in a paper presented at a British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference roundtable in September 1995: Research . . . always conveys a commitment to philosophical beliefs even if this is unintended and even though it remains implicit and unacknowledged . . . [Researchers] cannot evade the responsibility for critically examining and justifying the philosophical ideas that their enquiries incorporate. It follows that philosophical reflection and argumentation are central features of the methods and procedures of educational research.

Many researchers who might not necessarily identify themselves as philosophers are perfectly alert to these methodological issues and their philosophical underpinnings. There are two or three alternative moves for philosophers, which are interesting not just as defensive political moves in a particular academic economy, but for what they reveal about the characteristics of different kinds of philosophical activity to: • accept that the term “research” is appropriately attached to the scientific or (in the case of social sciences quasi-scientific) paradigm indicated to find a different descriptor for the activities of philosophers; • advance more inclusive but restrictive definition of research which can include the evidentially based work characteristic of historical and literary scholarship and biography and a good deal of philosophical writing rooted in the history of ideas; • advance an even wider definition of research to encompass at least some philosophizing terms. A systematic and sustained inquiry to be made public is also called research. The actual products of philosophical work provide a very mixed picture of the extent to which the producer was engaged in an inquiry of the fact. Most commonly researchers take the form either of a critical attack on a previous writer, or an attempt to advance and defend a point of view held by the author, or some combination of the two. The author might place the question or point of curiosity in the center, but this is by no means a requirement or expectation of philosophical writing, which in some of its more declamatory forms can come across as the product not of a humble inquirer after truth but of a somewhat arrogant holder of the truth, a knower rather than a seeker after knowledge. Conceptual or linguistic analysis may have a role as a helpful preliminary or accompaniment to other forms of theoretically informed or ideologically laden enquiry into educational thought and practice, but it cannot be separated from such theory or such ideology since the analysis rests itself on the same framework of beliefs. Philosophers of education are faced with something of a dilemma, which different scholars resolve in different ways. The dilemma is created by a simultaneous demand to produce work which is a visible contribution to contemporary

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Philosophy of Research: An Introduction

educational debate (and perhaps one that non-philosophers will find accessible) and to produce work of serious philosophical scholarship.

A Philosopher in the Classroom? It is quite easy to see or to represent action research as something standing in contrast with, or, more strongly, in opposition to, more theoretical or philosophical approaches to classroom practice. This might create a serious error because of action research which depends on philosophical aspects for its own rationale and properly conceived also to require its practitioners to effect the entire philosophies. This all creates some consequences in action research. There may be two distinctions in terms of research as: • Philosophy of Research (refers to the ideas, rooted in epistemology, ethics, and social philosophy, which might underlie the idea and practice of action research, but of which action researchers themselves do not necessarily have to be aware). • Philosophy in research (refers to the ways in which, arguably at least, action researchers need to engage more self-consciously with philosophical questions). According to John Elliott (British Historian, 1991): A philosopher who played a central role in the development of action research and someone who always regarded the two fields of educational inquiry as mutually dependent. Philosophical reflection . . . itself modifies conceptions of ends in ways which change one’s understanding of what constitutes good data about practice. So, one cannot improve the methodology of action research independently of philosophical reflection.

As a form of practice, action research can appear to have a disarming philosophical innocence. A teacher initiates a new approach to her handling of some disruptive pupils, monitors the effects, and revises her approach in the light of what he/she observes. Certain features of modest initiatives that carry wider significance in research are to be observed: • how the practitioners are developing their understanding of their professional practice not by reference to any externally generated theory or generalized principles. With reference to their experience tested in their own environment, there are some epistemological principles at the work order section; • that the practitioners are themselves taking responsibility for developing their practice, rather than being directed in the development by some outside agency, so there are some principles to do with power and agency involved under some social/political principles; • that the inquiry, the research, is being conducted by an insider researcher in the context of his/her own working environment, so there are some ethical principles invoked both

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A Philosopher in the Classroom?

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in the preference for the insider researcher over the outsider researcher and in the obligations to be right at stake in the relationship between researcher and researched. There is no escaping the fact that educational action research has represented a distinctive view of the nature and development of professional knowledge. It may be a view to stand in some contrast to the idea of educational theory as applied social science, as a body of ideas which can be developed and gain validation independently of practice and can be handed down. MacLure (1995) suggests that it is a distinctive feature of action research that it appears to privilege experience over theory and ascribe a special epistemological status to experience “with connotations of authenticity, directness, naturalness, immediacy, relevance,” “life-as-it-is-lived,” and counterpoises this against the “remoteness and abstraction of research/theory/policy/positivism.” For John Dewey (American Philosopher and Psychologist, 1916) there is a physical relationship between learning and experience: When we experience something, we act upon it, we do something with it; then we suffer or undergo the consequence. We do something to the thing and then it does something to us in return . . . The connection of these two phases of experience measure the fruitfulness or value of the experience . . . When an activity is continued into the undergoing of consequences, when the change made by the action is reflected back into a change made in us, the mere flux is loaded with significance.

A particular teaching approach “works” in maintaining order in the classroom, but what is its impact on the scholar’s learning, on their attitudes toward the subject, on their moral, social, and political education? The notion of something “working” itself requires interrogation and reflection of a kind which requires a wider conceptual apparatus than is necessarily provided by immediate experience. The rationale for involving teachers as researchers of their own practice is connected to an aspiration to give them control over what is to count as knowledge about practice. As action researchers, teachers are knowledge generators rather than appliers of knowledge generated by outsiders. A shift in the distribution of the production and validation of knowledge might itself be held to constitute a shift in the distribution of power. To qualify for inclusion as action research, a research project had to be: • • • • • • •

participatory (where the researched were the researchers); first person (“we do” in order to change ourselves); emancipatory (designed to free participants by helping them to think differently); socially critical (so that what normally went unquestioned was questioned); collaborative (research the members of an action team did together); committed and conducted according to ethical procedures; risky (in a way which would make life uncomfortable).

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Philosophy of Research: An Introduction

Carl Elliott (American Philosopher, 2000) sets out the characteristics of educational action research in terms which repeatedly reveal the intimacy of the relationship between action research and moral and ethical evaluation rooted in a considered philosophy of education: • its major purpose is to realize an educationally worthwhile process of teaching and learning. • what counts as educationally worthwhile activity should be defined in terms of valueconcepts like “autonomous learning,” “learning with understanding,” “critical thinking,” “learning through discovery or inquiry.” • . . . an activity should be evaluated as educationally worthwhile, not by virtue of its instrumentality for effecting certain results but by virtue of the extent to which it embodies in itself criteria and standards which are implicit in the educational ends to which it is directed. • . . . enquiry into how to realize educational values in the practices of teaching and learning cannot be separated from philosophical enquiry into what these values mean and their implications for practice. When it is so reduced, we get a version of action research which amounts to a form of instrumental/technical problem solving. The educational character of any practice can only be made intelligible by reference to an ethical disposition to proceed according to some more or less tacit understanding of what it is to act educationally. Action research leaves a role for the educational theorist in the university as a supplier of theoretical resources for teachers to use in reflecting about and developing their practice, but it establishes the teacher as the ultimate arbiter over what is to count as useful knowledge.

The Philosopher in an Interdisciplinary Research The Higher Education Funding Council for England declares that: Research in education is multi-disciplinary and is closely related to a range of other disciplines with which it shares common interests, methods and approaches . . . (HEFCE, 2012).

The philosophical attitude can critically reacquaint policymakers with the resources of their own ethical tradition and in doing so enable them to test proposed prescriptions against those traditions. In the field of research we refer to research teams, research groups, and research centers. These have in common the features of: • bringing together a number of researchers in some formation; • around some common task or set of tasks; • with some shared principles, values, or interests.

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Educational Research: Pursuit of Truth

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Moral education can only be articulated upon some understanding of what it is to be moral, and of the knowledge and understanding which are the components of moral choice and moral action. It might be helpful to pull out some of the issues that might provide a focus for discussion on interdisciplinarity in research. These have included: • questions to do with the role of “the philosopher” in an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research group and how the “philosophical” contribution is understood; • questions to do with the problematization of that identity of “non-philosophers” who seem to be doing philosophical work and of “philosophers” whose intellectual role and resources cannot be reduced to the philosophical; • questions to do with what anyone qua philosopher can make of empirical data; • questions to do with how philosophers and those in the educational research community who would not define themselves in these terms can engage more effectively together; does this require us to subordinate our disciplinary identities? • questions to do with the conditions which “make a community of arguers possible” within a research group and, more problematically, within looser educational research groupings/networks which cross all sorts of linguistic and cultural, as well as epistemic, frontiers.

Educational Research: Pursuit of Truth There is an illuminating association between some of the classical theories of truth and the major paradigms of educational research. The application of any type of research method and the defense of the results of inquiry thus obtained imply a view, or views, of what is to count as knowledge. The point of preferring one set of methods over another is to believe that the chosen set will lead to knowledge rather than mere belief, opinion, or personal preference. We may regard our work as simply another construction. We hope the reader will find it reasonably informed and sophisticated, but it is certainly far from universal truth. Indeed, there is no universal truth to which our construction is a more or less good approximation. We trust that continuing dialectic dialogue about what we have to say will lead to reconstructions of greater power and worth but not of greater truth. The moral imperative on the responsive constructivist evaluator is continuously to be on the alert for challenges to the prevailing construction and to stand ready to refine, change, or even reject that which is currently believed in favor of something else that, on examination, seems more reasonable and appropriate to those in the best position to make that judgment. Confirmability is concerned with assuring that data, interpretations, and outcomes of inquiries are rooted in contexts and persons apart from the evaluator and not simply figments of the evaluator’s imagination. What is represented in this instance is clearly a correspondence theory of truth applied to the particular context of giving accounts of people’s constructions of their social world. The imperative on the researcher is clearly to

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Philosophy of Research: An Introduction

penetrate all sorts of lies, deceit, and misrepresentation in order to provide as far as possible a truthful account of people’s constructions of their world. The non-scientific approaches under the educational research which supposingly or seemingly rejects the quest for truth not to be rejected to shift the paradigm to other types of research. The net consequence of “alternative” approaches to educational research may be to relieve the researcher from some responsibility for establishing what is “truthlike” to use, but this responsibility is then simply passed on to others.

Pragmatic Perspectives of Research A pragmatic approach is to eschew lofty theory, ideology, rarefied scientific claims which researched conflict with common-sense of understanding. Theory of knowledge has come to dominate via a good deal of policy in relation to education. Philosophical pragmatists remain a loosely associated group with overlapping and evolving concerns and points of view, rather than a single program or set of commitments. For the pragmatists, learning and the development of knowledge and understanding had its roots in an interest, purpose, task, or project which an individual was engaged with or pursuing. A problem situation exists whenever we find our established habits of conduct inadequate to attain a desired end and the effect of a problem situation upon us is the production of doubt. The key to the educational experience is getting the student to recognize that this cycle of interestdoubt-problem solving is beneficial and worthy of pursuit. The repeated cycle of classroom action research (as researcher): • starts with teachers identifying some aspect of their practice which they find unsatisfactory, puzzling, frustrating, not working as they would wish it; • they move from a state of puzzlement or frustration to a more explicit articulation of the problem; • they investigate what is happening in their classrooms more carefully (in a more systematic and sustained way?) than they are normally able to do (hence the claim to research); • they hypothesize in the light of this evidence some changes in their practice which will address the problem; • they implement the changes in practice; • they investigate again their impact on what is happening. The model of classroom action research is clearly rooted in pragmatic theory of knowledge and enjoys the benefit of its persuasive and practical representation of the relationship between theory and practice. Pragmatism is at its most convincing within the realm of technology probably suffers from having taken the technological domain as paradigmatic of all knowledge. Technology comes into play in very much the way that

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Ethical Codes and Academic Independence

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the pragmatists describe, when people want to do something or get somewhere, when they try out a solution. If that works and allows them to do what they want, then that is enough. When we set the problem, we select what we will treat as the “things” of the situation, we set the boundaries of our attention to it, and we impose upon it a coherence which allows us to say what is wrong and in what directions the situation needs to be changed. Problem setting is a process in which, interactively, we name the things to which we will attend and frame the context in which we will attend to them. The function of research is not onle to address pragmatically the problems that arise out of practice and to serve the purpose of improving the technical results individually or collectively: • to dig out the less apparent evidence, perhaps the evidence concealed by an embarrassed government department, which challenges our ideas about what is in fact happening; • to challenge the ends or purposes which are guiding our practice and the values and principles which are governing their pursuit; • to challenge and to provide alternatives to the ideas which frame our understanding of and interpretation of what is going on in our classrooms, schools, or educational systems; • to make this public. Research is not only a resource for enabling us more effectively to achieve prescribed ends, but also an instrument of disturbance, disruption, and dissent challenging not only the answers to questions about our practice but also the questions which we ask. Researchers endear themselves neither to politicians, who rarely actually welcome criticism even if they subscribe to forms of democratic government which require them to submit to it, nor the teachers, who probably think they have enough problems to deal with before lunchtime without researchers or anyone else thinking up more.

Ethical Codes and Academic Independence Ethical codes appear to be designed to protect the weak and the vulnerable from exploitation or harm, which is entirely proper. Educational research is not focused exclusively on communities defined or self-defined as “disempowered,” communities which lack either legal or psychological “ownership” of research or the research process. The British Education Research Association (BERA) Council had drawn to its attention a number of research contracts which seemed to allow the commissioners of the research an inordinate amount of control over, among other things, the research methods to be employed, the form in which the research report will be published. The association considers that all educational research should be conducted within an ethic of respect for:

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• • • • •

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Philosophy of Research: An Introduction

The Person; The Knowledge; The Democratic Values; The Quality of Educational Research; Academic Freedom.

In guiding researchers on their conduct within this framework the association sets out its guidelines under the following headings: • Responsibilities to Participants; • Responsibilities to Sponsors of the Research; • Responsibilities to the Community of Educational Researchers. Researchers must avoid agreeing to any sponsor’s conditions that could lead to serious contravention of any aspect of these guidelines or that undermine the integrity of the research by imposing unjustifiable conditions on the methods to be used or the reporting outcomes. Attempts by sponsors or funding agencies to use any questionable influence should be reported to the Association (BERA Ethical Guidelines, 2004).

Educational researchers are free to interpret and publish their findings without censorship or approval from individuals or organizations, including sponsors, funding agencies, participants, colleagues, supervisors, or administrators. This understanding should be conveyed to participants as part of the responsibility to secure informed consent. Educational researchers should not agree to conduct research that conflicts with academic freedom, nor should they agree to undue or questionable influence by government or other funding agencies. Examples of such improper influence include endeavors to interfere with the conduct of the research, the analysis of findings, or the reporting of interpretations. Educational researchers should not accept funds from sponsoring agencies that request multiple renderings of reports that would distort the reports or mislead readers. The right of researchers independently to publish the findings of their research under their own names is considered the norm for sponsored research, and this right should not be lightly waived or unreasonably denied. This right is linked to the obligation on researchers to ensure that their findings are placed in the public domain and within reasonable reach of educational practitioners and policymakers, parents, pupils, and the wider public. Researchers must avoid agreeing to any sponsor’s conditions that could lead to serious contravention of any aspect of these guidelines or that undermine the integrity of the research by imposing unjustifiable conditions on the methods to be used or the reporting of outcomes. Researchers have the right to dissociate themselves publicly from accounts of the research that they conducted, the subsequent presentation of which they consider misleading or unduly selective. Sponsors enjoy a similar right. It is in the interests of researchers and sponsors alike to prevent this situation arising by agreements on publication or, if necessary, through arbitration. The fact that research codes of national research

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Review Questions

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associations do address some of these issues of responsibility to both an informed public and an academic community of scholars is part of an answer to concern.

Review Questions 1. Explain the term “research” in view of two philosophers. 2. Briefly describe the different steps involved in a research process. 3. Describe the different types of research, clearly pointing out the difference between an experiment and a survey. 4. “Empirical research in India in particular creates so many problems for the researchers.” State the problems that are usually faced by such researchers. 5. “Creative management, whether in public administration or private industry, depends on methods of inquiry that maintain objectivity, clarity, accuracy, and consistency.” Discuss this statement and examine the significance of research. 6. What is research problem? Define the main issues which should receive the attention of the researcher in formulating the research problem. Give suitable examples to elucidate your points. 7. “Knowing what data are available often serves to narrow down the problem itself as well as the technique that might be used.” Explain the underlying idea in this statement in the context of defining a research problem. 8. What is research design? Discuss the basis of stratification to be employed in sampling public opinion on inflation. 9. Give your understanding of a good research design. Is single research design suitable in all research studies? If not, why? 10. “It is never safe to take published statistics at their face value without knowing their meaning and limitations.” Elucidate this statement by enumerating and explaining the various points which you would consider before using any published data. Illustrate your answer by examples wherever possible. 11. “Experimental method of research is not suitable in management field.” Discuss, what are the problems in the introduction of this research design in business organization? 12. What are common features of good research? 13. How many ways the philosophical scientific knowledge may be classified in the research? 14. Explain Wilfred Carr’s concept of educational philosophy and theory. 15. What is the difference between philosophy of research and philosophy in research? 16. What is the physical relationship between learning and experience? 17. What is the impact of action research on the scholar’s learning? 18. What are philosophical features of a good research study? 19. Explain the role of a philosopher in an interdisciplinary research.

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20. Write Short Notes on the following: (a) Educational Research and Philosophy (b) Philosopher in the Classroom (c) Educational Research: Pursuit of Truth (d) Interdisciplinary Research (e) Pragmatic Theory of Knowledge (f) Ethical Codes and Academic Independence

Further Reading Bairagi V, Munot MV (2019) Research methodology. A practical and scientific approach. CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, New York, NY Brandenburg R, McDonough S (2019) Ethics, self-study research methodology and teacher education. Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd., Cham Bridges D (2017) Philosophy in educational research: epistemology, ethics, politics and quality. Springer International Publishing AG, Cham Chawla D, Sondhi N (2015) Research methodology: concepts and cases. Vikas® Publishing House Pvt Ltd, New Delhi Jain S (2019) Research methodology in arts, science and humanities. Society Publishing, Oakville, ON Kothari CR (2004) Research methodology: methods and techniques. New Age International (P) Ltd, New Delhi Kumar R (2011) Research methodology: a step-by-step guide for beginners. SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi Novikov AM, Novikov DA (2013) Research methodology: from philosophy of science to research design. CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton, FL Pring R (2000) Philosophy of educational research. Continuum, London Pruzan P (2016) Research methodology: the aims, practices and ethics of science. Springer International Publishing Switzerland, Cham Smeyers P, Depaepe M (2018) Educational research: ethics, social justice, and funding dynamics. Springer International Publishing AG, (part of Springer Nature), Cham Yadav SK (2015) Elements of research writing. UDH Publishers and Distributers, New Delhi

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Research Ethics

Overview Ethical questions have always been the subject of interdisciplinary discussions and debates in the philosophy of educational research. Most of the philosophers have examined abstract concepts, while sociologists and psychologists have focused on extreme cases and research “scandals” in the course of locating ethical issues in their research experience. In these circumstances, we can expect philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists to involve in the study of education to bring together their expertise to focus on ethical questions in educational research. A brief glance at the research literature and research studies reveals that this topic is absent from debate. The Oxford English Dictionary (1972) illustrates ethics as: Relating to morals, treating of moral questions; morally correct, honorable . . . Set of principles of morals . . . Science of morals, moral principles, rules of conduct, whole field of moral science.

A definition focuses on moral principles that Cassell and Jacobs (1987) consider may “seem to have little relation to our daily activities as researchers, teachers, students and practitioners” point out how the concept of “ethics” is used to reprove behavior of others. As they argue: We do not wish to make this seem merely a matter of isolated choices in crucial situations. Much of our lives proceeds undramatically, and often our decisions are almost imperceptible, so that only with hindsight are we aware that our course of action had consequences that we had not foreseen and now regret. To improve ethical adequacy . . . we must consider not only exceptional cases but everyday decisions, and reflect not only upon the conduct of others but also upon our own actions.

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_2

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Research ethics are mainly of two fields: research integrity and publication ethics. Research misconducts can occur at both areas. In the context of anthropological study most of the philosopher’s comments have relevance for social and educational research. Most of the literature on ethical issues in sociology has focused on research “scandals” that have provided an opportunity to discuss research sponsorship, secrecy and deception and questions concerning the publication of data. The ethical issues encountered in applied social research are subtle and complex, raising difficult moral dilemmas that, at least on a superficial level, appear unresolvable. These dilemmas often require the researcher to strike a delicate balance between the scientific requirements of methodology and the human rights and values potentially threatened by the research. As such, the underlying guiding research principle is to proceed both ethically and without threatening the validity of the research endeavor insofar as possible. It thus is essential that investigators continually ask how they can conduct themselves ethically and still make progress through sound and generalizable research. While sharing certain fundamental principles of research, social scientists may choose to direct their scientific activity from a pure or applied orientation. The basic distinction albeit an oversimplified one underlying this dichotomy is that pure science remains unchallenged by practical, concrete social problems and issues while applied research is essentially a theoretical in nature. Individuals who limit their scientific activity to purely theoretical work unrelated in any apparent way to real-world problems are typically referred to as basic researchers. Some critics of the basic science tradition maintain that pure research is not value free since, in their view, it is immoral not to use the knowledge we have from theoretical research to attempt to reduce real-life social problems. But other critics of the supposed moral neutrality of basic science have argued the reverse point by claiming that, in fact, there have been past abuses in applications of pure knowledge. The primary goal of an action-oriented science is to accumulate facts and principles for immediate application to social problems and for the betterment of the human condition. Applied social researchers conduct their studies in the hope that they yield results that have significant potential value in the formulation or improvement of programs intended to help solve a wide range of social problems. Social scientists who apply their science in real-life settings where people live and work are inevitably acting on morally relevant decisions about what should be changed and why. Recent research developments in the area of preventive intervention research provide a useful illustration of the nature and goals of a typical applied social research endeavor and suggest how values are inseparable from that endeavor. A number of ethical questions are raised by the tearoom trade study, including whether a researcher is justified in acting contrary to the best interests of subjects in attempts to obtain valuable knowledge, to what extent deception is justified by the importance of an investigation, how one might go about studying illegal behavior in scientifically valid and ethically justifiable ways, and so on.

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Being Ethical and Moral

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Being Ethical and Moral Ethics and morality have similarly been developed from terms that pertain to customary or usual practice in research. The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos (meaning a person’s character, nature, or disposition). It has been defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (1936) as relating to morals or, more specifically, “of or pertaining to the distinction between right and wrong or good and evil, in relation to actions, volitions, or character of responsible beings.” The synonym morality is derived from the Latin word moralis (meaning custom, manners, or character). In essence, both ethics and morality refer to usual or normal behavior. William Frankena (American Philosopher, 1973) defined ethics as a branch of philosophy that deals with thinking about morality, moral problems, and judgments of proper conduct. He emphasized that while the terms ethical and moral both pertain to morality; they are not to be confused with morally right or morally good. A moral judgment is one that involves a matter of right or wrong, ought or ought not, a good action or a bad one. Whenever the question “Should I conduct this study?” is raised in social research, a moral issue is at stake. Ethical problems are also moral problems, even though some people choose to use these terms as if a difference existed. In contrast to moral concerns, which question whether specific acts are consistent with accepted notions of right or wrong, the term ethical is used to connote rules of behavior or conformity to a code or set of principles. To illustrate these words, we might maintain that a psychologist acted ethically in the sense of not having violated the profession’s codified rules of proper behavior, but still feel that the behavior was immoral. Thus, the terms ethical and moral may be used interchangeably to refer to rules of proper conduct, although one may prefer to distinguish between them in a context where codified principles are relevant. Because the terms ethical and moral are inevitably linked with values, they might more accurately be described as referring to behaviors about which society holds certain values. A dilemma is apparent in research situations in which two or more desirable values present themselves in a seemingly mutually exclusive way, with each value suggesting a different course of action that cannot be maximized simultaneously. When moral problems reflect uncertainty about how to balance competing values it is proper to speak of the situation as an ethical or moral dilemma. Multiple ethical issues can be represented in a single social research situation. Ethical sensitivity does not, in and of itself, guarantee that an ethical problem will be sufficiently resolved. Conflicting values tend to give rise to ethical problems. Ethical questions can relate both to the conduct of the research and the subject matter of the research. An ethical problem can also be described by the fact that determinations about proper conduct require a broad perspective in research. An ethical problem involves both personal and professional elements. When scientists disagree over questions concerning the potential hazards of a particular procedure, effects of deception on subjects’ suspiciousness, the effects of confidentiality procedures on survey return rates and subject participation, and so on, the disagreements are not of conflicting personal concerns but of scientific opinion, which changes as knowledge is gained. Professional values are largely guided and

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maintained by the established ethical principles and procedures of a profession. Ethical judgments might be based on a motivating factor, such as the pride a scientist derives from a major accomplishment, or a factor reflecting level of sophistication in terms of an awareness of the ethical issues and professional standards of proper conduct. Ethical problems can pertain to the ethics of science (the protection of the integrity of data) or the ethics of research (the protection of human rights). The ethics of science deals with normative rules that protect the integrity of data. Conversely, the ethics of research is related to the means and social consequences of the discovery of scientific truths; an unethical judgment can thereby undermine the rights of research participants through the methods used, or society at large through the implications of the research findings. Ethical problems can arise from the decision to conduct research and the decision not to conduct the research. Ethical assessments of social research traditionally have considered the costs and utilities of conducting a particular study, but have failed to address the costs (and utilities) of not conducting the study. Most of the moral philosophers might agree that avoiding harms that are immediate and certain may be more important than conferring benefits that are uncertain and distant in time. Thus, the decision to do or not to do a study is a complex one and poses a challenge for the researcher to select methods that preserve both scientific validity and morality. Ethical problems in social research may have some of the following characteristics: • The complexity of a single research problem can give rise to multiple questions of proper behavior; • Sensitivity to ethical issues is necessary but not sufficient for solving them; • Ethical problems are the results of conflicting values; • Ethical problems can relate to both the subject matter of the research and the conduct of the research; • An adequate understanding of an ethical problem sometimes requires a broad perspective based on the consequences of research; • Ethical problems involve both personal and professional elements; • Ethical problems can pertain to science and to research; • Judgments about proper conduct lie on a continuum ranging from the clearly unethical to the clearly ethical; • An ethical problem can be encountered as a result of a decision to conduct a particular study or a decision not to conduct the study. The following three levels also represent a typology of ethical problems in applied social research: • The individual research participants who are actively involved in the research; • The society in and/or for which the research is conducted; • The body of scientific knowledge to which the results and conclusions are incorporated.

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Nature of Moral Judgment

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The subjects for social research risk the following sorts of undesirable effects or “damages”: • Actual changes in their characteristics, such as physical health, attitudes, personality, and self-concept; • An experience that creates tension or anxiety; • Collection of “private” information that might embarrass them or make them liable to legal action if made public; • Receiving unpleasant information about themselves that they might not otherwise have to confront; • Invasion of privacy through the collection of certain types of damaging information. The legitimate use of power in a research setting can occur when researchers maintain more of a partnership with their research participants, sharing common norms and values with them that define the limits and conditions of the usage of power. Ethical problems at the participant level become particularly acute as the role relationship between subject and investigator loses a semblance of equality and, concurrently, as the legitimacy in the use of power is lost by the investigator. Ethical problems at the societal level can involve more subtle effects in research. A wide range of ethical problems are inherent in the collection, analysis, and reporting of social research data. Ethical problems can emerge at some point beyond the actual data-collection stage of the research process.

Nature of Moral Judgment There might be some researchers in some fields who imagine themselves to be engaged in the disinterested pursuit of what, once discovered, will be an unambivalent truth. They might further anticipate that having discovered that truth, its publication or communication will be a moral right or duty which presents only minor technical problems in its execution. The honesty and openness in any relationship are supported by and demand reciprocal obligations in research. Simons (1977) argues that: “In case study research the inter-personal dimension is an integral part of the research . . . Trust is the basis for the exchange of information.” In particular, I propose: • if the researcher is inviting the subject to enter into a relationship which is honest and open the researcher owes his or her subject to a similar level of honesty and openness; • if the researcher is encouraging honesty and openness of a kind which exposes the subject to risk of hurt or injury then the researcher has some obligation to protect the subject from that hurt or injury.

The conception of science as a value-free enterprise has been seriously challenged, and important questions have been raised about the appropriate relationship between scientific

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inquiry, objectivity, and the role of scientists’ values and beliefs. Assumptions underlying this value-free view of science have with increasing regularity been criticized as problematic. A traditional view of science was that the only values supposed to influence research were the scientific values placed on truth and objective methodology. Studies pertaining to ethical decision-making and attitudes toward social and behavioral research suggest that certain extra-scientific characteristics of researchers may be associated with differential stances on ethical issues, or influence the kinds of ethical decisions drawn. Each subject additionally completed an ethics positions questionnaire designed to assess individual differences in moral philosophy. The research the findings reveal a judge’s ideology determined how the perceived benefits and costs of the research were correlated with moral judgments. Teleologists (who rely on the consequences of an action to judge its morality) weighted scientific benefits heavily; deontologists (who base their ethical judgments on universal moral rules without exception) weighted participants’ costs heavily; and skeptics (who reject specific ethical principles and assume that inviolate moral codes cannot be formulated) weighted both heavily. People may differ in: • their evaluations of the quality and importance of consequences; • their reliance on universal rules of ethics when making moral judgments. Forsyth (1980) reported further success using the ethical positions classification system to predict differences in subjects’ judgments of other’s morality (e.g., those who endorsed different ethical ideologies significantly differed in the emphasis of good and bad consequences, overall severity of moral judgment, and their openness to justification). The research on ethical decision-making demonstrates that individuals systematically differ in the ways they formulate their ethical appraisals of research, and that perfect consensus regarding the ethical acceptability of a particular investigation cannot be expected. Individuals tend to differ in their ethical judgments of research involving more than minimal risk, a decision to dispense with the services of certain types of evaluators on ethics committees and the like would probably not be the most appropriate option in the long run.

Nature of Ethical Reactions: Applied Settings Ethical decision-making is neither a perfectly rational nor entirely timeless enterprise, and even after a considered judgment about the issues involved in a given situation has been made, doubts about whether or not one’s subsequent behavior was ethical may remain. The following five recommendations are offered for guiding the future of ethical social research in applied settings: • Research subjects should be considered as another granting institution, granting their valuable time in return for generation of valuable scientific knowledge.

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Research Ethics and Positionality

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• The traditional cost–benefit model that underlies ethical decision-making in social research should be modified to emphasize the outcomes of both doing and not doing the research and also the possibilities of doing the research in another manner. • A more detailed reporting of ethical procedures used should be required and expected in all published social research. • A focus on the ethical acceptability of applied research should become a critical component of a mutually reinforcing applied scientific community. • Evaluations of the ethical acceptability of social research require an awareness of the ethical climate in society and in the scientific community. A common thread running through most current professional codes of ethics and governmental ethical standards is the recognition that each case involves a somewhat different set of balancing considerations for and against research that raises ethical issues. This cost–benefit approach leads to the suggestion that ethical conflicts and moral dilemmas are inevitable in the conduct of research. In terms of guidance and application, cost–benefit analysis raises a number of problems; its mechanisms must be examined and reexamined and appreciated in new and different contexts. There is disagreement in the scientific community about the ethical responsibility of social scientists for the use and misuse of scientific discoveries. Although it appears that many social scientists now feel a greater responsibility than in the past to society and humanity for the knowledge they produce and are becoming increasingly involved in the decision-making process, attribution of responsibility is by no means a mutually perceived, clear-cut issue. Responsibility for the negative effects associated with application of new or existing knowledge, or with the failure to apply such knowledge, can vary with the nature of the effects.

Research Ethics and Positionality Various nations have their own standards of ethics amid a general focus on research’s aim for furthering knowledge. The principal focus of research emerges on the practice of positionality in a university/organization. The thesis is the document that incorporating researcher position as an ethic is a misuse, a misunderstanding of elements of philosophical and social science theorizing based in feminist perspectives. The place to begin is that positionality is basically epistemological. Aristotle saw intimate connections between ethics and rhetoric: for him, every ethical position was that of a given kind of person in given circumstances, and in a special relation with other specific people. The concrete solution of a case was of the essence of the work. Ethics was a field not for theoretical analysis, but for practical wisdom, it was a mistake to treat it as a universal or abstract science. It is important to understand that general ethical practices are not only desirable but also required in empirical research. Research is typically organized by methodology, quantitative and qualitative, within disciplines and fields. There are standard practices that students, researchers, and then mentors follow that they are learned through courses,

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texts, and actual inquiries. A key issue across empirical methodologies has been the evolution of theorizing about objectivity for truth claims. Methods resources take one or both of two tacts regarding ethics; embedded in design as specific tools and the considerably less acknowledged, as reference to traditional philosophical positions. Ethics should be a primary consideration rather than an afterthought and it should be at the forefront of the researcher’s agenda. Research needs to be honestly reported, shared with participants, not previously published, not plagiarized, and duly credited to authors that make a contribution. Positionality is the social and political context that creates our identity in terms of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability status. The term positionality first appears in epistemology, a branch of philosophy that studies how we know what we know. Positionality is accepted and affirmed widely across today’s educational research methodologies, often taken for granted. Positionality has become standard practice across various critical research and scholarly traditions and sub-traditions that do extend beyond education and have been developed within various disciplinary orientations of qualitative research. Researchers who rely on qualitative research like anthropologists, social scientists, and psychologists think a lot about their own positionality in something called a reflexivity or positionality statement. Many researchers identify themselves with a social justice tradition and recognize the central places of identity, critique, and politics in their inquiries. Positionality involves being explicit about the groups and interests the postcritical ethnographer wishes to serve as well as his or her biography. One’s race, gender, class, ideas, and commitments are subject to the exploration as part of the ethnography. Position may be so important that it can be seen as an epistemological claim as standpoint of epistemology. Positionality also involves studying up so that the focus may be on institutional arrangements and social movements which may be more powerful with whiteness studies. Social justice discourse and aims are increasingly present in social sciences and professions training and methods texts. As a case that not all qualitative researchers aim for social justice explicitly but it is the case that many researchers ask themselves what the outcomes of their research will produce in terms of more extended equality and less domination and discrimination.

Epistemology, Ethics, and Educational Research The term epistemology comes from the Greek word’s episteme and logos. Episteme can be translated as knowledge or understanding or acquaintance, while logos can be translated as account or argument or reason. Just as each of these different translations captures some facet of the meaning of these Greek terms, so too does each translation capture a different facet of epistemology itself. Although the term epistemology is no more than a couple of centuries old, the field of epistemology is at least as old as any in philosophy. In different parts of its extensive history, different facets of epistemology have attracted attention. In a university research environment, ethical principle is articulated in ethical codes and policed

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Epistemology, Ethics, and Educational Research

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by ethics committee’s function to constrain what researchers might otherwise do in the untrammeled pursuit of truth. Educational researchers aim to extend knowledge and understanding in all streams of educational activity and from all perspectives including learners, educators, policymakers, and the general public. A number of epistemic purposes are governed by the conduct of educational or any other type of research. These might include the following requirements: • • • •

To unsettle or question established belief; To conjecture about possible alternatives and develop new ways of seeing things; To describe or illuminate aspects of experience; To search for reasons, evidence, and/or argument for warrant that might support one belief rather than another; • To test beliefs and establish at least provisionally the truth of the matter under investigation. The right of researchers independently to publish the findings of their research under their own names is considered the norm for sponsored research, and this right should not be lightly waived or unreasonably denied. This right is linked to the obligation on researchers to ensure that their findings are placed in the public domain and within reasonable reach of educational practitioners and policymakers, parents, pupils, and the wider public. Researchers must avoid agreeing to any sponsor’s conditions that could lead to serious contravention of any aspect of these guidelines or that undermine the integrity of the research by imposing unjustifiable conditions on the methods to be used or the reporting of outcomes. Democratic evaluation is an information service to the whole community about the characteristics of an educational program. Sponsorship of the evaluation study does not in itself confer a special claim upon this service. The democratic evaluator recognizes value pluralism and seeks to represent a range of interests in his issue formulation. The basic value is an informed citizenry, and the evaluator acts as broker in exchanges of information between groups who want knowledge of each other. The debate in the literature is sometimes expressed in terms of whether ethical considerations should trump epistemological ones, not just in research but in the wider domain of policy and practice. In educational settings debates about race, intelligence, and educational attainment have been rendered both complex and intense by confusion between what evidence might sometimes indicate and what, for the very best of moral reasons, one would like it to indicate. If research showed that redheads were scored lower marks on intelligence tests than those with other hair, we might consider it better to suppress the finding, for fear that they would then be discriminated against.

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Validity-Versus-Reliability Tradeoff In empirical research discourses, the term reliability rarely appears except in the company of the term validity; one synonym for reliability is “external validity.” However, it is not entirely obvious why validity and reliability are treated as a pair in the research literature. First of all, reliability and validity are not parallel concepts. Reliable describes an instrument; valid describes a way of reasoning. Tests can be judged as reliable; but tests cannot be judged as valid. Inferences can be judged as valid or not. Judgments of validity cannot be applied to tests, but only to particular ways of reasoning about testing protocols and the relationship between evidence and results. In these aspects, reliability and validity are not epistemologically parallel or comparable concepts. Reliability and validity function are competing criteria in research designs as their relationship involves a tradeoff in the research. An issue related to the reliability of performance-based assessment deals with the tradeoff between reliability and validity. As the performance task increases in complexity and authenticity, which serves to increase validity, the lack of standardization serves to decrease reliability. The qualifier inference indicates that among all scientific tools such as hypothesis formulation, systematic observation, descriptive statistics, minimizing measurement error, and independent replication the inference from a sample to population grew to be considered as the most crucial part of any sort of research. If it is true that prior to the inference revolution psychologists virtually never drew a random sample from a population or defined a population in the first place. Educational research in the twenty-first century is facing changes in technological affordances, political demands, and economic fashions. In these changing contexts, there are emerging trends in social science research that have the potential to displace the validity-reliability tradeoff as a central concern for the evaluation of educational research. Four of those trends are: the introduction of translational sciences, a shift from significance to replicability, a move from inference to Big Data, and the increasing importance of consequential validity. The criterion of reliability is associated primarily with generalization, reliability refers to the degree to which research findings pertain to people in times and places other than those on whom the research was conducted. In generalizable knowledge, the activity may include the following concepts: • Knowledge contributes to a theoretical framework of an established body of knowledge; • Results are expected to be generalized to a larger population beyond the site of data collection or population studied; • Results are intended to be replicated in other settings. In a systematic investigation, the concept of a research study must: • Attempt to answer research questions; • Is methodologically driven (it collects data or information in an organized and consistent manner);

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• Data or information is analyzed in some way (to be as quantitative or qualitative data analysis); • Conclusions are drawn from the results. In a generalized knowledge, the activity may include the following concepts: • Knowledge contributes to a theoretical framework of an established body of knowledge; • Results are expected to be generalized to a larger population beyond the site of data collection or population studied; • Results are intended to be replicated in other settings. According to the popular textbook on qualitative research by Lincoln and Guba (1985), the four criteria for establishing trustworthiness in qualitative research (in terms of validity and reliability) are: • Truth value: How can one establish confidence in the “truth” of the findings of a particular inquiry for the subjects (respondents) with which and the context in which the inquiry was carried out? • Applicability: How can one determine the extent to which the findings of a particular inquiry have applicability in other contexts or with other subjects (respondents)? • Consistency: How can one determine whether the findings of a particular inquiry would be repeated if the inquiry were replicated with the same (or similar) subjects (respondents) in the same (or similar) context? • Neutrality: How can one establish the degree to which the findings of an inquiry are determined by the subjects (respondents) and conditions of the inquiry and not by the biases, motivations, interests, or perspectives of the inquirer? The validity-reliability tradeoff contributes to the reproduction of stereotypes by working to specify demographic specificity and generalizability at the same time. Validity alone may not contribute to stereotyping because there might be no attempt to generalize claims, reliability alone would not contribute to stereotyping because there would be no attribution of general tendencies to individuals. The methodological demand of reliability coincides with a tendency of people to take an essentialist perspective that reifies assessments into stable traits or essences of a person. Reification works to interpellated identities according to the classifications that have been invented to define and specify populations. The issues of validity-reliability tradeoff have been controversial in debates about educational research ethics for at least a century, and yet the emphasis on inference has continued to grow, and the reification effects have contributed to the perpetuation of stereotypes.

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Commodification of Educational Research Commodification is a process where items such as goods and services are transformed into objects for sale. People not only live within a market economy but also in a market society within categories that have come to dominate areas of people’s lives. This has been increasingly true within higher education institutions. Colleges and universities believe that the education that they offer is a product and the students they recruit are treated as customers or consumers. Higher education has faced complaints for offering poor-quality, overpriced products, and services. As a bureaucratic and inefficient industry, it is unwilling to adapt to new markets, is administratively bloated, technologically backward, and is uninterested in teaching. Most academic research in the universities requires some sort of funding. Moving into the twenty-first century, the landscape of the traditional higher education institution has changed, including its model of conducting business. There is an increased need to improve knowledge about organizational learning and effectiveness so that organizations like colleges and universities can respond effectively to the needs of changing campus environments. These two types of organizational learning are single-loop learning and double-loop learning. One of the imperative objectives to manage conflict within contemporary organizations is to enhance organizational learning that will provide long-term effectiveness. There are two types of organizational learning. Single-loop learning is the understanding of intervention in problems without changing assumptions, goals, or policies. This results in behavioral and cognitive changes within an already existing paradigm; asking one-dimensional questions and receiving a one-dimensional answer. It supposes further that how it is funded and on what terms and conditions this research might have some impact on the nature and society at large. We can smartly observe some different models of the relationships between funder and researchers. Becher (1985), Mirowski and Sent (2002) distinguished six strategies of which those paying for research, use to control to a greater or lesser degree the research which is done. These include: • Proprietorship: Funders create dedicated research establishments in-house maximizing their control over every aspect of the research and their rights over the utilization/ suppression of the entire research; • Purchase: Bought-in researchers commissioned by government agencies or private sector organizations under project contracts; • Prescription: The concentration and steering of, usually government, research resources through the designation of particular centers of excellence once established may enjoy a significant measure of independence; • Persuasion and sponsorship: The identification and designation of a preferred theme and the encouragement of academics to put forward proposals for research relating to this theme; • Pluralism: Responsiveness to researcher demand selection by perceived merit of proposals;

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Publishing and Coaching in Intercultural Settings

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• Patronage: Research conducted by individuals on their own agenda under publicly funded posts in universities is in a sense a form of public patronage. The purchase or buying in of researchers under contract brings us closest to the idea of research as a commodity that can be bought and sold or otherwise disposed of as the purchaser wishes. Research or educational research is not like a bag/heap of coals or any other material commodity in some significant way nor does a local government officer have the right to throw it in the bin, does (s)he? But why? This may be an attempt to explore some important dimensions of this ethical question in research. In economies that rely increasingly on the generation and application of knowledge, greater productivity is achieved through the development and diffusion of technological innovations, most of which are the products of basic and applied research undertaken in universities. Progress in the agriculture, health, and environment sectors, in particular, is heavily dependent on the application of such innovations. This capacity for research-based innovation has also become a central element of the sort of “knowledge economy” that governments across the world in settings as diverse. So commercial value and, at the macro level, economic value can be attached to research products, which can be owned, bought, and sold like any other commodity. This development is described as the economization, or economic instrumentalization, of human activities and institutions, or even entire social subsystems. In this wider and more appropriate sense, academic commodification means that all kinds of scientific activities and their results are predominantly interpreted and assessed on the basis of economic criteria. The commodification of academic research violates the distinctive ideals, habits of mind, and institutional purposes traditionally associated with science. Commodification corrupts science because exchanging scientific knowledge for money threatens the moral integrity, social purpose, and/or epistemic quality of science. Just as prostitution denigrates sex and bribery denigrates government, commercialized research denigrates science. Researchers must avoid agreeing to any sponsor’s conditions that could lead to serious contravention of any aspect of these guidelines or that undermine the integrity of the research by imposing unjustifiable conditions on the methods to be used or the reporting.

Publishing and Coaching in Intercultural Settings It may be of high interest for the universities, to introduce emerging researchers into new strategies of publishing and of performance assessment. They might have a vital interest to support and coach researchers to produce visible excellence and to get and administer thirdparty funds. During these respects, coaching of emerging researchers counts as a strategic investment not only into younger scholars, but also into the reputation of the university into their budget. In a synchronic perspective it has to be considered multilayers of parallel changes and transitions as diverse contexts of research, when different research cultures, definitions of quality, and evaluation cultures interact and compete. Against this

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background most of the emerging researchers have to face diverse, contradicting, tasks, challenges, obligations, and commitments within universities or projects. Theories of modernization, individualization, and risk management as well as analyses about a reflexive modernity could be served as instruments to explain such contradictions, uncertainties, paradoxes, ambiguities, and ambivalences among the researchers. We use the field of educational research in this multicultural context to investigate in the different definitions of quality and of quality assessment, as they are shown by a culturally heterogeneous research community, by different evaluation institutions and agencies, especially regarding the importance of educational research journals. The following uncertainties (questions) may arise among emerging researchers: • • • • • • • • • • • •

What counts for career? Quality of products or quality of networking? National or international recognition? How do I get access to relevant journals, and how do I identify low quality, predatory or fake journals? Who are the influential gatekeepers to the academic market? How is teaching and research quality balanced? Which standards and expectations do I have to follow? Which methodological profile offers best career opportunities? Who defines these standards? Who assesses my papers/proposals? How is inter-disciplinarily related to which discipline(s)? To what extent should I consider psychological, sociological, ethnographical, philosophical, etc. references?

In the present scenario, bibliometrics is mainly targeted at three different interest groups with three different lines of applications: • Bibliometrics for Scholars or Scientific Information: Researchers from scientific disciplines/from the most heterogeneous interest group may get information about networks, access to information, and hot topics in a discipline; • Bibliometrics for Bibliometricians in Methodology: Basic bibliometric research is done in an interest group, which applies it methodologically; • Bibliometrics for Science Policy and Management: The large field of research evaluation is currently the most important aspect of bibliometrics. Most of the comparative studies are done on research assessment, methods to measure output and performance are developed. Emerging researchers are confronted with numerous evaluation requests, not being aware of the application, the output, the impact, and the individual consequences of evaluation results, e.g., regarding career, funding, support, organizational investment.

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Ethics and Feminist Research

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Ethics and Feminist Research Ethics is widely concerned with the morality of human conduct. In connection to social research, it refers to the moral deliberation, choice, and accountability on the part of researchers throughout the research process. What makes research feminist? A classic answer is that it is research done by, for, and about women. Another is that “feminist researchers produce feminist research”. In the words of Priscilla Alderson (1995), Researchers themselves have written extensively on ethics in social research. While feminist researchers certainly have not been the only authors to undertake reflexive accounts of the politics of empirical research practice, it is fair to say that such reflections have done and do form a substantial feature of feminist publications on the research process. Indeed, some have characterized feminist ethics as a booming industry.

The concrete relations of dependency and connection to an ethics of care are: • the ethics of care involves different moral concepts, responsibilities, and relationships rather than rules and rights; • bound to concrete situations rather than being formal and abstract; • the “activity of caring,” rather than as a set of principles which can simply be followed. • to deal with dependency and responsibility; • radically from rights ethics; • the highest normative principles; • the rights in situations of moral conflict. Most of the feminist political theorists who advocate an ethic of care perspective on issues argue that a feminist approach to ethics should not seek to formulate moral principles to stand above power and context. Ethics is about how to deal with conflict, disagreement, and ambivalence rather than attempting to eliminate it. A feminist ethics of care can help the researchers to think about how they do this by illuminating more fully the sources of moral dilemmas and formulating meaningful epistemological strategies to deal with these dilemmas, even if only on a temporary basis. A contingent attempt to generate some guidelines of ethical research practice to arise out a feminist ethics of CARE. It indicates where these ethics are elaborated empirically to answer the following questions: • Who are the people involved in and affected by the ethical dilemma raised in the research? • What is the context for the dilemma in terms of the specific topic of the research and the issues it raises personally and socially for those involved? • What are the specific social and personal locations of the people involved in relation to each other?

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• • • •

What are the needs of those involved and how are they interrelated? Who am I identifying with, who am I posing as other, and why? What is the balance of personal and social power between those involved? How will those involved understand our actions and are these in balance with our judgment about our own practice? • How can we best communicate the ethical dilemmas to those involved, give them room to raise their views, and negotiate with and between them? • How will our actions affect relationships between the people involved? It can be hoped that the researchers will find these guidelines useful for consideration in deliberating ethical dilemmas in their research practice. It cannot be claimed that this list of guidelines for working with a feminist ethics of care in social research constitutes a definitive model. Rather, one can see it as work in progress. It can be offered here in the spirit of working toward a means of implementing a feminist ethics of care as a guide for how ethical dilemmas in empirical research may be practically resolved.

Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

What do you understand by research scandals? How can ethics and moral be interrelated in research? What is the difference between pure knowledge and action-oriented knowledge? How a dilemma is apparent in research situations for researchers? Explain the term action decision-making in research. What do you understand by the nature of moral judgment? What is the difference between the ethics of science and the ethics of research? Explain common characteristics of ethical problems in social research. Explain the levels to represent a typology of ethical problems in applied social research. 10. What are professional codes of ethics under governmental ethical standards? 11. What are uncertainties among emerging researchers? 12. Write Short Notes on the following: (a) Epistemology (b) Validity-Versus-Reliability Tradeoff (c) Generalizable Knowledge (d) Systematic Investigation (e) Generalized Knowledge (f) Validity and Reliability in Research. (g) Ethics and Feminist Research

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Further Reading Brandenburg R, McDonough S (2019) Ethics, self-study research methodology and teacher education. Springer Nature, Singapore Burgess RG (2005) The ethics of educational research. The Falmer Press, New York, NY Israel M, Hay I (2006) Research ethics for social scientists: between ethical conduct and regulatory compliance. SAGE Publications, London Kimmel AJ (1988) Ethics and values in applied social research. Sage Publications, Inc, Philadelphia, PA Loue S (2002) Textbook of research ethics: theory and practice. Kluwer Academic Publishers, New York, NY Mauthner M, Birch M, Jessop J, Miller T (2005) Ethics in qualitative research. SAGE Publications, New York, NY Oliver P (2003) The student’s guide to research ethics. Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education, Berkshire Sieber JE (1982) The ethics of social research fieldwork, regulation, and publication. Springer, New York, NY Smeyers P, Depaepe M (2018) Educational research: ethics, social justice, and funding dynamics. Springer International Publishing AG, Cham Yadav SK (2015) Elements of research writing. UDH Publishers and Distributers, New Delhi

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Overview Science is one of our most important modern institutions in the field of research. According to www.dictionary.com, ethics may be defined as a system of moral principles and the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc. On the bases of this definition, the question arises, what does this mean to science? The answer to this question is very unclear. Robert Merton (American Sociologist 1968) first identified these elements of the “ethos” of science in his work as an ethnographer of science, and he noted that failures to abide by these principles may result in scientific research program’s failures. Research in science is a steady progress, by which we have gained a better understanding, greater ability of prediction, and ever-increasing control over our world, has improved our lives in countless ways. As a human institution, it is fallible. The scientific community has by and at large agreed upon a standard of behavioral principles to which the vast majority of practicing scientists adhere. The exceptions receive most of the attention and ruin it for those of us who are professionally honest. The baffling paradox is that, more often than not, the offenders get caught red-handed and red-faced, ruining their careers. If this is the case, why do they do it? The professional organizations in all of the scientific domain have already established guidelines for their member’s ethical behavior. When the public was less aware and generally poorly informed about science and the academy, failures of scientific integrity may have been less harmful to the health of scientific institutions and to their general political support. But in a world of increasingly available knowledge, and in which a greater emphasis is given to democratic processes, the dangers of lapses of scientific integrity and research ethics are increased. First of all, the observer must identify where the ethical violations in science occur and what scientific misconduct is? Motivations are different for each crime, and observer simply cannot determine why people do something

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_3

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wrong or how to prevent it if we do not know what is wrongly done by us in the entire research process. Ethical violations can be committed in many ways. Some of them are: • • • • • • • • •

Intentional negligence in the acknowledgment of previous work; Deliberate fabrication of data we have collected; Deliberate omission of known data that does not agree with the hypothesis; Passing another researcher’s data as one’s own; Publication of results without the consent of all of the researchers; Failure to acknowledge all of the researchers who performed the work; Conflict of interest; Repeated publication of too-similar results or reviews Breach of confidentiality; Misrepresenting other’s previous work.

When fabrication of data is discovered, the penalty is very severe. The offending researcher might be fired, denied a degree (If a research scholar), or even have funding revoked. Further, the research paper or papers containing the fabricated data would certainly be retracted so that nobody else falls victim to this crime on science, and significant embarrassment be falling to the journal, the researchers, and the associated university or company. Not only the researcher but also the field can potentially suffer severe repercussions when the fraud occurs. The authors, while lauding the corrective nature of science, go on to point out several of the consequences of retracted articles, for the reasons: • • • • •

Diversion of scientists down unproductive lines of research; Unfair distribution of scientific resources; Inappropriate medical treatment for patients; Erosion of public confidence in science; Erosion of public financial support for science.

It is not only academic institutions but also governmental research institutions/ organizations that suffer from scientific ethical violence. The main violation that occurred is that scientists are failing to disclose the potential conflicts of interest. The modern form of data manipulation is also the major problem of scientific ethical violence in research. It might also be argued that it is logical to reuse the same figure throughout a single publication. A researcher is allowed to mention and/or reuse prior results, such as an image, in a subsequent research paper, provided that enough new research is also reported that either builds upon the research previously reported or shows it in a new light and it is properly referenced. So far as the graph or the figure is concern, no specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. The groupings of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields, or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if

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and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Nonlinear adjustments (changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend. There are multiple factors influencing the punishments handed down, including the severity and scope of the ethical violence in research, the culture of the jury. This may always be the case, and that might be acceptable. By and large, although sociological penalties may vary, the scientific ones do not. Almost in all cases, the guilty researcher’s work is never wholly trusted again, their fraudulent work is to be retracted, and they might even find themselves blacklisted by select journals/funding agencies/research organizations/apex bodies/scientific community.

Scientific Integrity and Research Ethics Science is an institution that may proceed best when scientists work according to certain principles which are not necessarily ethical principles, but which demand certain behaviors that we might call ethical within the domain of research. Specifically, for science to work properly, scientists must embrace the principles of communalism, universalism, organized skepticism, and disinterestedness. Science must be universal for research programs to succeed or indeed have any meaning. The truth must not be specific to any one culture, time, or place, but rather inherent somehow in nature and discoverable by the methods of science. The truth must not be specific to any culture, time, or place, but rather inherent somehow in nature and discoverable by the methods of science. It is a communal endeavor, pursued by various people at various times, observing, making hypotheses, testing, and devising theories all in reference to the work of others. Science has not always been pursued in a manner to conform with our modern notions of scientific ethics, especially with regard to the use of human subjects. It is from a rather sordid history of scientist’s use of humans as subjects that the modern version of bioethics and its various related applied ethical fields evolved. Another approach to ethics is based upon the notion of duties. The term “deontology” derives from the Greek for duty Deon. Deontology overcomes a major limitation of virtue ethics theory in that it is meant to provide some guide for action as opposed to individual character. According to deontological ethics, we must abide by certain duties which can be discovered through a number of means. In rights-based deontology, our duties stem from our obligation to recognize and protect various rights (like life, liberty, property, etc.). Immanuel Kant formulated his categorical imperative in at least three different ways throughout several works, including the following: • Act only in such a way that you would want your actions to become a universal law, applicable to everyone in a similar situation. • Act in such a way that you always treat humanity (whether oneself or other), as both the means of an action, but also as an end.

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• Act as though you were a law-making member (and also the king) of a hypothetical “kingdom of ends,” and therefore only in such a way that would harmonize with such a kingdom if those laws were binding on all others.

Issues of Authorship Publishing may be defined the currency of academia. It may be the measure of the worth of an investigator in any academic field. Scientific publication is the fundamental unit of values of the various professions of science, and the essential means of ensuring that the methods of science work over time. In other words, the manner by which hypotheses become tested, challenged, confirmed, or falsified over time is through the medium of written words, and authorship is a complicated matter both for ethical and practical reasons. A scientific work of authorship is the cumulative result of a research program’s reaching some conclusion sufficient enough to warrant dissemination to the community of researchers. The scientific purpose is to expose results to testing, to afford other researchers an opportunity to challenge results so that they can either confirm or falsify some hypothesis or theory. There are a large number of duties to come with those roles, and in publishing a number of new duties arise. These duties multiply as the number and types of stakeholders change. A scientific research paper involves not just the author, but also co-authors, fellow researchers, funding agencies, host institutions, as well as the scientific community and the public at large. The primary duty of authorship in science is to bring and justify the truth. The truth demands the scientific author an experiment to be replicated, that the data reported is the data observed, that any failures of shortcomings are properly noted, and that to the best of the scientist’s ability, he/she is taking sufficient account of all of the factors that are relevant so that others may challenge, test, confirm, or falsify without wasting inordinate time or effort. The truth demands transparency not just of data but of language. Authors of scientific papers often have differing responsibilities based upon their particular areas of expertise. Discovering authorship is easier without co-authorship, and in the case of co-authorship may become increasingly difficult with an increasing number of authors. There has been increasing focus, especially in the humanities but also in the sciences, on the problem of plagiarism. As with failing to provide appropriate sources so that future researchers can trace back one’s work, using the words of another pose’s problems for scientific integrity. There is another form of plagiarism that does harm in science: so called self-plagiarism. This is the act of taking one’s own words from previous publications and republishing them in another work without properly attributing their origin. Although the moral harm of taking credit for another’s expressions is not a risk in self-plagiarism, the risks and harms to science are still present. Department chairs, laboratory heads, and others have become accustomed to being named as co-authors by virtue of those positions and their authority, with little resistance by their fields or institutions where this sort of practice may have become accepted and

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perceived as correct practice. Proofreaders or even editors are not authors. Authors create something, and while proofreaders and editors contribute to the shape of the creation, they are not necessarily the creators of the final product. Authorship is a responsibility. The scientist who takes on the mantle of honor and creativity, as well as the associated institutional and cultural rewards afforded by authorship, must also be accountable for their work. Accountability for the sake of science means that other scientists can trust that the authors know as much as possible about their own work, have verified that their words properly represent it, and that all those claiming to be authors are personally responsible for their contributions as well as the work as whole.

Peer Review’s Role Peer-review process is perfectly capable of detecting some blatant instances of scientific ethical violence, doing so is neither trivial nor is it the primary goal of peer review. To do so, deceit might be assumed, rather than truth, and with that change, the whole scientific enterprise might collapse. For peer review certain research topic/area experts are appointed as reviewers by the editorial chief of the publication. Reviewers have to comment not only on the quality of the research and its presentation as well as its validity in their review report. Verification of the entire research work is generally left to the greater scientific community after the research is published that is if the work is important enough to be used or further development. By all means, peer review has at least an academic obligation to report ethical violence, it might certainly be argued that in some cases the peer-review process in its current incarnation may encourage limited violation even be unethical itself. When a reviewer is being unreasonable in his/her justification for rejecting a paper, the editor must take action and either opt to publish the paper despite the reviewer’s objections or send the paper to an additional reviewer for what would hopefully be a more reasonable review. A reviewer should not fear about retribution from the author for any unreasonably negative review. The editor knows who reviewed the research paper, but the editor may not know that there are personal or professional conflicts which may have influenced the review. One must remember that every science is based on trust. An exceedingly negative review might not appear unreasonable to the editor, it might appear diligent in nature. Despite the difficulties with anonymous peer-review process, it might be the best option in executing/conducting research. The check in science is most essential to the progress of science. If reviewers were to be compelled to critique the manuscripts less harshly for fear of reprisals, the science would inevitably become sloppy. The argument might also be valid that anonymous reviews can facilitate the theft of data by the reviewer. It is a matter of trust and faith in science. Within the anonymous peer-review system currently employed, theft is exceedingly rare. If it does happen, the scientific community should ensure that the guilty individual must never to be in such a position to do so again. Peer review does not prevent scientific research misconduct. The infractions of the peer review are unable to identify and

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should not be expected to identify the conflicts of interest and breaches of confidentiality. It might easily and logically be reasoned that the responsibility of preventing these forms of scientific misconduct lies with the institutions that the researcher in question works for. A reviewer can certainly commit a conflict of interest violation or a breach of confidentiality violation in the research. Peer reviewers can also be unethical. They might misuse the original research work by forwarding it to their own researcher. There is no accountability with the current peerreview process since it is anonymous. If a reviewer is sent a publication from a competitor, and the reviewer allows the publication to sit unreviewed for months while his own lab finishes competing work, he/she is abusing the system and committing scientific research violation.

Research Ethics in Human/Animal Subjects (Care) Beyond the four principles associated with bioethics are numerous other approaches to ethics, the good, and the treatment of others in the course of medicine and research. When we talk on issues of bioethics it is meant by “care ethics.” Care is an emotional state or readiness on the top of attentiveness, and care ethics views those in positions that are especially able to be responsive as best engaging their ethical duties when they proactively provide care for others over whom they are best suited to care. When a researcher conducts drug-based studies in practical aspects, he/she has to follow certain guidelines based on international research apex committees. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has outlined so many guidelines and rules, which can be visited on the following websites: • http://www.fda.gov/ScienceResearch/SpecialTopics/RunningClinicalTrials/default.htm • http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/CDER/ucm090275.htm The data used by FDA to evaluate the safety and security of human and animal clinical studies ethically include: • • • • •

Toxicity; Observed/demonstrated (lack of adverse side effects); Risks of clinical studies with humans and other animals; Any potential adverse effects, especially carcinogenic and teratogenic; The level of use of dose and duration that can be approved.

It must be noted that these guidelines are operative whether it is drug-based research or even sociological or survey-based research. The institutions conducting research (using humans as an objective) and receiving public funding are expected to form different committees to evaluate all research projects that involve human and animal subjects. It should be the job of such committees to ensure that every possible safeguard for the

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participants has to be taken. One of the outcomes of this may be a basic set of the following ethical principles: • Respect for persons (to acknowledge autonomy and protect those with lower autonomy); • Informed consent (determination and willing to participate in the research study); • Beneficence (do no harm or maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms); • Justice (who ought to receive the benefits of research and bear its burdens?) can be formulated as: – to each person an equal share; – to each person according to individual need; – to each person according to individual effort; – to each person according to societal contribution; – to each person according to merit. The general (application) principles to the conduct of scientific practical research deal with the following: • Informed consent (a process to receiving, comprehending the Information, and then volunteering for the study) includes: – Information: The research procedure; Their purposes risks and anticipated benefits; Alternative procedures (involvement of therapy); Statement offering the subject the opportunity to ask questions, to withdraw from the research, even after the beginning of research. – Comprehension (information to be presented to the volunteers in a manner to allow them to ask questions during the explanation and also to fully understand what the study entails); – Voluntariness (no threats or any other form of coercion can be employed to gain the volunteer’s cooperation with the study). • Assessment of risks and benefits (the assessment of risks and benefits to other modes, to achieve the same ends must be put into the context of the present study) as: – The nature and scope of risks and benefits, and the systematic assessment of risks and benefits at large to the institution; – The benefit-to-risk ratio must be in the favor of benefits to the researcher. If the risks greatly outweigh the benefits, it may be improper to conduct the study, and the committee overseeing such work at an institution might not give the researcher’s approval. • Selection of subjects (cannot be made based upon social, racial, sexual, and cultural biases that persist in the society)

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With reference to animal testing process, pain and some other side effects become nearly impossible to measure accurate readings. Most of the people are observant and aware enough to be able to look at an animal and they know that it is under discomfort position. The Animal Welfare Act sets the following guidelines: • Adequate care and treatment for housing, handling, sanitation, nutrition, water, veterinary care, and extreme conditions must be provided by the facilities; • Dogs must be provided opportunities to exercise; • Primates must be provided opportunity for psychological well-being; • Anesthesia or pain-relieving medication must be provided to minimize pain or distress; • Unnecessary duplication of specific experiments using regulated animals is prohibited; • An institutional animal care and use committee will oversee the use of animals in the experiments must be established; • This committee will be responsible for ensuring the facility complies with the Animal Welfare Act and providing documentation of compliance with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service; • The committee must contain at least three members, and membership must include one veterinarian and one person not affiliated with the facility. The Nuremberg Code describes a series of duties owed by scientists/researchers to human subjects and to society and has become the basis for internationally recognized boundaries of behaviors in conducting scientific study. This code describes ten specific duties as under: • Voluntary, well-informed, understanding consent of the human subject in a full legal capacity. • The experiment should aim at positive results for society that cannot be procured in some other way. • It should be based on previous knowledge (like an expectation derived from animal experiments) that justifies the experiment. • The experiment should be set up in a way that avoids unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injuries. • It should not be conducted when there is any reason to believe that it implies a risk of death or disabling injury. • The risks of the experiment should be in proportion to (that is, not exceed) the expected humanitarian benefits. • Preparations and facilities must be provided that adequately protect the subjects against the experiment’s risks. • The staff who conduct or take part in the experiment must be fully trained and scientifically qualified. • The human subjects must be free to immediately quit the experiment at any point when they feel physically or mentally unable to go on.

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Issues of Intellectual Property and Science

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• Likewise, the medical staff must stop the experiment at any point when they observe that continuation would be dangerous.

Issues of Intellectual Property and Science In today’s research perspective, copyright, patents, and trademarks are the most common forms of intellectual property. Scientists, researchers, and academics must be aware of and careful about each of these at some point in their careers and while pursuing their research. Intellectual property is a class of legal protections first created about two and half century ago. Archimedes could not prevent others from using his ideas about moving water to use, nor could he stop them if they created the same mechanisms completely independently. Without some law to protect a creator, ideas can be freely exchanged and used without depriving anyone of their property. Prior to intellectual property (IP), property laws protected things that are naturally excludable. Intellectual property is part of our modern economic landscape and has become essential to technological development and creativity in aesthetic media, and so we should be wary of how it interacts and may present ethical issues for, science and its institutions. Patents and copyright are state-created rights, and their terms of protection have varied over time. A copyright is typically created by the mere creation of some work in some fixed medium. Copyrights protect the particular expression of an idea, not the idea itself, as long as there is no “substantial similarity” between two expressions of the same idea, then there is likely no “infringement” of copyright. Patents work quite differently. Unlike copyrights, which come into being the moment a work is created, a patent must be applied for with some bureaucracy, and a review process determines whether it will issue. Once someone obtains a patent, they can prevent others from reproducing the object or process patented and maintain a monopoly on it for about 20 years. Science does not progress if when something new is discovered about nature it is not properly disclosed and tested by others. Fair use rights make complete control over expressions impossible. Thus, a copyright holder cannot prevent another author from excerpting or quoting from his or her paper. Fair use means that others are free to quote and excerpt the work of another to some limited extent, including especially for fair comment, refutation, critique, and parody. Intellectual property is a prevalent force in modern science and technology, and researchers will doubtless have opportunities to engage in ethical dilemmas potentially raised by these legal tools. At the very least, scientists should be mindful of the duties, both moral and contractual, that arise with the publication and creation of the products of scientific inquiry, as well as the expectations that come from various forms of employment and other relations among scientists, their institutions, funding agencies, and governments. The intention behind intellectual property law has generally be considered: to create an incentive for creativity and invention. Basic science typically focuses on discovery, scientists ought to concern themselves primarily with investigation of nature and her laws. The law of intellectual

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property typically attempts to protect the proper domain of science from that of technology, which can legitimately and presumably efficiently hold monopolies over inventions without impeding science.

Conflicts of Interests Scholar’s affiliation to a university, funding agencies, department, corporate partners, or even family and friends may present conflicts of duties that can impede research or cause harm. Sorting out the nature of our duties, and being aware of the various individuals and institutions to which we owe duties, is essential to avoiding the harms that may come. All the conflicts of interest cannot be avoided, nor need they be harmful, and so recognizing when and how to avoid, or at least be transparent, about conflicts when they arise and prevent harm when possible is crucial. The proper aim of science is developing a clearer understanding of nature. Through well-established methods of observation, hypothesis, testing, and building of theories, we gain an ever better understanding of the objects and processes that rule the universe. In order to conduct this sort of study properly, we need to be in a state of equipoise, in which our emotions are not vested in a particular outcome other than discovering whether our hypotheses can be corroborated by evidence or falsified. Maintaining a proper understanding of the role of science and the researcher in its institutions helps us to start to understand how conflicts of interest may arise, be recognized, and dealt with. The challenge of scientists and the institutions that support them and their projects is to attempt to marshal the various goals and aims involved in all stakeholders and help ensure that they are directed in a similar manner, toward similar goals, mindful of the potential pitfalls that may arise if interests conflict and are unattended to. Science is an evolving institution involving people in various fields generally interacting in ways that are socially constructed, bound by poorly define mechanisms, and interlinked with other institutions. Universalism, communalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism all suggest certain necessary behaviors, and all assume something about the nature of science and its aims. Scientists, just like members of any other profession, have interests outside of their work. They have families, jobs, friends, and activities they pursue that have little or nothing to do with the general goal of science. Those interests tend not to conflict, even when they may diverge or have essentially nothing to do with the goal of science. As science has professionalized both within and outside academic institutions, the possibility for conflicts among personal interests and those of science has increased, sometimes in ways that may be difficult to spot. The career, ego, notoriety, or fame of a particular scientist always had the ability to create some conflict, but when attached to other offices and incentives, the effects may become compounded. The focus must ultimately fall upon the individual researcher. When we recognize that we are all susceptible to various influences, even mundane and perfectly understandable needs for security in our incomes and our jobs, not

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Dignity

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to mention careers, prestige, profits, and other natural and common interests, then we should be aware that we can lose sight of the interests of science itself. Transparency is certainly an important tool, but it is not the final end or goal. Even with transparency, actors may not always act according to the proper aims of science and may allow intervening interests to cloud the pursuit of the truth.

Autonomy The term “autonomy” stands from ancient Greek letters combination, autonomia (noun), autonomous (adjective) from autos—self, and nomos—law which means self-governing. According to Locke, autonomy regards mostly political life and forms the basis for modern liberal revolutions, placing the consent of the governed and freedom of personal conscience as essential elements of a just polity, including respect for fundamental natural rights of life, liberty, and property. The major philosophical notion opposing the notion of autonomy is paternalism, or the notion that someone in some position of authority over another has the ability and even right to coerce or prevent the other from acting, or has the ability to act toward them in a way that violates their will. As we are limited by our capacities and so too will our free choices be actually limited. The major philosophical notion opposing the notion of autonomy is “paternalism,” or the notion that someone in some position of authority over another has the ability and even right to coerce or prevent the other from acting, or has the ability to act toward them in a way that violates their will. In modern medical ethics, some mix of autonomy and paternalism tends to dominate, a conception we might call “procedural” autonomy that recognizes that the freedom of individuals to choose rationally, to govern their own body and conscious responsibly, may differ from one individual to another, and within one individual over time. We can accept that parents act “paternalistically” toward their children without viewing as a moral wrong. There is the proper role of a parent to help their children develop the capacity to be rational, free agents while restricting their choices in the process of that development. Parental paternalism is expected to dissolve over time and to be replaced with the rational free agency of their children as they grow. Physicians and scientists in other fields interacting with human subjects stand in a special relation to the knowledge they have about the science they are employing as a parent may be to their years of experience in directing the agency of a child as they grow. Procedural autonomy recognizes that diminished capacities impact the ability of agents to exercise autonomy and so enforce certain standards of behavior to correct for it.

Dignity Dignity may be a difficult concept which is interrelated in many ways with the notion of autonomy and the best evidence in the absence of tracts in research. Research is intended to develop knowledge that is useful and may harm those who are of its subjects. There is

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always the likelihood that a human subject in an experiment is being used as a means to some end. As a fact, as part of the consent procedure, subjects must be warned that the research they are taking part in is not intended to help them, and they should have no expectation of benefit, even while they may be harmed. During the course of a study, an autonomous person with dignity must have the means and knowledge to stop their involvement at any time and without duress. The subjects must be treated as though researchers have the capacity to consent and treated according to their individual capacities. Each one of us is an individual, and even when being used as an instrumentality in some study, must be taken to be individuals with their own identities, needs, capacities, weaknesses, etc. Dignity may be impaired when subjects are treated merely as data points and not as fully autonomous individuals with all the human rights to which they are due. Respecting the dignity of individuals requires that, since we are treating subjects as some means to an end, we nonetheless acknowledge and strive toward providing them with the best quality of life in the process consistent with our study. Treating subjects with dignity, and subjects “having” dignity, are not the same, though both are considered generally required.

Beneficence/Non-maleficence Beneficence and non-maleficence are closely related but not the same in terms of research ethics. Non-maleficence is the principle not to harm. Beneficence is the action we take while non-maleficence is when we avoid the action. It shows that, if one acts to cause good, the value we place on that as opposed to merely not causing harm is typically different. Besides the general good that a researcher might feel that she contributes through the advancement of knowledge, each study that uses human subjects must be designed and intended to promote the good. Scientific investigations using human subjects must have some clear goal toward revealing knowledge or developing technologies. Curing diseases, relieving suffering, improving health, etc. may be all positive goals and may warrant the use of human subjects in direct studies. Accordingly, the research must be neutral and nonharmful in the end, but it fails the qualification for beneficence that is necessary for a study to be ethical. Beneficence is satisfied by both internal motivations and concrete actions and results while research may benefit the good even if it causes harm in the process. Promoting the good throughout the course of the study may impact the ongoing research. Science may be considered as a public good. This deals that it exists due to the patience, goodwill, and funding of the public and ought to positively impact the public. Scientists and the public at large are mutually interdependent and science must improve the public, whether by acquiring of true, basic knowledge, or by increasing the health and general welfare of those who allow science to proceed. It must be conducted in light of these reciprocal duties.

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Vulnerability and Justice Justice may be considered as another basic requirement of equal treatment and is linked to the notion of dignity. The modern notion of justice balances principles of autonomy against the provision of certain goods. There might be a tension between the good of individual liberty, which always exists, contrasted against the necessity for basic goods and unequal distribution of those goods. Justice is impaired both by nature and by circumstance in research and innovations. Unequal apportionment of capacities and opportunities for developing abilities, as well as uneven distribution of basic and secondary goods impact on the prospects of individuals. Justice requires that members of historically underprivileged, poorly protected, and vulnerable classes be treated with extra protection when using them as subjects in studies. Justice can be infringed even when people are treated objectively, equally given that the principle recognizes that we begin from unequal positions not as a matter of choice or desert. Justice may require special treatment for disadvantaged populations and individuals. Special care beyond what might have been necessitated in the same research study using individuals with better educations would be necessary to properly protect the dignity and autonomy of the study participants. The same would be true if children or other vulnerable populations are used. There is an inherent conflict in the desire to provide better treatments to vulnerable populations and the need to use vulnerable subjects in studies. Vulnerability implies diminished capacities and the ethics committee can take special care in reviewing and conforming a proposed study and its consent form to account for potential vulnerabilities. Children, the mentally handicapped, underprivileged and elderly and others with diminished capacities as well as potential sources of duress flowing from these states must all be carefully scrutinized and where possible accounted for so that vulnerable individuals and populations are justly treated in the course of a study.

Research Ethics Committees Ethics Committees or Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are the common fixtures with which researchers around the world must be quite familiar. In the scientific world, researchers are mandated by laws and regulations and research involving human subjects is generally guided and overseen by such committees (as discussed earlier). Ethics committees are composed of a panel of experts, community members, a legal expert who serve without pay (honorary) and have no stake in the outcome of the protocols they review. Their independence and objectivity must be paramount, and they should have some background in both the sciences involved and the bioethical principles to be applied research. Members ought to undergo some ongoing training, including by keeping up to date on cases as they are reported, and engaging in some discussion of emerging issues in bioethics, human subjects research, or animal use in experiments if they happen to sit on an animal research ethics committee. Clinical research has been divided into various phases, each requiring differing levels of oversight, and often undertaken by different types of

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institutions. In an evidence-based medical scientific environment, all clinical studies must first be validated by some basic study that suggests the need or potential benefit from pre-clinical study. Animal studies tend to be regulated by national laws, and ethics committees routinely review animal studies to ensure that they are conducted properly depending on the local laws and regulations. Animal testing must first be done using suitable animal models and minimizing the harms to the test subjects. Much of the basic science in drug discovery is done in academic institutions, most of the current development where potentially therapeutic compounds are turned into marketable drugs is conducted by industry in conjunction with clinical centers, hospitals, and research universities with medical colleges. At every phase, good scientific practice must be ensured, but also the unnecessary harm and suffering to humans, both in the trial and intended as eventual consumers, must be closely monitored and avoided consistent with the Nuremberg Principles. There exist numerous stakeholders involved in the development of new medical articles, including scientists, government agencies, drug companies, research institutes, funding agencies, patients and patient rights groups, among others. A new type of stakeholder has emerged called a Clinical Trial Services Provider or Clinical Research Organization. All of these various stakeholders have ethical duties, perhaps at differing stages, throughout the course of a clinical trial. Careful understanding of the nature of the relationships of each to the other, and especially to subjects involved in studies as participants, can help to avoid ethical errors and resulting harms. All of them tend to have some interest in the development and marketing of an article, and their participation in the positive and negative responsibility associated with their roles may need to be considered at various stages of discovery and development. Ethics committee meetings should adopt standardized procedures conforming with best practices as currently understood by peers, should be conducted professionally by members who attend having read the protocols in depth before their meetings and with questions. Ethics committee members should concentrate on these aspects of good clinical trial design in reviewing protocols, although their inquiry does not end there.

Science and Society Science is considered as an amorphous, distributed, and dynamic institution, composed of many other institutions and falling under the control of no central body. Body of knowledge that science develops becomes a part of our common heritage. Practicing the professions, investigating nature and society, depends upon a trust placed by the general public in scientists who will pursue the truth dispassionately, and with an eye toward the general good. There is no right for science to subsist on the weal of the public, and it is a great honor to be entrusted with the ability to do so as a scientist to delve into nature and her mysteries not because there is potentially some monetary profit or material good to be obtained, but because we as a researcher care about the search for truth as a good in itself.

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To be scientific, a hypothesis must be testable. It must be capable of either confirmation or falsification by experiment. Any number of biases and errors can cause false positives or negatives, and because we know that the laws of nature are universal and not confined to any particular lab or environment, we can only eventually become more certain of a hypothesis and perhaps adopt it as a theory if others confirm it, adjusting and correcting for potential biases and errors. Scientists who are familiar with both the history of science and the history of its faults and errors will be more able to confront their own activities, prepared better to act in ways that better conform to its norms, and less likely to need the help of other “experts” in scientific ethics and integrity should the need for ethical consideration arise. The scientific community is rapidly changing and the nature of science too is dynamic, perhaps more so than ever. Because of the rapid pace of scientific and technological advance, it is incumbent upon us to stay abreast of its advances, to consider our notions about the good in scientific conduct and research, and engage with researchers in as many different fields as possible to comb for cases, test, and maybe revise our notions, and develop better methods of helping to create an atmosphere of scientific integrity. Society owes a debt to those who work within its norms, according to ethical principles, and always with an eye toward the steady accumulation of better knowledge about the universe and its laws. By and large, the majority of scientists act ethically, whether consciously or not, and we are all thankful for their commitment and contributions to an ever progressing society, benefitting as we do both materially and intellectually from their tireless pursuits.

Review Questions 1. What are the ethical theories that help inform the Nuremberg Code? Which principles are based upon which philosophies? 2. How does the ethos of science demand proper citation and attribution of authorship? What happens to science and other scientists in the case of failure? 3. Describe some criteria that are appropriate for considering someone an author. Name some that are inappropriate. 4. What social and institutional pressures might be encouraging fraud, and how can we help to avoid or overcome them? 5. What must the absolute minimum activity for authorship be? How should co-authors determine ordering of authorship and whether one should be an author on a particular paper? 6. How might co-authors resolve issues of authorship best and at what stage of the authoring process? 7. What is the ethical problem with “self-plagiarism” and how best to correct it? 8. What counts as “intellectual property” and what does not? What distinguishes inventions from discoveries?

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9. How much human intervention is necessary to turn something into intellectual property? 10. How do copyrights affect the progress of science, and how can we better accommodate science and maintain our interest in rewarding authors? 11. What is a conflict of interest? Which interests may collide rather than cooperate? What is the proper first interest of a scientist? 12. How has modern science exacerbated the possibility and effects of conflicts of interest? How might we try to alleviate them again? 13. Describe how autonomy and dignity are related principles, and what ethical theories are involved in their understanding and application. 14. Consider and describe difference between paternalism, autonomy, and care ethics. 15. Which types of biases are blinding and randomization meant to address? What is the role of the ethics committee in reviewing blinding and randomization in a proposed protocol? 16. Who serves whom: do scientists serve society, or does society serve scientists? What depends upon the nature of this relationship? 17. How can scientists best serve society and must they do so through direct means, or is the general accumulation of knowledge over time sufficient? 18. How can we best protect against the influence of political or other ideologies upon the work of science and scientists? What role do scientists play in preventing it, and what role does law and regulation play?

Further Reading Annas GJ, Grodin MA (1992) The Nazi doctors and the Nuremberg Code Human rights in human experimentation. Oxford University Press, New York, NY D’Angelo J (2012) Ethics in science ethical misconduct in scientific research. CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton, FL Fienberg SE, Martin ME, Straf ML (eds) (1985) Sharing research data. National Academies, Washington, DC Gross PR, Levitt N (1997) Higher superstition: the academic left and its quarrels with science. JHU Press, Baltimore, MD Hamington M (2004) Embodied care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and feminist ethics. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL Hursthouse R (1999) On virtue ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kaczor C (2006) The edge of life: human dignity and contemporary bioethics, vol 85. Springer, Dordrecht Kant I (1997) Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals (1785). In: Kant I (ed) Practical philosophy, vol 80. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Koepsell D (2017) Scientific integrity and research ethics: an approach from the ethos of science. Springer International Publishing AG, Cham Koepsell DR (2003) The ontology of cyberspace: philosophy, law, and the future of intellectual property. Open Court Publishing, Chicago, IL

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May C, Sell SK (2006) Intellectual property rights: a critical history. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO Newton RG (1997) The truth of science: physical theories and reality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rai AK (1999) Regulating scientific research: intellectual property rights and the norms of science. Northwest Univ Law Rev 94:77 Rodwin MA (1993) Medicine, money, and morals: physician’s conflicts of interest. Oxford University Press, New York, NY Rosenberger WF, Lachin JM (2004) Randomization in clinical trials: theory and practice. Wiley, New York, NY Schoen RA, Mogee ME, Wallerstein MB (1993) Global dimensions of intellectual property rights in science and technology. National Academies Press, Washington, DC Taylor JS (2010) Practical autonomy and bioethics. Routledge, New York, NY Timmermann C (2013) Life sciences, intellectual property regimes and global justice (excerpt). Dissertation,. Wageningen University Weindling P (2004) Nazi medicine and the Nuremberg trials: from medical war crimes to informed consent. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY Ziman J (2002) Real science: what it is and what it means. Cambridge University Press, London

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Intellectual Honesty and Research Integrity

Overview As per Wikiversity, intellectual honesty is an applied method of problem solving, characterized by an unbiased, honest attitude, which can be demonstrated in a number of different ways including: • Ensuring support for chosen ideologies does not interfere with the pursuit of truth; • Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one’s hypothesis; • Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another; • References, or earlier work, are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is avoided. We have a moral duty to be honest. This duty is especially important when we share ideas that can inform or persuade others. Intellectual honesty is honesty in the acquisition, analysis, and transmission of ideas. A person is being intellectually honest when he or she, knowing the truth, states that truth. For the individual scientist, integrity embodies above all a commitment to intellectual honesty and personal responsibility for one’s actions and to a range of practices that characterize responsible research conduct. Research integrity may be defined as active adherence to the ethical principles and professional standards essential for the responsible practice of research. By active adherence we mean adoption of the principles and practices as a personal credo, not simply accepting them as impositions by rule makers. By ethical principles we mean honesty, the golden rule, trustworthiness, and high regard for the scientific record. Integrity characterizes both individual researchers and the institutions in which they work. For

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_4

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institutions, it is a matter of creating an environment that promotes responsible conduct by embracing standards of excellence, trustworthiness, and lawfulness that inform institutional practices. For individuals research integrity is an aspect of moral character and experience. It involves above all a commitment to intellectual honesty and personal responsibility for one’s actions and to a range of practices that characterize responsible research conduct. The good practices of research integrity include: • • • • • • • •

Intellectual honesty and fairness in proposing, performing, and reporting research; Accuracy and fairness in representing contributions to research proposals and reports; Proficiency and fairness in peer review; Collegiality in scientific interactions, communications, and sharing of resources; Disclosure of conflicts of interest or potential conflicts of interest; Protection of human subjects in the conduct of research; Humane care of animals in the conduct of research; Adherence to the mutual responsibilities of mentors and trainees

Engaging a listener’s trust imposes moral demands upon a presenter in respect of truthtelling and completeness. An agent lies by an utterance that satisfies what are herein defined as signal and mendacity conditions; an agent deceives when, in satisfaction of those conditions, the agent’s utterances contribute to a false belief or thwart a true one. We can refer to scientific as well as all other scholarly research collectively as scholarship and to practitioners as scholars. It can be taken as given the predicates true and false as the available truth values of an utterance, which, following Quine, is an event in which a sentence token is uttered. When used to present information, not only prose and speech, but graphs, photographs, and other means of expression may convey sentence tokens. On this understanding, an utterance occurs in the case of such demonstrative acts as that of a biologist who once painted mice so that they would appear the color predicted by his hypothesis. A listener is anyone, including a reader or viewer, to whom an utterance is uttered. A truth is a true utterance, a falsity or falsehood a false one. For the foregoing terms carry no moral significance, but they do pose philosophical problems. Sometimes it is said that scholarship is the pursuit of truth. Paul Benacerraf remarked, “Where truth lies, we may never know, but that it lies is beyond doubt.” We take truth telling to denote veridical speech, or the issuing of true utterances vis-à-vis false utterances. Only in assertions is a truthful agent obliged to avoid uttering a falsehood. A truthful agent may write fiction, may hold forth as a wag or raconteur. Even in assertions, a truthful agent need not always be accurate. In the sense that we may have defined, one truthfully asserts a falsehood if one believes one’s assertion true. While science encourages vigorous defense of one’s ideas and work, ultimately research integrity means examining the data with objectivity and being guided by the results rather than by preconceived notions. Professionalism in science denotes a pattern of behavior identified with scientific integrity that in turn provides certain privileges. Like other professionals, scientists are expected to behave with intellectual honesty and excellence

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in thinking and doing. In many respects they perform their professional activities as a monopoly, licensed by society similar to doctors, nurses, lawyers, hairdressers, accountants, and real estate brokers. Besides providing their expertise, professionals are supposed to behave collegially and teach the skills to others, and put society’s needs first in their professional activity. In response, society gives them a great deal of autonomy in conducting their professional lives. With scientists, that means selection of one’s own research problems and methods of procedure. They also are given the responsibilities to allocate funding, and review of their output in publications. Like other professions they are given responsibility for discipline in the event of poor performance or malfeasance. When self-regulation fails to sustain honesty and high quality, society imposes rules and laws to maintain its interests in professional quality. The main elements of professionalism are: • • • • •

Intellectual honesty; Excellence in thinking and doing; Collegiality and openness; Autonomy and responsibility; Self-regulation. The following practical elements are responsible for research conduct:

• • • • • • •

Conducting and reporting research; Role of the hypothesis; Critical nature of experimental design; The tentativeness of conclusions; Skepticism and humility tempered with conviction; Dealing with surprises serendipity communicating with colleagues; Communicating with the community-media. The following are the social responsibilities of scientists/researchers as an oath (Kent):

• Is it appropriate to consider the broader consequences of the pursuit of a scientific question? • I just make discoveries about nature; others use my discoveries for better or worse. • I must consider the predictable consequences of my research and decide in advance if I will create serious ethical problems as a result of its outcomes. • It matters not that others might discover what I avoid seeking because of its consequences. I do not have to contribute to the misfortune of humanity in my research. • The true consequences of a research effort are impossible to predict and it is the height of arrogance not to pursue a promising avenue of science just because of qualms about its misuse. • How do I design and interpret my work not to bias the conclusions?

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• Do scientists have the responsibility to make every effort to enter their work into the scientific record whether it is positive or negative? Integrity in research is essential for maintaining scientific excellence and for keeping the public’s trust. Integrity characterizes both individual researchers and the institutions in which they work. The concept of integrity in research cannot, however, be reduced to a one-line definition. For a scientist, integrity embodies above all the individual’s commitment to intellectual honesty and personal responsibility. It is an aspect of moral character and experience. For an institution, it is a commitment to creating an environment that promotes responsible conduct by embracing standards of excellence, trustworthiness, and lawfulness and then assessing whether researchers and administrators perceive that an environment with high levels of integrity has been created.

Environment and Bases of Research Integrity The research environment changes continually, and these changes influence the culture and conduct of research. As with any system being scientifically examined, the research environment itself contains variables and constants. The most unpredictable and influential variable is the individual scientist. The human contribution to the research environment is greatly shaped by each individual’s professional integrity, which in turn is influenced by that individual’s educational background and cultural and ethical upbringing and the resulting values and attitudes that contribute to identity formation, unique personality traits, and ethical decision-making abilities. Institutions seeking to create an environment that promotes responsible conduct by individual scientists and that fosters integrity must establish and continuously monitor structures, processes, policies, and procedures. Each individual researcher brings unique qualities to the research environment, the constants must come from the environment itself. Research institutions should consistently and effectively provide training and education, policies and procedures, and tools and support systems. Institutional expectations should be unambiguous, and the consequences of one’s conduct should be clear. The bases of research integrity are as under: • Individual Level (the individual scientist, integrity embodies above all a commitment to intellectual honesty and personal responsibility for one’s actions and to a range of practices that characterize the responsible conduct of research) includes: – intellectual honesty in proposing, performing, and reporting research; – accuracy in representing contributions to research proposals and reports; – fairness in peer review; – collegiality in scientific interactions, including communications and sharing of resources; – transparency in conflicts of interest or potential conflicts of interest; – protection of human subjects in the conduct of research;

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– humane care of animals in the conduct of research; – adherence to the mutual responsibilities between investigators and their research teams. • Institutional Level (institutions seeking to create an environment that promotes responsible conduct by individual scientists and that fosters integrity must establish and continuously monitor structures, processes, policies, and procedures) that: – provides leadership in support of responsible conduct of research; – encourages respect for everyone involved in the research enterprise; – promotes productive interactions between trainees and mentors; – advocates adherence to the rules regarding all aspects of the conduct of research, especially research involving human participants and animals; – anticipates, reveals, and manages individual and institutional conflicts of interest; – arranges timely and thorough inquiries and investigations of allegations of scientific misconduct and apply appropriate administrative sanctions; – offers educational opportunities pertaining to integrity in the conduct of research; – monitors and evaluates the institutional environment supporting integrity in the conduct of research and uses this knowledge for continuous quality improvement.

Promoting Integrity in Research Teaching the responsible conduct of research presents a special challenge in the organizations because it requires a synthesis of ethics and science. The provision of instruction in the responsible conduct of research need not to be driven by federal mandates, for it derives from a premise fundamental to doing science: the responsible conduct of research is not distinct from research; competency in research encompasses the responsible conduct of that research and the capacity for ethical decision-making. Attention also needs to focus on how education in the responsible conduct of research is conducted so far. Integrity in the research should be developed within the context of other aspects of an overall research education program. The committee may believe that doing so will be the best way to accomplish the following five objectives for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows (Dell 2012): • emphasize responsible conduct as central to conducting good science; • maximize the likelihood that education in the responsible conduct of research influences individuals and institutions rather than merely satisfies an item on a checkoff list necessary for that institution; • impart essential rules and guidelines regarding responsible conduct of research in one’s discipline and profession in context;

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• enable participants in the educational programs to develop abilities that will help them to effectively manage concerns related to responsible conduct of research that cannot be anticipated but that are certain to arise in the future; • verify that the first four objectives have been met. When scientists and ethicists collaborate in the design and implementation of learning experiences, scholars come to appreciate the complexity of problems to arise in the practice of science. When instruction requires the application of norms and the ethical theories that support them, values and regulations to the practical problems that arise in the day-to-day practice of science, learning to last and to transfer to new situations. The model for providing instruction in the responsible conduct of research is taken from traditional programs for scholars what is necessary for their performance as researchers: • start as soon as the researchers arrive; • make the instruction in this area part of everything they do, placing the education in the context of the research instead of making it a separate entity; • move from the simple to the complex; • assess student competency; • communicating well; • obtaining employment and research grants; • excelling in teaching and mentoring; • engaging in ethical decision-making; • behaving responsibly. Funding agencies should establish research grant programs to identify, measure, and assess those factors that influence integrity in research: • The Office of Research Integrity should broaden its current support for research to fund studies that explore new approaches to monitoring and evaluating the integrity of the research environment. • Public funding/government agencies and foundations that fund extramural research should include in their funding portfolios support for research designed to assess the factors that promote integrity in research across different disciplines and institutions. • Public funding/government agencies and foundations should fund research designed to assess the relationship between various elements of the research environment and integrity in research, including similarities and differences across disciplines and institutions. Each research institution must develop and implement a comprehensive program designed to promote integrity in research, using multiple approaches adapted to the specific environments within each institution:

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• It is incumbent upon institutions to take a more active role in the development and maintenance of climate and culture within their research environments that promote and support the responsible conduct of research. • The factors within the research environment that institutions should consider in the development and maintenance of such a culture and climate include, but are not limited to, supportive leadership, appropriate policies and procedures, effective educational programs, and evaluation of any efforts devoted to fostering integrity in research. • Federal research agencies and private foundations should work with educational institutions to develop funding mechanisms to provide support for programs that promote the responsible conduct of research. Institutions should implement effective educational programs that enhance the responsible conduct of research: • Educational programs should be built around the development of abilities that give rise to the responsible conduct of research. • The design of programs should be guided by basic principles of adult learning. • Integrity in research should be developed within the context of other relevant aspects of an overall research education program, and instruction in the responsible conduct of research should be provided by faculty who are actively engaged in research related to that of the trainees.

Evaluation by Self-Assessment This may be an effective tool which can optimize the institutional approach to fostering the responsible conduct of research. It might be too critical that organizations simultaneously implement processes for evaluating their efforts, establishing a basis for organizational learning and continuous quality improvement. Evaluation could be approached in a number of variety of ways. One of them is to rely on external evaluators to determine compliance with regulatory controls, while the other is to rely on a system of performance-based assessments that are initiated and implemented internally. Such type of assessments can also be used to meet the accountability requirements of outside funding agencies and government sources. Peer reviewers may be used in institutional self-assessment processes; assessments done by peer reviewers may or may not be associated with accreditation by external organizations/agencies. If institutional cultures have to be changed, then both the call for change and its implementation must come from research institutions. An important next step might be for universities and university associations, working together, to acknowledge the importance of conducting research and research education in an environment of high integrity and developing an evaluative process based on self-study. Gaining the methodological expertise needed to carry out research on the relationship between the research environment and integrity in research will require the development

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and validation of measures, particularly indicators that are observable and quantifiable within the research environment. Research institutions should evaluate and enhance the integrity of their research environments using the following process of self-assessment and external peer review in an ongoing process that provides input for continuous quality improvement: • The importance of external peer review of the institution cannot be overemphasized. Such a process will help to ensure the credibility of the review, provide suggestions for improvement of the process, and increase public confidence in the research enterprise. • Effective self-assessment will require the development and validation of evaluation instruments and measures. • Assessment of integrity and the factors associated with it should occur at all levels within the institution (i.e., at the institutional level, the research unit level, and the individual level). • At the individual level, assessment of integrity should be an integral part of regular performance appraisals. • As with any new program, a phase-in or pilot testing period is to be expected, and the assessment and accreditation process should be continually modified as needed based on results of these early actions. Institutional self-assessment of integrity in research should be part of existing accreditation processes whenever possible in the following way: • Accreditation provides established procedures, including external peer review, that can be modified to incorporate assessments of efforts related to integrity in research within an institution. • Entities that currently accredit educational programs at institutions where research is conducted would be the bodies to also review the process and the outcome data from the institution’s self-assessment of its climate for promotion of integrity in research. • Government research agencies and private foundations should support efforts to integrate self-assessment of the research environment into existing accreditation processes, and they also should fund research into the effectiveness of such efforts.

Integrity of the Individual Research The level of trust that has characterized science and its relationship with society has contributed to a period of unparalleled scientific productivity. But this trust will endure only if the scientific community devotes itself to exemplifying and transmitting the values associated with ethical scientific conduct. Government oversight of scientific research is important, but such oversight, in the form of administrative rules, typically stipulates what

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cannot be done. The key practices that pertain to the responsible conduct of research by individual scientists parting the following sections to elucidate the practices: • Intellectual Honesty in Proposing, Performing, and Reporting Research: It should be expected that the researchers should present proposals and data honestly and communicate their best understanding of the work in writing and verbally before the committee. The descriptions of an individual’s work are found in such communications that frequently present selected data from the work organized into frameworks that emphasize conceptual understanding rather than the chronology of the discovery process. Clear and accurate research records must underlie these descriptions, likewise. Researchers must be advocated for their research concluding remarks in the face of collegial skepticism and must acknowledge errors. • Accuracy in Representing Contributions to Research Proposals and Reports: To grab accuracy, it is expected that the researchers should not report the work of others as if it is of their own. This might be treated plagiarism. They should be honest with respect to the contributions of colleagues and collaborators. All decisions regarding authorship should be the best anticipated at the outset of projects rather than at their completion. In all types of publications, it should be possible in principle to specify each author’s contribution to the entire work. It may also be expected that the researchers must honestly acknowledge the precedents on which their research is based. • Fairness in Peer Review: The researchers must agree to be peer reviewers only when they can be impartial in their final judgments/findings and only when have revealed their conflicts of interest. The function of peer review is to maintain the excellence of published scientific work and it ensures a merit-based system of support for research. The peer-review system provides a delicate balance in research because the best reviewers are precisely those individuals who have the most to gain from insider information. They are doing or have done similar work and they will be unable to strike from their memory and thoughts/findings what they learn through the review process. • Collegiality in Scientific Interactions, Including Communications and Sharing of Resources: This process requires that the investigators report research findings/results to the scientific community in a full, open, and timely fashion. It should also be recognized that the scientific community is highly competitive and well-being. The investigator who first reports new results and important findings gets credited with that particular discovery. Intellectual property provisions and secrecy allow for patents and licensure and encourage private investment in the research. For publicly funded research, a degree of discretion may permit a research group to move ahead more efficiently. An investigator who delays reporting important new findings/results risks having others publish similar results first and receiving very diminished/less recognition for that discovery. • Transparency in Conflicts of Interest or Potential Conflicts of Interest: It takes place when the individual has interests in the outcome of the research that might lead to a personal advantage, in actuality or appearance, compromise the integrity of the research.

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Most of the scientific advances that reach the public involve extensive collaboration between academia and industry research. This type of collaborations involves consulting and advisory services as well as the development of specific inventions, and they can result in direct financial benefit for both individuals and institutions. Conflicts of interest reside in a situation itself, not in any behavior of members of an entire research team. Thus, researchers should disclose all conflicts of interest to their institutions so that the researchers and their work can be properly managed. They should be directed voluntarily to disclose conflicts of interest in all publications and presentations resulting from the research findings. The committee should believe that scientific institutions, universities, research organizations, professional societies, and professional and lay journals should embrace disclosure of conflicts of interest as an essential component of integrity in the research they have conducted. Protection of Human Subjects in the Conduct of Research: The elements in human subjects included in a framework pertain to the quality and importance of the science, its risks and benefits, fairness in the selection of subjects, the voluntary participation, and informed consent of subjects. To ensure the conformance of research efforts with these goals, research institutions carry out extensive research subject protection programs. To be successful in the objective, such programs require high-level of functioning institutional review boards, knowledgeable investigators, ongoing performance assessment through monitoring feedback, and educational programs. Humane Care of Animals in the Conduct of Research: Researchers must have a responsibility to engage in the humane care of animals in the conduct of research during experimentations. Needs for animals in any particular protocol, ensuring that research animal’s basic needs for life are met prior to research, and carefully considering the benefits of the research to society or to animals versus the likely harms to any animals included as part of the research protocol during research evaluations. To minimize animal pain, suffering, and distress should be implemented. Research protocols involving animals must be reviewed and approved by properly constituted bodies/councils, as required by law (Animal Welfare Act of 1966, amended 1970, 1990, and 2001). Adherence to the Mutual Responsibilities Between Investigators and Entire Research Teams: The research team should include other faculty members, colleagues, coinvestigators, trainees (including undergraduate students, graduate and medical students, postdoctoral fellows), and employed staff (including technicians, statisticians, study coordinators, nurses, animal handlers, and administrative personnel). The head/ monitor of the research team should encourage all members of the team to achieve their research goals. The interpersonal interactions must reflect mutual respect among members of the team, fairness in assignment of responsibilities and efforts, open and frequent communication, and accountability of the work order section. Mentoring and Advising: Mentor may be used interchangeably with faculty adviser. The research committee believes that mentor should be the dominant and role of the laboratory director or research advisor in regard to his/her trainee. With regard to this mentor–trainee relationship, responsibilities include a commitment to continuous

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education and guidance of trainees, appropriate delegation of responsibility, regular review and constructive appraisal of trainees, fair attribution of accomplishment and authorship, and career guidance, as well as help in creating opportunities for employment and funding. For the trainees, essential elements include respect for the mentor, loyalty to the research group, a strong commitment to science and technology, dedication to the project assigned, careful and lawful performance of experiments, precise and complete record-keeping, accurate reporting of results, and a commitment to oral and written presentations and publications.

Support of Integrity by the Research Institution The individual research investigator and the laboratory or research unit carry out their functions in institutions/organizations that are responsible for the management and support of the research carried out within their domains. The institutions/organization/research units are regulated by governmental and other bodies that impose rules/legal entities and responsibilities. The vigor, resources, and attitudes with which institutions/organizations carry out their responsibilities to influence investigator’s commitment and adherence to responsible research practices are the following: • To Provide Leadership in Support of Responsible Conduct of Research: The observed actions of institutions in problem situations communicate more strongly about responsible conduct as do any policies or programs. Institutional leaders (chancellor, president, dean, CEO, etc.) set the tone for the institutions with their own actions. Research leaders are expected to set an example not only in their own research practices but also in their willingness to engage in dialogue about ethical questions that arise in the population. • To Encourage Respect for Everyone Involved in the Research Enterprise: The environment that fosters competence and honest interactions among all participants in the investigative process to support the integrity of research should be well off to carry out the research. Institutions/organizations may have many legally mandated policies to foster mutual respect and trust (i.e., policies concerning harassment, occupational health and safety, fair employment practices, pay and benefits, protection of research subjects, exposure to ionizing radiation, and due process regarding allegations of research misconduct). Within the research institution, there might be multiple smaller units (i.e., departments, divisions within a department, research groups within a division). Within these institutional subunits, there will always be power differences between members of the group. • To Promote Productive Interactions Between Trainees and Mentors: A mentor must consider the student’s core research interests and needs in preference to his/her own. Trainees and mentors are interdependent at times and competitiveness. Most of the trainees depend on their mentors for scientific education and training, for support, for

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career guidance and references. Mentors tend to be role models as well for their researchers. Mentors depend on trainees for performing work and bringing fresh ideas and approaches to the entire research group. They can enhance the mentor’s reputation as a teacher and as an investigator. The institutions should establish programs that foster productive relations between mentors and trainees, including training in mentoring and advising for faculty. To Advocate Adherence to the Rules Regarding all Aspects of the Conduct of Research, Especially Research Involving Human Subjects and Animals: Effective advocacy by an institution of the rules involving the use of human subjects and animals in research involves much more than posting the relevant federal, state, and local regulations to provide damage control and formal sanctions when irregularities are discovered. At all levels of the institution/organization, including the level of the dean, department chair, research group leader, and individual research group member, regular affirmation of the guiding principles underlying the rules is essential. To Anticipate, Reveal, and Manage Individual and Institutional Conflicts of Interest: Research institutions/organizations must conduct their work in a manner to earn public trust. To do so, they must be sensitive to any conflict of interest that might affect or appear to affect their decisions and behavior in such a manner that could compromise their roles as trustworthy sources of information and policy advice or their obligations to ensure the protection of human research subjects. To Arrange Timely and Thorough Inquiries and Investigations of Allegations of Scientific Misconduct and Apply Appropriate Sanctions: Every institution/organization that receives government fund for research and related activities must have in place policies and procedures for responding to allegations of research misconduct. Their effectiveness depends on investigation of allegations of misconduct with vigor and fairness. The institution should embrace the notion that it is important to the quality and integrity of science that individuals report possible research misconduct. To Offer Educational Opportunities Pertaining to Integrity in the Conduct of Research: These offerings must encourage open discussion of the values at stake and the ethical standards to promote responsible research practices. The core objective of such education is to increase participant’s knowledge and sensitivity to the issues associated with integrity in research and to improve their ability to make ethical choices. It should give them an appreciation for the diversity of views that may be brought to bear on issues, inform them about the institutional rules and government regulations that apply to research, and instill in them the scientific community’s expectations regarding proper research practice. To Monitor and Evaluate the Institutional Environment Supporting Integrity in the Conduct of Research and Use this Knowledge for Continuous Quality Improvement: This requires diligent oversight by institutional management to ensure that the practices associated with integrity described above are carried out. It also requires examination of the policy-making process, the policies themselves, their execution, and the degree to which they are understood and adhered to by those affected.

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The concept of integrity in research cannot be reduced to a one-line definition. For a scientist, integrity embodies above all the individual’s commitment to intellectual honesty and personal responsibility. It is an aspect of moral character and experience. For an institution/organization, it is a commitment to creating an environment to promote responsible conduct by embracing standards of excellence, trustworthiness, and lawfulness and then assessing whether researchers and administrators perceive that an environment with high levels of integrity has been created.

Research Environment and Its Impact on Research Integrity Scientific basis to describe and define the research environment and its impact on integrity in research, it becomes necessary to articulate a conceptual framework that delineates the various components of the environment and the relationships between the factors to conduct a research. The research monitoring committee proposes such a framework based on an open-systems model, to describe social organizations and the interrelationships between and among the project component. This model offers a general framework to be used to guide the specification of factors both internal and external to the research organization that is relevant to understand integrity in research. Relevant literature may be found in the areas of organizational behavior/structure and processes, ethical cultures and climates, moral development, adult learning and educational practices and professional socialization. The open-systems model depicts the various elements of a social organization, these elements include the external environment, the organizational divisions or departments, the individuals comprising those divisions and the reciprocal influences between the various organizational elements and the external environment. The assumptions of the open-systems model and its elements are as follows: • External conditions influence the inputs into an organization to affect the reception of outputs from an organization’s activities and directly affect an organization’s internal operations. • All system elements and their subcomponent parts are interrelated to influence one another in a multidirectional fashion. • Any element or part of an organization can be viewed as a system in itself. • There is a feedback loop whereby the system outputs and outcomes are used as system inputs over time with continual change occurring in the organization. • Organizational structure and processes are in part determined by the external environment and are influenced by the dynamics between and among organizational members. • An organization’s success depends on its ability to adapt to its environment, to tie individual members to their roles and responsibilities within the organization, to conduct its processes, and to manage its operations over time.

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An organization’s internal environment consists of a number of key elements, the inputs provide resources for organizational functions while the organizational structure and processes define an organization’s setup and operations, the outputs and outcomes as the results of an organization’s activities. Organizations are compartmentalized into various subunits, including work groups or divisions, along with other defined sets of organizational activities and responsibilities (e.g., programs that educate members about the responsible conduct of research, Institutional Review Boards [IRBs], and mechanisms for disclosing and managing conflicts of interest). The research funding that an organization receives is distributed to research groups or teams and to individual scientists. Funding levels may increase and decrease over the years, both for the organization as a whole and for individual research groups. The impacts that the level of funding and the competition over funding have on the responsible conduct of research are not clearly understood. The human resources available to a research organization are also important to the analysis of integrity in research. The background characteristics of scientists coming into a research organization influence its structure and processes as well as its overall culture and climate, and these factors, in turn, influence the responsible conduct of research by individual scientists. Scientists (whether they are trainees, junior researchers, or senior researchers) entering into a research organization will have competing professional demands (research, teaching, practice, and professional service), and there are likely to be conflicting commitments. Scientists/researchers enter into an organization with various educational and cultural backgrounds. They have different conceptions of the collaborative and competitive roles of the scientist, different abilities to interpret the moral dimensions of problems, and different capacities to reason about and effectively resolve ethical problems. The formalization of policies and practices to support the responsible conduct of the research is important in the analysis of research environments and their influence on integrity in research process. A research organization should have explicit procedures and systems in place to fairly: • monitor and evaluate research performance, • distribute the resources needed for research, • reward achievement. Research has shown that strongly implemented and embedded ethical codes of conduct within organizations are associated with ethical behavior in the workplace by: • involving students in educating their peers and resolving academic dishonesty allegations, • treating academic integrity as a moral issue, • promoting enhanced student-faculty contact and better teaching. Viewing the research environment as an open-systems model, which is used in general organizational and administrative theory, makes it possible to hypothesize how various

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Fostering Integrity in Research

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components affect integrity in research. Inputs of funds and other resources can influence behavior both positively and negatively. The organizational structure and processes that typify the mission and activities of an organization can either promote or detract from the responsible conduct of research. The culture and climate that are unique to an organization both promote and perpetuate certain behaviors. Finally, the external environment, over which individuals and, often, institutions have little control, can affect behavior and alter institutional integrity for better or for worse.

Fostering Integrity in Research Most of the research organizations rely on a variety of methods for promoting integrity in the research. They establish organizational components to comply with regulations imposed by an external environment. They offer educational programs to teach the elements of the responsible conduct of research and they implement policies and procedures that delineate the normative practices of responsible research and establish criteria for rewards and recognition, and they develop processes to evaluate and enforce institutional behavior. To establish a basis for organizational learning and continuous quality improvement, organizations should simultaneously implement processes for evaluating their efforts to foster responsible conduct of research. Evaluation can be approached in a variety of ways including, to rely on external evaluators to determine compliance with regulatory controls and to rely on a system of performance-based assessments that are initiated and implemented internally. A regulatory framework requires a rule-making process that may be governed by legislative or administrative actions. Common components of regulatory frameworks include the specification of certain procedures and reporting requirements, the collection of data, and the preparation of reports of compliance practices. The regulatory approach also involves a governmental unit that maintains oversight of the compliance and reporting procedures, investigates complaints about rule violations, and offers technical assistance in rule-making and implementation of regulations. Several models of regulatory frameworks for research that could be adapted to the oversight of integrity in research already exist. These models include the regulatory frameworks for the oversight of the protection of human research subjects, the evaluation of misconduct in science, the use of animals in research, and the handling of toxic or radioactive research materials. A regulatory approach to fostering integrity in research is consistent with other governmental efforts to encourage the use of commonly accepted practices and to discourage irresponsible behavior in the research environment. Researchers and institutional officials are familiar with compliance requirements and often participate in the preparation of rulemaking procedures. A regulatory approach fostering integrity in research also has some limitations. Regulations emphasize the areas of common agreement and can reduce important concerns to rules and procedures. It is difficult or impossible for regulations alone to foster an understanding of the critical issues involved, and the required procedures

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are not always related to the desired outcomes. The adoption of new regulations and the creation of institutional and governmental oversight offices increase the cost of doing science and add to the administrative costs of research centers without necessarily creating a commensurate benefit. In addition, once regulations are adopted, they are difficult to change. A performance-based model for the evaluation of organizational efforts to foster integrity in the research environment offers selected goals and benchmarks that can be used as criteria to assess the success of efforts. A benchmark is a standard or point of reference used in measuring and/or judging quality or value. Benchmarking is the process of continuously comparing and measuring an organization’s performance, practices, policies, and philosophies against leading, high-performing organizations anywhere in the world to gain information that will help the organization take action to improve its performance. These goals and benchmarks are generally linked to rewards, incentives, and, at times, penalties for specific types of behavior. This model also requires institutions/ universities to implement these goals through a series of actions and assessment strategies include the following: • posting the statement (including selected criteria related to personnel actions, such as recruitment offers and hiring and promotion policies and practices) in public places throughout the research institution; • creating a bonus plan or award system to reward exceptional behavior; • providing mentorship opportunities for senior and junior faculty and investigators that emphasize the importance of learning about the responsible conduct of research; • publicizing and possibly sanctioning actions that are inconsistent with the institution’s research mission. Assessment strategies may focus on the development of mission statements and benchmark tools alone, or they may include an analysis of the ways that institutional officials use such tools to influence faculty adherence to responsible research practices. Assessment efforts can also be used to review compliance strategies (including the compliance of faculty and research staff), student surveys, and sponsor evaluations, as well as to analyze rewards, incentives, and penalties. Performance-based systems are increasingly common in diverse institutional settings, including health care (with the new emphasis on quality), the transportation sector, and various sectors of the manufacturing and service industries. Conceptual frameworks, measurement tools, and institutional case studies exist that can provide the foundation for the development of such a system in the area of integrity in research. Performance-based systems require a considerable amount of institutional commitment and involvement. Institutional officers need to exercise leadership and authority in the development of a mission statement and performance goals, as well as in the selection of benchmarks to be used to guide and evaluate behavior. The adoption of performance-based goals can be divisive and controversial if faculty do not share common norms and

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aspirations, or if such goals lead to restrictions on the types of research that can be conducted. The complexities of balancing formal and informal approaches to fostering integrity in research have led to efforts to have research institutions assess their own performances, including the performances of their managements, faculty and research staff, in terms of complying with stated standards, goals, and practices. Such self-assessments may include evaluations of aspects of certification or institutional assurance of compliance with professional standards within a broader organizational context; this practice is frequently used in the accreditation of professional schools and departments, as well as of educational institutions. The strategy used in the self-assessment and assurance framework has multiple distinct features. The internal assessment and accreditation process include the following points: • • • • • • • • •

institutional self-study; a team visit; types of accreditation actions; periodic review reports; institutional profile (annual) reports; candidacy and initial accreditation procedures; public information; use of technology (i.e., electronic submission of report materials); training of evaluators and the institution’s departmental chairs.

Evaluations of activities within research institutions occur in diverse forms and are influenced by different approaches that may consist of voluntary or mandatory elements and that may rely upon professional or volunteer reviewers. The committee has not found research evidence that suggests that any particular approach produces significant differences in measurable outcomes.

Promoting Honesty in Research Education in the responsible conduct of research should be no less integral to the education of a researcher. This principle was adopted by the National Academy of Sciences in 1992 and stated: “Scientists and research institutes should integrate into their curricula educational programs that foster faculty and student awareness of concerns related to the integrity of the research process.” Educational abilities are complex combinations of motivations, dispositions, attitudes, values, knowledge of concepts and procedures, skills, strategies, and behaviors. These combinations are dynamic and interactive, and they can be acquired and developed through both education and experience. When National Academy of Science committee advocates the promotion of integrity in the institutional research environment, it is advocating the creation of a climate in the institution, the department, and

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the research group that promotes integrity in research. The committee recommends a model for education in the responsible conduct of research that includes the following principles: • The educational program should be built around the development of abilities that give rise to responsible conduct. These include the ability to – identify the ethical dimensions of situations that arise in the research setting and the laws, regulations, and guidelines governing one’s field that apply to those situations (ethical sensitivity); – develop defensible rationales for a choice of action (ethical reasoning); – integrate the values of one’s professional discipline with one’s own personal values (identity formation) and appropriately prioritize professional values over personal ones (showing moral motivation and commitment); – perform with integrity the complex tasks (communicate ideas and results, obtain funding, teach, and supervise) that are essential to one’s career (survival skills). • The program should be designed in accordance with basic principles of adult learning. Education in the responsible conduct of research should – be provided within the context of the overall education program, including adviser– trainee interactions, the core discipline-specific curriculum, and explicit education in professional skills; – take place over an extended period of time, preferably the entire educational program, and include review, practice, and assessment; – involve active learning, including interactions among the instructors and the trainees. • The instruction should be provided as much as possible by faculty who are actively engaged in research related to that of the trainees. Educational efforts on the responsible conduct of research should be designed to reach everyone involved in scientific research. Without formal training for all existing researchers and an instructional program for new staff and researchers, an institution will not be able to develop a consistent message to trainees and students. To create a learning environment that fosters integrity in research, educators need to consider what is known about the development of integrity in other professional contexts and what that information suggests about the abilities that enable responsible conduct. Research also demonstrates that individuals participating in a formal educational program and seasoned professionals can be influenced by an educational environment that provides opportunities and abilities. The implication to teach the abilities derived from these psychological processes in context have been proposed in the sections as follows. • Interpreting the ethical dimensions of problems in the research setting: Research on ethical sensitivity in professional settings indicates that – ethical sensitivity can be reliably assessed; – students and professionals vary in their sensitivities to ethical issues; – ethical sensitivity can be enhanced through instruction; – the sensitivity to issues is distinct from the ability to reason about issues.

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• Developing competence in reasoning About the Complex Problems that arise in the Research Setting: The effects of ethics instruction on a professional’s moral reasoning has been extensively concluded that – a medical curriculum without an ethics curriculum tends not to enhance moral reasoning; – instruction can be effective, although not all interventions produce significant gains; – the effects of at least some interventions can be attributed to an intervention based on comparisons with control groups; – strategies other than discussion of a dilemma can produce change; – there is a relationship between reasoning and a range of indicators of physician performance. • Moral Motivation and Identity Formation: Moral motivation and commitment involve prioritization of moral values over other personal values. People have many values (i.e., values related to their careers, affectional relationships, aesthetic preferences, institutional loyalties, hedonistic pleasures, and things that excite them). • Developing Self-Regulation, Self-Efficacy, and Implementation Abilities Necessary for Effective and Responsible Research Practice: A person may be sensitive to moral issues, have good judgment, and prioritize moral values; but if he/she is lacking in moral character and competence, he/she may wilt under pressure or fatigue, may not follow through, and may be distracted or discouraged, and moral behavior will fail. This component presupposes that one has set goals, has self-discipline and controls impulses, and has the strength and skill to act in accord with one’s goals.

Principles of Adult Learning There are six learning principles that should be considered when developing an educational program on the responsible conduct of research as under: • Education is best provided by individuals who have a deep understanding of their subject matter and whose teaching reflects that they care about and value the material being taught; • Educational programs in responsible conduct of research should occur over an extended period; indeed, they should occur throughout a trainee’s tenure at an institution; • Active participation in problem-oriented learning is an important component of effective educational programs; • Programs will be more effective if educators help students assess their prior knowledge and integrate new material with familiar ideas; • Students should be encouraged to share their own experiences with others in the class; • Instructional programs that attend to developmental differences and individual learning preferences are more likely to be effective.

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Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

What is the basic difference between intellectual honesty and research integrity? What are the parameters of good practices of research integrity? Explain the main elements of professionalism in intellectual honesty. Discuss the practical elements which are responsible for research conduct. Explain briefly the environment and bases of research integrity. The responsible conduct of research is not distinct from research. Explain this term. What is necessary for the performance of a researcher? What the institutions should evaluate and enhance the integrity of their research environments? 9. What are the key practices that pertain to the responsible conduct of research by individual? 10. Why government oversight of scientific research is important for research integrity? 11. Write Short Notes on the following: (a) Professional Quality in Research (b) Bases of Research Integrity (c) Promoting Integrity in Research (d) Fostering Integrity in Research (e) Integrity of the Individual Research (f) Fairness in Peer Review (g) Open-Systems Model (h) Benchmarking in Research.

Further Reading Banner JM Jr, Cannon HC (1997) The elements of teaching. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT Bebeau MJ, Pimple KD, Muskavitch KMT, Borden SL, Smith DL (1995) Moral reasoning in scientific research: cases for teaching and assessment. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN Belenky MF, Clinchy BM, Goldberger NR, Tarule JM (1997) Women’s ways of knowing: the development of self, voice and mind. Basic Books, New York, NY Bulger RE, Heitman E, Reiser SJ (1993) The ethical dimensions of the biological sciences. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY Burgess RG (2005) The ethics of educational research. Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis Inc, London D’Angelo J (2012) Ethics in science ethical misconduct in scientific research. CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, New York, NY Guenin LM (2005) Intellectual honesty. Springer, New York Israel M, Hay I (2006) Research ethics for social scientists: between ethical conduct and regulatory compliance. SAGE Publications Ltd, New Delhi Macrina FL (2014) Scientific integrity, text and cases in responsible conduct of research, 4th edn. ASM Press, Washington, DC

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McKeachie WJ, Gibbs G (1998) Teaching tips: strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers, 10th edn. Houghton Mifflin, New York, NY Penslar RL (1995) Research ethics: cases and materials. Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, IN Resnik DB (1998) The ethics of science: an introduction. Routledge, New York, NY Rubenstein AH (2002) Integrity in scientific research. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC Samantha L (2015) Elliott, perspectives on research integrity. ASM Press, Washington, DC Taylor PC, Gilmer PJ, Tobin K (eds) (2002) Transforming undergraduate science teaching: social constructivist perspectives. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, New York, NY

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Scientific Misconduct

Overview Scientific misconduct and fraud are prevailing problems in science and it threatens to undermine integrity, credibility, and objectivity in genuine research. It also risks undermining trust, among researchers and the general public. It becomes important to consider the possible means of countering fraud and misconduct in the research. By criminalization we meant the decision of making some action like a criminal offense for which one may merit criminal punishment, such as fines, community service, or even incarceration. From a philosophical point of view, the decision to criminalize or a particular action stands in need of a moral justification. Criminal punishment, such as imprisonment, involves either intentional harm or the intentional deprivation of some good, such as liberty. It also has negative consequences for family members and those socially, economically, and emotionally dependent on the person who is being punished for scientific misconduct in academic and research society. Scientific misconduct has been defined by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS, 1999) as: fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted practices within the scientific community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research. It does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretations or judgments of data.

• Falsification is the changing or omission of research results/data to support claims, hypotheses, other data, etc. Falsification can include the manipulation of research instrumentation, materials, or processes. Manipulation of images or representations in a manner that distorts the data or “reads too much between the lines” can also be considered falsification.

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_5

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• Fabrication is the construction and/or addition of data, observations, or characterizations that never occurred in the gathering of data or running of experiments. Fabrication can occur when “filling out” the rest of experiment runs. Claims about results need to be made on complete datasets as normally assumed, where claims made based on incomplete or assumed results are a form of fabrication. • Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s work without attribution, passing it off as one’s own. Text, figures, tables, and even ideas can be plagiarized. When a whole entity (e.g., an entire article, a figure, a table, or a dataset) is republished without attribution or permission, there may be a copyright violation as well as ethical misconduct. Scientific misconduct has occurred throughout the history of science. Over the past few decades, there has been found an apparent outbreak in scientists who behaving very badly. One such case is that of Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel (1990), who fabricated more than 50 influential studies, usually “finding” things that academic liberals wanted to believe, including that dirty environments encouraged racism, that eating meat made people selfish, and that power had a negative effect on morality of the people. Research misconduct does not include honest errors or differences of opinion. Scientific misconduct is not a recent phenomenon simply tied to some decline of morality or increased competition for tenure and research funds. Accusations of scientific misconduct, sometimes well supported, pepper the history of science, from the Greek natural philosophers onward. The first formal discussion of scientific misconduct is Charles Babbage’s Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes. Babbage held Newton’s chair at Cambridge and made major contributions to the development of computers (“difference machines,” “analytical engines”) and to astronomy, mathematics, and many other fields. He distinguished “several species of impositions that have been practiced in science hoaxing, forging, trimming and cooking.” Scientists guilty of misconduct have been found in many fields and at different levels in the universities and research institutions. Their social and educational backgrounds vary. They appear to be no systematic empirical studies of the characteristics of perpetrators of scientific misconduct and no good evidence for any common characteristics. The detailed guidelines suggested by National Academy of Science (2012) for the development of institutional growth and to overcome scientific misconduct cover: • conflict of interest—personal, professional, and financial; • policies regarding human subjects, live vertebrate animal subjects in research, and safe laboratory practices; • mentor/mentee responsibilities and relationships; • collaborative research, including collaborations with industry; • peer review; • data acquisition and laboratory tools management, sharing, and ownership; • research misconduct and policies for handling misconduct; • responsible authorship and publication;

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• the scientist as a responsible member of society, contemporary ethical issues in biomedical research, and the environmental and societal impacts of scientific research.

Poor Practices vs. Misconduct Errors in the scientific literature, and the poor reproducibility of research findings, may likely occur for three reasons. Firstly, a small number of errors are just due to chance alone. If 25 laboratories all perform the same experiment, the lab with anomalous positive result might publish their findings, whereas the 24 other labs that did not make this observation would not even submit their findings. Secondly, a much greater source of errors is those that arise from sloppy research, with poor controls, lack of blinding, reagents that have not been validated, etc. These are the “flags” that Begley (2013) refers to in his commentary. Lastly, there are the errors that arise from deliberate falsification of fabrication of data. These, together with plagiarism, are usually used to define “research misconduct,” and the critical element is intent, i.e., that it was done in order to deceive. All research misconduct shares the common features being both deliberate and dishonest, the seriousness varies enormously, from the very minor, such as deliberately failing to cite competitors, to the extremely serious, such as falsifying data that endangers the lives of human research subjects. In 2010, the second World Conference on Research Integrity produced the Singapore Statement on integrity and misconduct. It provides a concise description of how researchers should behave, based on principles of honesty, accountability, fairness, and good stewardship. Among 14 listed responsibilities, it cites the importance of reporting findings fully, maintaining records, including as author all those and only those that meet the criteria applicable to the research field, giving credit to those who have contributed but are not authors, and declaring conflicts of interest. As per the statement of Cornfield (2012): The main motivations for misconduct are, at their base, either financial or reputational. As fewer and fewer researchers are in tenured positions, and more and more rely on competitive grants to fund both their salaries and their laboratory costs, scientists know that if they don’t keep publishing, their careers will be at an end. This is compounded when funding is based on non-objective measures, or on simplified metrics such as volume of publications, rather than their quality. Similarly, students and postdoctoral researchers know that if their experiments fail, they won’t get publications, and the next career step will be jeopardized. Foreign students and post-docs know that a successful experiment published in a prominent journal can lead to residency and citizenship, and perhaps a tenure-track position, whereas experiments that fail to produce the hoped-for result will mean they have to return to their home country. Thus, the temptation to dishonestly generate experimental results is ultimately financial, but it is rarely to gain riches, more frequently to just keep a job.

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Fabrication/Falsification It may be very important to realize that there is a wide spectrum of severity of research misconduct. On lesser level/scale are practices such as intentionally failing to cite the work of competitors, and citing our own work more frequently than necessary. Similarly, cropping out cross-reactive bands in western blots, or changing the white threshold of an image to clean up the background must not be done, because it alters the original data, but it is treated as a mild sin in academics and research. On the other end of the scale is generation of data by just making up numbers, or generating false images by duplicating/altering/ relabeling other one’s fabricated literature/research/findings. While determining the severity of the misconduct, or whether it is misconduct at all, it is important to determine the degree of intent, although this is not always easy for all. Most of the figures in the research papers are comprised of many similar-looking parts, whether they might be photomicrographs, gels and blots, flow cytometry plots, or traces from a patch-clamp amplifier. It can therefore possible for someone to inadvertently grab the same image file twice, leading to a duplicated and wrongly labeled part of a figure. On the other hand, if many duplications are found in the figures in a particular literature/paper, and they also involve rotations, differential cropping, or mirror images, and if similar anomalies are also apparent in other works by the same authors, deliberate falsification or fabrication is much more likely. With lots of pressures to publish the research/findings, and the availability of image processing software, the temptation to cut corners and artificially generate the desired result has never been greater work. Thousands of examples can be found in records on the postpublication peer review site PubPeer (https://pubpeer.com/). However, although sites such as this can alert readers to concerns about research papers and can provide very strong evidence. They don’t provide proof of intent or reveal which of the authors on multi-author papers bears responsibility. For this activity, action is required to be taken either by the authors themselves or through the establishment of an inquiry by their institution/university/organization. For the last couple of years or so, most of the research journals have explicitly stated in their guidelines to authors what kinds of image manipulation are acceptable, and which are not at all.

Stealing Credit The importance of obtaining credit for work is illustrated by the frequency and vehemence of authorship disputes. Papers are the primary currency of research, and authorship is therefore the main mechanism for determining how credit is allocated. Authorship therefore gives benefits, but also carries responsibilities. Like other forms of misbehavior, authorship issues can range from the trivial to the serious, with plagiarism—the taking of another’s words or ideas without attribution being classified as “research misconduct,” along with fabrication and falsification. The reason authorship is so important is because it

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is the currency that determines not only honors such as prizes and membership of academies, but also the grants and fellowships that pay the researcher’s salary. In life science publications from academic institutions, the first author is usually the student or post-doc who did most of the hands-on experimental work. The last author is typically the laboratory head. Usually, authors in between will be closer to the first position if they have contributed experimental data, and closer to the last position if they have provided analysis and writing. Two of the unethical ways in which authorship is corrupted are known as “Ghost” and “Honorary” authorship. Ghost authorship is when someone who would fulfill the usual requirements to be listed as an author—namely to have provided substantial intellectual input to a paper—is not named among the authors. Pharmaceutical companies have used ghost authorship as a way of hiding their role in a publication. Honorary authorship is when an author is listed without having fulfilled the usual requirements to justify their inclusion, i.e., where they have not made a substantial intellectual contribution to a paper. Sometimes when drug companies write papers, they offer honorary authorships to “opinion leaders” so in order to influence clinicians. Honorary inclusion as an author can also be claimed by department or laboratory heads for work that they have not produced themselves, or it can be offered to friends or collaborators to curry favor. The honorary inclusion of a famous person or someone known to the journal’s editors can increase the chances that a paper is sent out for review. Honorary authorship on one paper can be offered by a group leader in exchange for honorary inclusion as an author on another group’s paper.

Institutional Responses to Scientific Misconduct Primary responsibility for the conduct of an inquiry through a valid committee and an investigation of an allegation of scientific misconduct lies with the institution in which the research is being conducted. All individuals involved in research funded by the government/authority are subject to face inquiry and investigation on the basis of an allegation of scientific misconduct. This includes students, residents, doctoral/postdoctoral fellows, staff, faculty, and professional staff, as well as foreign and national institutions, regardless of where they are physically located. The inquiry is a preliminary investigation conducted to determine whether the allegation has sufficient substance to warrant a full investigation. It is not a procedure to reach a final conclusion about whether misconduct has occurred and who is responsible. The individual should also be informed of his/her right to challenge the appointment of a committee member or expert on the basis of bias or conflict of interest, the right to be assisted by counsel and to present evidence to the committee, and the right to comment on the inquiry report. The notice should also contain a reminder of the respondent’s obligations, including the obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the proceedings. During the inquiry, each respondent, complainant, and witness should have an opportunity to be interviewed. If the respondent admits that he or she committed scientific misconduct,

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he or she should be asked to sign a written statement. This provides a sufficient basis to initiate the investigation which must be informed by the institution at any stage of the inquiry or investigation if any of the following circumstances are present by the Office of Research Integrity as described below: • there is an immediate health hazard involved, • there is an immediate need to protect federal funds or equipment, • there is an immediate need to protect the interests of the person or persons who made the allegations of scientific misconduct or the individual or individuals who are the subject of the complaint, • it is likely that the incident will be reported publicly, • the allegation involves a sensitive public health issue, • there is a reasonable indication of a criminal violation. Institutional action upon a finding of scientific misconduct may include the denial or revocation of tenure, the withdrawal of principal investigator status, the issuance of a letter of reprimand, the review of the respondent’s applications, and/or the requirement that the investigator withdraws the manuscript(s) and correct the literature. Courts have specifically found that an individual does not have a constitutionally protected right to continue to serve as the principal investigator of a public funded grant because institutions are the grantees of the awards.

Administrative Responses to Scientific Misconduct Institutions conducting the research have the primary responsibility for investigating allegations of scientific misconduct. Consequently, the Office of Research Integrity’s (ORI) responsibility generally consists of reviewing the institution’s investigative report. Findings of the Office of Research Integrity can be appealed to the Departmental Appeals Board (DAB). The Chair of the DAB will appoint a Research Integrity Adjudication Panel, composed of administrative law judges, DAB members, and scientists. The ORI is represented by the Research Integrity Branch of the Office of the General Counsel in hearings before the DAB. As a principal investigator/administrator of an interview-based study that seeks to examine individual’s perceptions of what constitutes elder abuse and neglect. All interviews have been recorded. Participants are paid a small stipend to thank them for their time, since the interviews are quite lengthy. It has come to the attention through the grapevine that, rather than utilizing the recruitment scheme that had been designed for the study and approved by the IRB, the interviewers have been interviewing their friends. • What additional information, if any, do you need at this time? • What courses of action are open to you as the principal investigator?

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• Which would you select and why? • What, if any, harm has occurred as the result of the interviewers’ use of their friends for these interviews?

Misconduct in Regulated Research Study-oriented inspections focus on misconduct of scientific studies are important to conduct product evaluation. For example, new drug/micro—biological applications and product license applications. An investigator-oriented inspection may be initiated for any of the following reasons: • The investigator conducted an extraordinarily important study that has particular significance with respect to product approval. • Representatives of the research sponsor have reported difficulties in getting case reports from the investigator. • Representatives of the research sponsor have reported some concerns with regard to the investigator’s work. • A participant in a study complained about protocol or human subject’s violations. • The investigator has participated in a large number of studies or has done work outside his or her specialty area. • Safety or effectiveness findings are inconsistent with those of other investigators who have studied the same test article. • The investigator has claimed too many subjects with a specified disease relative to the location of the investigation. • Laboratory results are outside of the range of expected biological variation. The procedures for study-oriented inspections and investigator-oriented inspections are similar. The representative will then prepare a written report and will submit it to headquarters for evaluation. After the report is evaluated, one of the three types of letters will be issued to the investigator: • The letter will state that there were no significant deviations noted. This type of letter does not require that the clinical investigator responds. • An informational letter will identify any deviations from regulations and from good clinical practice. In some cases, a response will be required from the clinical investigator. If this is expected, the letter will detail what must be done and provide the name of a contact person should the investigator have any questions. • A warning letter will be issued, which identifies serious deviations from the relevant regulations. This type of letter requires an immediate response from the clinical investigator.

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In certain cases, the investigator might enter into a consent agreement in addition to utilizing the opportunity for an informal conference. In such cases, the disqualification process will not continue. At this level four types of misconduct have been noted from publication audits: • the deliberate fabrication of results, known as dry lobbing; • the violation of regulations governing research, such as a failure to obtain informed consent; • the modification of data to enhance its publishability, referred to as fudging; • the non-deliberate violation of research norms and regulations, often due to a lack of understanding of basic research principles.

What is Plagiarism? Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty, malpractice, and theft of academic/research property through various sources of communication or social networking sites. As Bosman said in his book, “a person of integrity is honest, upright and devoid of duplicity, someone who displays consistency and strength of moral conviction, with a consequent resistance to acting against an internalized moral code.” Thus, since ancient period, integrity has been a perennial topic of interest to human society. However, communication technology has made a big difference in the academic society, today’s Internet makes it easier not only to commit plagiarism, but also to detect it. We are living in the network and digital age; it is no longer true that seeing is believing. Not so long ago, everyone knew that a photo doesn’t lie. Today, image manipulation is not only possible but most common practice in the literature. The editors of academic and research journals now have to spend a great deal of time dealing with a variety of forms of authorial misconduct, in particular plagiarism. In recent years the term plagiarism has become a high-profile issue in academic and research society for academic journals; there have been many articles, books, and seminars discussing how to stop plagiarism in academic publications which might be helpful documents for our references in the writing. The Oxford English Dictionary defines plagiarism as: “The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own”; interestingly, it also gives the origin of the word as “Early 17th century: from Latin plagiarius, ‘kidnapper’ (from plagium, ‘a kidnapping’, from Greek plagion) . . .”.

The United States Office of Research Integrity Policy (USORI) states on Plagiarism that: plagiarism includes both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work. It does not include authorship or credit disputes

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What is Plagiarism?

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Many universities/institutions provide clear guidance for students/researchers and faculty on their websites about academic standards, including codes of conduct for authors. The guideline available for authors on Oxford University’s website states: Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgment. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition. Plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional. Under the regulations for examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offence.

From the Harvard University’s website, it is clearly mentioned that: In academic writing, it is considered plagiarism to draw any idea or any language from someone else without adequately crediting that source in your paper. It doesn’t matter whether the source is a published author, another student, a Website without clear authorship, a Website that sells academic papers, or any other person: Taking credit for anyone else’s work is stealing, and it is unacceptable in all academic situations, whether you do it intentionally or by accident.

In recent years, there have been a large number of high-profile plagiarism cases, as a result of which the perpetrators have variously lost their jobs, degrees, and academic reputations. A Vice-Chancellor of University of Delhi is the burning example of this type of misconduct. Now, the question arises, why do people from the educated elite of society plagiarize? Why would someone risk their reputation by committing such serious misconduct? There are various possible reasons for plagiarism by the academics, including the following: • • • • • •

Increased pressure to publish; Ease of copying and pasting online work; Difficulties in writing in English or another language; Misplaced respect for other’s work; Lack of suitable training; Lack of awareness of the rules for acknowledgment of other’s work.

Most of the intellectuals have always been as the element of society to create spiritual wealth and promote scientific progress they are always in pressure. As a result, horridly they are captured by to follow plagiarism. In the courses of history, science, and technology, management has always been among the key productive forces advancing the progress of entire human society. So, it may be understood that scholars who want to gain prestige in this inviting field can find it difficult to resist the temptation to cheat in order to reach their goals/targets. The Internet makes it temptingly easy to cut and paste sections even large contents of pre-existing publications.

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Types of Plagiarism As per Oxford University’s website there may be eight forms of plagiarism and other authorial misconduct • • • • • • • •

Verbatim (word-for-word) quotation without clear acknowledgment; Cutting and pasting; Paraphrasing; Collusion; Inaccurate citation; Failure to acknowledge assistance; Use of material written by professional agencies or other persons; Auto-plagiarism. The main sources of plagiarism are:

• • • • • • • • • •

Secondary source; Invalid source; Duplication; Paraphrasing; Repetitive research; Replication; Misleading attribution; Unethical collaboration; Verbatim; Complete.

There are nine basic types of plagiarism as per guidelines of IEEE (journal and explore guidelines): • • • • • •

Self- (or team) plagiarism without identification and acknowledgment; Cutting and pasting of others’ work without identification and acknowledgment; Replication of methods sections without clear statement of the source; Republication of conference papers with little added value; Review papers which largely replicate previously published content; Plagiarism of images/tables/formulae/data without both acknowledgment and copyright permission; • Plagiarism of ideas; • Wholesale plagiarism of previously published text; • Republication in translation without acknowledgment, permission, and full citation.

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What to Look For

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The chief editors humbly suggested that they should advise their journal editors tend to pay the greatest attention to certain types of plagiarism: cut-and-paste, duplication of conference proceedings, self-plagiarism, team plagiarism, and review articles containing excessive amounts of quotation from the cited original papers. It makes important that, having studied the cross-check similarity reports and compared the submitted article with those with which it has a high similarity index, the editor should decide what type of plagiarism (if any) he/she is dealing with, so that the response may be appropriate.

What to Look For The general public at large can become aware of accidental errors, or possibly deliberate research misconduct, in two prominent ways. Firstly, they can become aware if they might notice misbehavior of a colleague/co-author. Secondly, they might see something as a third-party observer, when they are reading a paper/article, reviewing a manuscript for a journal, or when they are acting as an editor/reviewer. Whether it is before a paper is written, or after it is submitted to be published, the earlier errors are noticed and corrected in the better way. When criticizing any work at lab meetings, during manuscript review, or when reading published papers, there are a number of “red flags” to signal as the sloppy science or might be a possible misconduct as well. Similar text, that may amount to plagiarism, can be detected by simple Google searches, or by commercial software that is available at many institutions (e.g., “iTthenticate” http://www.ithenticate.com/ and “Turnitin” http://www.turnitin.com/). Sloppy statistics, such as failing to describe the type of error bars that are shown in figures, or results that to be looked implausibly have been consistent so far, can however be considered a giveaway. Images must be looked and verified on a computer screen, rather than on a printed copy, because the resolution is greater, it is possible to zoom in, and the contrast and brightness can easily be altered. Things that should raise concern include sudden linear changes in brightness of the background of an image, a washed out or perfectly uniform background, inadequate resolution, or parts of an image that appear to be duplicated from the original version. It can be checked through PubPeer (https://pubpeer.com/). Researchers are advised to have a duty to take action if they become aware of errors or possible research misconduct so far. If they notice a mistake in one of their own publications, they should write to the journal and ask them to publish a corrected version of the same to be submitted after incorporation of suitable corrective measures, or, if the mistake affects the conclusions of the paper, ask for it to be retracted. If a colleague/coauthor is suspected of error or misconduct, the action to take would depend on the specific circumstances, such as whether it involves a publication or not, whether he/she is more senior or junior, and whether the error is thought to be accidental or deliberate. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), has always been a great source to advice the journal editors since its establishment in 1997. Although its mandate is limited, and it was established by forum of journal editors to help the entire editor’s community, its efforts

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have raised the standards of publication integrity, and also provided benefits that have flowed on to authors, publishers and institutions/Universities. The COPE flowcharts, giving step by step recommendations on how to handle a variety of misconduct related issues, have been helpful to countless editors, and have also helped whistleblowers and authors know what to expect (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). Although it always remains true that science is ultimately self-correcting, society as a whole will benefit more, and progress will be more rapid, if research is conducted efficiently. To do so, it requires minimizing the number of errors that enter in the literature, and quickly correcting those what inevitably do. Research might also be performed more efficiently if those who conduct it are fair and honest in academics and research. As a human endeavor, science must be managed actively for its integrity to be upheld. This may require not only a bottom-up, “grass roots” effort based on principles of honesty and fairness, it also requires some top-down mechanisms to ensure compliance. There must be mechanisms in place so that errors and concerns of possible misconduct might be reported. Publishers must try to minimize entry of errors into the literature by screening manuscripts and using unbiased peer review and should cooperate with institutions when problems arise with published work. Nations and national scientific academies should be directed to provide mechanisms to offer advice and oversight for research institutions. Researchers need to have integrity in how do they conduct themselves, and whether it is through official channels or anonymously via the web, when they can see errors or have concerns about possible optimized misconduct, after seeking careful and meaningful advice, by speaking them up.

Review Questions 1. What do you understand by Scientific Misconduct? Give a historical perspective of it. 2. Define the term fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. 3. Explain detailed guidelines suggested by National Academy of Science for the development of institutional growth and to overcome scientific misconduct. 4. What is the basic difference between fabrication and falsification? 5. Which Institutional Responses to Scientific Misconduct will you suggest for better research in the society? 6. What is the primary responsibility for investigating allegations of scientific misconduct by the administrators of an institution? 7. What are the most common misconducts observed in regulated research by a committee in the research organization? 8. What do you understand by plagiarism? Explain its main dimensions. 9. Explain main sources and types of plagiarism as per different research/publication organizations.

Further Reading

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10. Write short notes on the following: (a) Poor Practices vs. Misconduct (b) Stealing credit (c) Investigator-Oriented Inspection (d) Committee on Publication Ethics.

Further Reading Alford CF (2002) Whistle blowers: broken lives and organizational power. Cornell Univ Press, New York, NY Babbage C (1970) Reflections on the decline of science in England. Kelley, New York, NY Bornmann L (2013) Research misconduct—definitions, manifestations and extent. www.mdpi.com/ journal/publications D’Angelo J (2012) Ethics in science. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL Gross C (2016) Scientific misconduct. University of California, Berkeley, CA Neville C (2010) The complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism. Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education, New York, NY Servick K (2014) Researcher files lawsuit over anonymous PubPeer Comments. Science. http://news. sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2014/10/researcher-files-lawsuit-over-anonymouspubpeercomments. Shamoo AE, Resnik DB (2003) Responsible conduct of research. Oxford Univ. Press, New York, NY Shapin S (1994) A social history of truth: civility and science in seventeenth-century England. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL Tim S (2008) Roberts, Student plagiarism in an online world: problems and solutions. Information Science Reference, London Zhan Y(H) (2016) Against plagiarism. A guide for editors and authors. Springer International Publishing, Cham Ziman J (2000) Real science. What it is, and what it means. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

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Redundant Publications

Overview Redundant, Duplicate, and Repetitive publications are the most important concerns in the scientific research/literature writing. The occurrence of redundancy affects the concepts of science/literature and carries with it sanctions of consequences. To define this issue is much challenging because of the many varieties in which one can slice, reformat, or reproduce material from an already published study. This issue also goes beyond the duplication of a single study because it might possible that the same or similar data can be published in the early, middle, and later stages of an ongoing study. This may have a damaging impact on the scientific study/literature base. Similar to slicing a cake, there are so many ways of representing a study or a set of data/information. We can slice a cake into different shapes like squares, triangles, rounds, or layers. Which of these might be the best way to slice a cake? Unfortunately, this may be the wrong question. The point is that the cake that is being referred to, the data/information set or the study/findings, should not be sliced at all. Instead, the study should be presented as a whole to the readership to ensure the integrity of science/technology because of the impact that may have on patients who will be affected by the information contained in the literature/findings. Redundant, duplicate, or repetitive publications occur when there is representation of two or more studies, datasets, or publications in either electronic or print media. The publications can overlap partially or completely, such that a similar portion, major component(s), or complete representation of a previously/simultaneously or future published study is duplicated. These publications may share the same, similar, or overlapping data, hypotheses, discussion, methods, results, and/or conclusions. Typically, one or more of the publications do not have full crossreferences to the others and may have similar or identical authors in different orders. In certain observed cases, redundancy may include salami slicing of the data into subsets instead of representing the study as a whole for example, using data collected from one

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_6

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group of patients but carving out different data subsets instead of appropriately combining them into a study, or the authors may add new data and make a study appear new. Duplicate/redundant publication is especially improper when it is deceptive. Covert submission and publication of previously published material are deceiving to those who can read or use the information contained in the article/literature. Most of the experts would agree that if the editors, peer reviewers, readers, and all end users of the information were informed about an overlap or duplication of publication, appropriate decisions could be made. However, when authors do not disclose that the same study sample is being used or that an earlier study is being supplemented to produce a larger sample size although the earlier study included the same patients, they would be misleading the readership, and some would consider such act as a form of ethical misconduct. Redundant publication not only has ethical and legal issues but also wastes resources and has a negative impact on the literature/research/findings base. There are so many proposed reasons for why authors to be engaged in such an act of covert or overt duplicate publication. Ultimately, the quandary lies in whether an author fully discloses to the editor that there is a potential that the submitted article contains some or much of the data from another study (unpublished or not). It is important to note that although authors have published a body of text, they are not allowed to republish either portions or the whole of their own work (self-plagiarism). The International Council of Medical Journal Editors has published several criteria necessary if repetitive, redundant, or duplicate publication is acceptable. These conditions include the following: • Editors from both journals have given the author(s) approval; • Priority of the primary publication is respected; • The secondary publication, which may be an abbreviated version, is intended for a different readership; • The secondary publication accurately represents the primary publication; • The secondary publication clearly states that it is based on or replicates the primary publication; • The title of the secondary publication indicates that it is a secondary publication.

Authorship Issues Naming authors on a scientific paper ensures that the appropriate individuals get credit, and are accountable, for any sort of research. Deliberately misrepresenting a scientist’s relationship to their work is considered to be a form of misconduct that undermines confidence in the reporting of the work itself. While there is no universal definition of authorship, an author is generally considered to be an individual who has made a significant intellectual contribution to the study/research/findings. As per the guidelines for authorship established

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by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.” There are four criteria that must be met to be credited as an author: • Substantial contribution to the study conception and design, data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation. • Drafting or revising the article for intellectual content. • Approval of the final version. • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work. The following may be some general guidelines to the authors, which might vary from field to field: • The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the co-authors. • Individuals who are involved in a study but don’t satisfy the journal’s criteria for authorship should be listed and treated as Contributors or Acknowledged Individuals (assisting the research by providing advice, providing research space, departmental oversight, and obtaining financial support). • For large, multi-center trials, the list of clinicians and centers is typically published, along with a statement of the individual contributions made. Some groups use to list authors alphabetically, sometimes with a note to explain that all authors made equal contributions to the study and the publication. Three main types of redundant authorship are considered as unacceptable in publication. These are: • Ghost Authors, who contribute substantially but are not acknowledged (often paid by commercial sponsors) • Guest Authors, who make no discernible contributions, but are listed to help increase the chances of publication; • Gift Authors, whose contribution is based solely on a tenuous affiliation with a study. Issues around the authorship can be complex and sensitive. Early career researchers who encounter such situations may fear they will jeopardize their reputation and career if they speak up. They take the time to fully understand each journal’s guidelines for authorship and industry requirements. If we find ourselves in a challenging situation that we are not sure how to handle, consult with a trusted mentor, guide, or supervisor.

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Problems Caused by Redundant Publication The following problems can cause duplicate/redundant publication: • Deception and Ethical Issues: – Skews the evidence base because readers may assume that they are reading two different readings/studies/findings. – Misleads the readers that the article contains original/updated information/research. – Derangement of the reputation of that publication/journal. – Distorts the purpose of publication/journal as being presenter of some new information/findings. – Infringes the international copyright law. • Wastage of Resources: – Waste time and the resources of journals/publications, editors, reviewers, readers, libraries, and e-database. – Needless expansion of the body of published literature/findings. – Wastage of journal/publication space and to create confusion among the gentle readers/scholars. – Wastage of paper and other writing resources. – Wastage of readers time and resources to find, read and retaining the already published material when they could use that time to read new and updated research materials. • Impact on literature base and future research: – Overemphasizes significance of content/finding through repetitive publication. – Distorts findings and confounds scientific communication by dividing rather than combining closely related data from a single group. – Interferes with meta-analysis by experimental numbers. – Results in qualitative exaggeration of an intervention’s efficacy.

Acceptability and Consequences of Redundancy Embedded in the definition of authorship is the fact that authors are ultimately the ones responsible for presenting, publishing, and defending their work. Therefore, the ultimate burden of integrity falls upon the authors. Although some authors may claim ignorance to publication guidelines, many journals clearly publish what is or is not acceptable with regard to duplicate publication. Thus, authors must read the journal instructions and must be aware of these issues. As Tobin stated, “the editor is not the police, it is ultimately the authors who are responsible.” Editors have a different but equally tasking responsibility in relation to duplicate publication. Editors must clearly define and implement the ethical standards of their journals. Although editors are responsible for following up on ethical

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misconduct issues when they come to light, they are not solely responsible for investigating and/or punishing the authors. The structure of the greater scientific community, including author’s institutions, ethics boards, licensing boards, and funding agencies, must also involve. The responsibility to recognize and report duplication rests with all who come in contact with the study, including colleagues aware of one’s work, peer reviewers, editors, and the readership of the journal. At times, clandestine duplicate publications are divulged when someone reads a journal article and informs the editor of the journal or an official of the author’s institution. Situations when duplicate publication may be acceptable are: • • • • • • • • •

Brief abstracts in conference proceedings; News media reports; Reports distributed to narrow audiences; Communication in two different languages with clear cross-references to reach a larger audience; Reaching different audiences or end users; Too large studies to publish in a single phase/article; Two competing submissions by coworkers disagree with the analysis and interpretation of the same study/findings; Editors of different journals simultaneously or jointly publishing an article in agreement with doing so in general public interest; Manuscripts from different groups of authors who have analyzed the same data.

If duplication is identified before or after acceptance of an article but before publication, the manuscript should be rejected outright. If duplicate publication is identified after publication, the editor should communicate in one or more of the following ways: • • • • • • • • •

send a letter of reprimand to the author(s); notify editors of other journals; inform the author’s institution lab; inform the author’s academic institution; inform ethics/institutional review boards; inform professional organizations; inform funding/granting agencies (like UGC/CSIR/DST/DBT/ICAR/ICSSR, etc.); inform indexing services (e.g., PubMed); inform the professional community portal/ethics body.

Once the appropriate research bodies have been informed, the next step is to make a correction to the record, which may be accomplished in several ways. A notice of duplicate/ redundant publication or plagiarism may be published in the journal. A notice of retraction may also be published. Some writers suggested that the journal publishes a letter of apology

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from the authors side. Others recommended that the journal publish reprimanding editorials. Finally, articles may be retracted from journals and/or from indexing services.

How to Prevent Redundancy? Prevention may be considered as the best approach to duplicate/redundant publication. Both the editor and the author can take combined steps toward preventing this from becoming an issue/curse. First, the author must read carefully in detail the instructions for authors of the journal to which the manuscript is being submitted. This document will provide detailed information regarding the journal’s policy of publication toward redundant publication. If uncertainty, the author should contact the editor personally to ask for any necessary clarification regarding any confusion. The author should fully disclose to the editor in the covering letter and in the manuscript that some or all of the same study contents or data have been used/will be used in published articles, currently submitted articles, unpublished papers, or any other article relating to the data or content of the article. The author should include in the covering letter or sign a statement denying or disclosing overlap with any other work. It is suggested that the copies of the other’s similar work may be submitted to the journal at the same time as the study for consideration. Authors must be cautious to report information about their study to the media sources, funding agencies, government agencies, or others who disseminate information before the publication of their study. Some reporting in advance of publication may be warranted but should be discussed with the editor and agreed upon in advance. Peer reviewers should notify the editor if duplicate publication is supposed during the review process. After publication, readers are encouraged to notify the editor if there is suspicion of duplicate publication. Editors should ensure that their journal’s policy on duplicate publication is clearly stated and easy to follow. Editors should publish editorials or commentaries to educate readers about this topic. Journals should have in place definitions, procedures for handling suspected manuscripts, reporting policies, corrections/retractions, and sanctions. Editors may screen each manuscript for redundancy if there are enough resources in their journal office to complete this task successfully. An alternate approach may be to randomly screen submissions for signs of duplication. If redundant or duplicate publication is attempted or occurred without any disclosure to the editor/editorial board, a suitable action should be taken as per the norms decided by the editorial unit.

Salami Slicing The slicing of research publication that would form one meaningful paper into several different papers is known as salami publication or salami slicing. Unlike duplicate publication, which involves reporting the exact same data in two or more publications, salami

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slicing involves breaking up or segmenting a large study into two or more publications. These segments are called slices of a study. As a general rule, as long as the slices of a broken-up study share the same hypotheses, population, and methods, this is not acceptable in general practice. The same slice should never be published more than once at all. According to the United States Office of Research Integrity (USORI), salami slicing can result in a distortion of the literature/findings by leading unsuspecting readers to believe that data presented in each salami slice (journal article) is derived from a different subject sample/source. Somehow this practice not only skews the scientific database but it creates repetition to waste reader’s time as well as the time of editors and peer reviewers, who must also handle each paper separately. Furthermore, it unfairly inflates the author’s citation record in the indexing process. That’s why each paper should clearly define its hypothesis and to be presented as each section of a much larger study. Most of the journals request that the authors who either know or suspect a manuscript submitted for publication represents fragmented data should disclose this information, as well as enclose any other papers whether published or unpublished might be part of the paper under the consideration. To prevent salami slicing when we find breaking up or segmenting data from a single study and creating different manuscripts for publication. It is publishing small slices of research in several different papers that is salami publication or salami slicing. It can be considered unethical because salami slicing can result in a distortion of the literature by leading unsuspecting readers to believe that data presented in each slice is derived from a different subject sample. The following corrective measures can be taken in this situation: • • • •

Avoid inappropriately breaking up data from a single study into two or more papers. When submitting a paper, be transparent. Send copies of any manuscripts closely related to the manuscript under consideration. Be careful because this may include any manuscripts published, recently submitted, or already accepted.

Simultaneous Submission Most of the authors have an obligation to make sure their research paper is based on original and never before published research/findings. Intentionally submitting or re-submitting work for duplicate publication is considered a breach of publishing ethics. A simultaneous submission occurs when a person submits a paper to different publications at the same time, which can result in more than one journal publishing that particular research paper. A duplicate/multiple publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross-reference, share essentially the same hypotheses, data, discussion points, and/or conclusions. This can occur in varying degrees, literal duplication, partial but substantial duplication, or even duplication by paraphrasing. The most important reason behind duplicate publication of original research is considered unethical, is that it can result in inadvertent double counting or inappropriate weighting of the results of a single study,

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which distorts the available evidence. There might be number of situations in which the publishers of two journals might agree in advance to use the duplicate work, including: • Combined editorials about a plagiarism case involving the two journals; • Guidelines, position statements in a practical database; • Translations of articles provided with prior approval have been granted by the first publisher, and that full and prominent disclosure of its original source is given at the time of submission. As the main rule of thumb, the articles submitted for publication must be original one and must not have been submitted to any other publication unit/department. At the time of submission, authors must disclose any details of related papers also when in a different language, similar papers in press, and translations.

Competing Interests In a publication segment, when an investigator, author, editor, or reviewer has some financial/personal interests or beliefs that might affect his/her objectivity, or inappropriately influence his/her actions, there exists a potential competing interest. Such relationships are also called dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties. The most obvious competing interests may be direct and indirect financial relationships. In direct relationship the components are employment, stock ownership, grants, and patents while in indirect relationship honoraria, consultancies to sponsoring organizations, mutual fund ownership, and paid expert testimony are the main components. Undeclared financial interests can seriously undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and the science/research itself. Competing interests may also exist as a result of personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion. As an example, we might take researcher who has: • A relative who works at the company whose product the researcher is evaluating. • A self-serving stake in the research results (potential promotion/career advancement based on outcomes). • Personal beliefs that are in direct conflict with the topic he/she is researching. Not by taking all relationships represent a true competing interest conflicts can be potential or actual. Some considerations should be taken into account including whether the person’s association with the organization interferes with their ability to carry out the research or paper without bias and whether the relationship, when later revealed, makes a reasonable reader feel deceived or misled. Full disclosure about a relationship that could constitute a competing interest even if the person doesn’t believe it affects their judgment should be reported to the institution’s ethics group and to the journal editor to which a paper

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is submitted. Most publishers require disclosure in the form of a cover letter and/or footnote in the manuscript. A journal may use disclosures as a basis for editorial decisions and will publish them as they may be important to readers in judging the manuscript. Likewise, the journal may decide not to publish on the basis of the declared conflict. According to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity, having a competing interest is not in itself unethical, and there are some that are unavoidable. Full transparency is always the best course of action, and, if in doubt, disclose. There might be two states in declaration of competing interests: • An undisclosed relationship that may pose a competing interest: It exists by neglecting to disclose a relationship with a person or organization that could affect one’s objectivity, or inappropriately influence one’s actions. It is considered unethical because some relationships do not necessarily present a conflict. Participants in the peerreview and publication process must disclose relationships that could be viewed as potential competing interests. The following steps might be taken: – When submitting a paper, state explicitly whether potential competing interests do or do not exist. – Indicate this in the manuscript for single-blind journals or in the title page for doubleblind journals. – Investigators must disclose potential competing interests to study participants and should state in the manuscript whether they have done so. – Reviewers must also disclose any competing interests that could bias their opinions of the manuscript. • An undisclosed funding source that may pose a competing interest: This may exist by neglecting to disclose the role of the study sponsor(s), – in study design; – in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; – in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. It may be considered unethical because undeclared financial conflicts may seriously undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and the science itself. The following steps might be taken: • When submitting a paper, a declaration (with the heading “Role of the funding source”) should be made in a separate section of the text and placed before the References. • Describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. • Editors may request that authors of a study funded by an agency with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome sign a statement, such as “I had full access to all of the data in this study and I take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.”

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Misrepresentation of Data The concept of misrepresentation of data unlike fabrication and falsification neither has a clear nor uncontroversial vision. Most scientists might be agreeing that fabrication of writing is making up data and falsification is changing the entire data. But what does it mean to misrepresent the entire data? As a unique answer to this question, we may define misrepresentation of data as “communicating honestly reported data in a deceptive manner.” But what is meant by deceptive communication here? The use of statistics presents researchers will be with numerous opportunities to misrepresent data/information. We may use a statistical technique, such as multiple regression or the analysis of variance (ANOVA), to make one’s results appear more significant or convincing than they really have with. Or one might eliminate/trim outliers when cleaning up raw data (primary data). On the other hand, misrepresenting of data includes drawing unwarranted inference from data, creating deceptive graphs of figures, and using suggestive language for rhetorical effect. Since research scholars may disagree about the proper use of statistical techniques and other means of representing data, the line between misrepresentation of data and disagreement about research methods is blurry at all. Since misrepresentation may be a difficult task to define, many organizations/institutions have already refused to characterize misrepresenting data as a form of scientific misconduct so far. It is too important to pay attention to the problem of misrepresenting data, if one is concerned about promoting objectivity in research, since many scientific errors and biases result from the misrepresentation of data. Depending upon the nature of the data/information distorted to obtain social rewards and escape social punishment, such misrepresentation is called either preference falsification or knowledge falsification. On any certain issue, preference falsification occurs when an individual’s publicly expressed preference, or simply public preference, differs from the corresponding privately held preference, or private preference. Similarly, knowledge falsification entails a discrepancy between the communicator’s private knowledge and public knowledge. Whereas a person’s private preference always reflects the relevant private knowledge, this person’s public preference and public knowledge need not be mutually consistent. In common practice, the two main choices tend to be tightly coordinated to make the former aspect credible. Someone who pretends to favor one particular option, but then proceeds to give reasons for another option’s superiority, will hardly come across as sincere; the person’s intended audience will sense that they are concealing something. Fraud is a broad term which includes a variety of offenses to share the elements of deceit or intentional misrepresentation of facts and files, with the intent of unlawfully depriving a person or organization of property or legal rights. It may be considered an expensive problem. Fraud can occur at any level or extent in an organization. Certain instances of fraud can be easy to spot if a referee knows for a fact that a particular laboratory does not have the facilities to conduct the research that was published. It’s obvious if an image looks manipulated or is made up from several different experiments is a fraud. The

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data from the control experiments might be too perfect in manipulation. In such situations, an investigation would be conducted to determine if an act of fraud was committed. Digital image enhancement might be acceptable in certain cases. However, a positive relationship between the original data and the resulting image must be maintained to avoid creating unrepresentative data or the loss of meaningful signals. If a figure has been significantly manipulated, we must note the nature of the enhancements in the figure legend or in the materials and methods section at par. What about unintentional error that comes across as misconduct? According to the United States Office of Research Integrity (USO-RI), research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion. But it’s best never to have the integrity of your work come into question. As a researcher and author, it is most essential part of writing to understand what constitutes appropriate data management including data collection, retention, analysis, and reporting in accordance with responsible conduct of research. Some general suggestions to overcome this type of misconduct/fraud are as under: • Manipulation of images: – Images may be manipulated for improved clarity only. – No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. – Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are usually acceptable as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. • Data access and retention: – Authors should be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review. Therefore, all data for a specific paper may be retained for a reasonable time after publication. There should be a named custodian for the data. – Studies undertaken in human beings (clinical trials have specific guidelines about the duration of data retention). • Manipulation of data: – Never tamper with or change data. Keep meticulous records of the data. – Records of raw data should be accessible in case an editor asks for them—even after the paper has been published. – Understand the publisher’s policies on data before submit a paper. • Manipulating images: – If authors need to adjust an image to enhance clarity, make sure that they know what is considered acceptable before submitting their paper. – Even if the image manipulations are considered acceptable, report it to the publication prior to submitting the paper. – Review any data images used to support the paper against the original image data to make sure nothing has been altered.

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Publish Ethically Top reasons to publish the entire academic and research findings are the following: • To ensure scientific progress: Truth is the foundation of science/humanity and the progress of human ideas. The scientific community thrives only when each participant should publish his/her work/findings with integrity. • To protect life and the planet: Publishing ethically ensures that we have trusted information on which to build future therapies, technologies, and policies. Published work based on fraudulent data can form an inappropriate basis for follow-up studies leading to waste of resources and harmful effects to patients, communities, or habitats. • To promote ethical behavior: Doing the right thing sets an example and reinforces our responsibility to our peers and society at large who generally pay for our work. Believing our actions won’t make a difference or are above the law can lead those who don’t know better into believing the same. • To be good for reputation: There is nothing like getting published and being able to accept credit and accolades for a job well done. Do it the right way/direction. A published paper is a permanent record of author’s work. Don’t become part of the minority who end up with a retracted paper and a tarnished reputation. • To be the only way: A good reputation and acting with integrity opens the door to opportunity. Our work represents not only we but the research institution/organization, the funding body, and other researcher too.

Review Questions 1. Why redundant publication has not only ethical and legal issues but also waste resources and has a negative impact on the literature? Explain briefly. 2. What is the self-plagiarism issue in redundant publication? 3. What are the nomenclatures of a good author? 4. Give some general guidelines to the authors. 5. Which problems can cause while redundant publication by an author? 6. Under which situations duplicate publication may be acceptable? Explain briefly. 7. How can you prevent redundancy in publication? 8. What do you understand by salami slicing? Explain various parameters of salami slicing. 9. What are main parameters of competing interests? 10. Write Short Notes on the following: (a) Main Types of redundant authorship (b) Deception and Ethical Issues (c) Consequences of Redundancy (d) Misrepresentation of Data

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Further Reading Albanese JS (2010) Intellectual property theft and fraud combating piracy. Transaction Publishers, London Boutrona I, Ravaud P (2018) Misrepresentation and distortion of research in biomedical literature. Proc Acad Natl Sci U S A 115(11):2613–2619 Fennell C (2012) Ethics in research & publication. Elsevier, New York Francisco M, Salzano A, Hurtado M (2004) Lost paradises and the ethics of research and publication. Oxford University Press, New York Johnson C (2006) Repetitive, duplicate, and redundant publications: a review for authors and readers. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 29(7):505–509 Kuran T (2001) International Encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences. Elsevier, New York Resnik DB (2001) International Encyclopaedia of the social & behavioural sciences. Elsevier, New York Vervaart P (2014) Ethics in online publications. JIFCC 25(3):244–251 Wolfson LJ (2015) International Encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences, 2nd edn. Elsevier, New York Yadav SK (2015) Elements of research writing. UDH Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi

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Overview Publication Ethics is a continuum from the first step of research design through to the information being read by the reader and thus includes the ethical behavior of the authors in writing and submitting a scientific manuscript to a publisher for the purpose of publication but must also include the role of referees, editors, publishers, and even the reader in the process. Education can play a large part in decreasing the incidence of misconduct, by making individuals realize that certain behavior is inappropriate, by creating an awareness of ethical issues, and by introducing the concept of good practice in scientific research and publication from an early age. There are certain examples of policies, rules, and guidelines about research and publication ethics which have already been discussed earlier in this book, however, policies and rules are not the same in all aspects of education and research. All human activity may involve misconduct, and thus ethical education has always been an issue of global importance. The particular ethical issue of academic plagiarism is also a global problem. In the more developed countries, the USA established the Office of Scientific Integrity and the Office of Scientific Integrity Review in 1989; in 1999 these two bodies were consolidated into the Office of Research Integrity (https://ori.hhs.gov). Publication is considered the endpoint of the research project. New scientific results may be assessed, corrected, and further developed by the scientific community only if they are published. Guidelines on responsible research and publication are now set, to encourage and promote high ethical standards in the conduct of research and in biomedical publications. They address various aspects of the research and publishing including duties of editors and authorship determination. Publication of results is an integral and essential component of the process known as the scientific method to seek new knowledge. The scientific community can assess, correct, and further develop our new scientific results only if they were published. The most important way to communicate and

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disseminate new knowledge is scientific peer-reviewed journals, and scientific article is considered the most convenient form. Publishing of research results is both working and ethical responsibility of the scientists. The general principles of the scientific method are universal but their detailed application may differ depending on scientific discipline and circumstances. Therefore, many institutions and international associations developed guidelines on responsible research and publication, to encourage and promote high ethical standards in the conduct of research and in biomedical publications. The general principles of guidelines are based on the rules of the good scientific practice. They are a set concerning various aspects of research process including publication practices and authorship determination. In general, the primary aim of the guidelines is not to codify a set of rules but to help in preventing scientific misconduct. Guidelines on good publication practice, issued in 2001 by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), were found useful not only for authors and editors, but also for editorial board members, readers, owners of journals, and publishers. Research Misconduct means the Fabrication, Falsification, or Plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results. Fabrication is the making up of data or results and recording or reporting them as if they were real, while Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record. Plagiarism is well defined as the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit and will be covered in more detail later in this paper. It is important to be reminded that Research Misconduct is purposeful misconduct and as such does not include honest error or differences of opinion which may occur at time to time in research and which can generally be corrected or outlined at the time of publication. COPE’s Guidelines address various aspects of research and publishing including authorship and duties of editors and provide advice on dealing with any misconduct. Editorial boards of the majority of biomedical journals follow the principles of good scientific practice and Vancouver rules are basis of their style and format. Editors have many responsibilities; for the editorial content of the journal, for establishing the policies for authorship and submission of manuscripts to the journal, and for establishing a process of constructive and prompt evaluation of manuscripts. They are responsible to their readers and to authors, for maintaining integrity and confidentiality of their work during evaluation process. Editors should work to improve the quality of submitted manuscripts and be prepared to deal with errors and allegations of misbehavior, i.e., scientific dishonesty and misuse of publication process. Editors are responsible for the editorial policies of the journal and stand behind all decisions made by the members of editorial board. They must consider and balance the interests of many constituents—readers, authors, staff, owners, editorial board members, advertisers, and the media. Editors are responsible not only for technical perfection but also for the following of ethical standards in all phases of publication process. Therefore, editor’s duties are numerous and the most important ones concern policies for:

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• Authorship and communication with authors; • Submission and evaluation of manuscript; • Manuscript review and relation to reviewers as a core of editor–author relationship is briefly presented. Each manuscript should have its own record containing identification number, and important dates—when it was received, reviewed, accepted/rejected, and published. As soon as the manuscript was submitted the editors are obliged to: • Check whether criteria for the submission of the manuscript were met; • Inform authors that the manuscript was received and sent for evaluation quoting approximately time for the results of evaluation; • Send the manuscript for peer review. Peer review is a critical element in the editorial process of biomedical journals. The evaluation of manuscript is susceptible to various misconducts and majority of author’s complaints relate to peer-review process. Therefore, editors must establish the process for the evaluation of manuscript. The main goals of a good peer review are to provide expert advice to the authors regarding the scientific validity of the data and methods and help the editors in their decision about the suitability of the paper for publication. Editors may accept manuscripts without outside review if they find the subject is very important or timely. They also may reject the manuscript without outside review if the quality of the manuscript is poor, the subject matter is outside the purview of the journal, or criteria for the submission of the manuscript are not met. Editors must establish a system for deciding on the fate of the manuscript: whether it will be accepted, accepted after appropriate revision, or be rejected. Criteria for decisionmaking include the reviewer’s comments and recommendations, the availability of space, but the most important are the editor’s judgment regarding the suitability of the manuscript for the journal and its value and interest for the readers. Editor’s decision to accept or reject the manuscript submitted for publication relies mainly on the reviewer’s comments and suggestions. Reasons for manuscript rejection may include scientific weakness, lack of originality, lack of importance and interest to readers or lack of space. Editors should consider appeals of authors regarding rejection of the manuscript only if authors provide a good explanation why decision may have been wrong, and if they are willing to revise the manuscript in response to reviewer’s righteous comments. If the authors resubmit previously rejected but not revised manuscript, editor should immediately reject it. However, editor may agree to reconsider rejected manuscript. A revised manuscript should be evaluated by an original reviewer or be sent to one or two new reviewers. As an alternative, editor may consider the manuscript as a new one and send it to be reviewed by new reviewers. Editors should not make decisions on manuscripts about which they may have conflict of interest.

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Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) was founded in 1997 in United Kingdom to address breaches of research and publication ethics. A voluntary body providing a discussion forum and advice for scientific editors, it aims to find practical ways of dealing with the issues and to develop good practice. Intellectual honesty should be actively encouraged in all medical and scientific courses of study and used to inform publication ethics and prevent misconduct. It is with that in mind that these guidelines have been produced. COPE is governed by the Trustee Board (maximum of 12), who are ultimately responsible for the financial, legal, and business operations of COPE as a charitable business and gives authority to Council and the Executive Officer and team to manage the day-to-day affairs of the organization. COPE’s first guidelines were developed after discussion at the COPE meeting in April 1999 and were published as Guidelines on Good Publication Practice in the Annual Report in 1999. On their basis, the first edition of Code of Conduct for Editors was published on the first COPE website in November 2004, with an Editorial in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The Code was replaced in 2017 with a simplified description of expectations as COPE’s Core Practices, with links to COPE’s detailed guidance, to aid editors and publishers in the fight against research and publication misconduct. The guidelines of COPE were developed from a preliminary version drafted by individual members of the committee, which was then submitted to extensive consultation. They addressed: • Study Design and Ethical Approval: Good research should be well justified, well planned, appropriately designed, and ethically approved. To conduct research to a lower standard may constitute misconduct. The suggested actions are: – Laboratory and clinical research should be driven by protocol. – Pilot studies should have a written rationale. – Research protocols should seek to answer specific questions, rather than just collect data. – Protocols must be carefully agreed by all contributors and collaborators, including, if appropriate, the participants. – The final protocol should form part of the research record. – Early agreement on the precise roles of the contributors and collaborators and on matters of authorship and publication, is advised. – Statistical issues should be considered early in study design, including power calculations, to ensure there are neither too few nor too many participants. – Formal and documented ethical approval from an appropriately constituted research ethics committee is required for all studies involving people, medical records, and anonymized human tissues; Use of human tissues in research should conform to the highest ethical standards, such as those recommended by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

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– Fully informed consent should always be sought. It may not always be possible, however, and in such circumstances, an appropriately constituted research ethics committee should decide if this is ethically acceptable. – When participants are unable to give fully informed consent, research should follow international guidelines, such as those of the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS). – Animal experiments require full compliance with local, national, ethical, and regulatory principles, and local licensing arrangements. International standards vary. – Formal supervision, usually the responsibility of the principal investigator, should be provided for all research projects: this must include quality control, and the frequent review and long-term retention (may be up to 15 years) of all records and primary outputs. • Data Analysis: Data should be appropriately analyzed, but inappropriate analysis does not necessarily amount to misconduct. Fabrication and falsification of data do constitute misconduct. The suggested actions are: – All sources and methods used to obtain and analyze data, including any electronic pre-processing, should be fully disclosed; detailed explanations should be provided for any exclusions. – Methods of analysis must be explained in detail, and referenced, if they are not in common use. – The post hoc analysis of subgroups is acceptable, as long as this is disclosed. Failure to disclose that the analysis was post hoc is unacceptable. – The discussion section of a paper should mention any issues of bias which have been considered, and explain how they have been dealt with in the design and interpretation of the study. • Authorship: There is no universally agreed definition of authorship, although attempts have been made. As a minimum, authors should take responsibility for a particular section of the study. The suggested actions are: – The award of authorship should balance intellectual contributions to the conception, design, analysis, and writing of the study against the collection of data and other routine work. If there is no task that can reasonably be attributed to a particular individual, then that individual should not be credited with authorship. – To avoid disputes over attribution of academic credit, it is helpful to decide early on in the planning of a research project who will be credited as authors, as contributors, and who will be acknowledged. – All authors must take public responsibility for the content of their paper. The multidisciplinary nature of much research can make this difficult, but this can be resolved by the disclosure of individual contributions. – Careful reading of the target journal’s “Advice to Authors” is advised, in the light of current uncertainties.

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• Conflict of Interests: Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors. Financial interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies, and company support for staff. The suggested actions are: – Such interests where relevant must be declared to editors by researchers, authors, and reviewers. – Editors should also disclose relevant conflicts of interest to their readers. If in doubt, disclose. Sometimes editors may need to withdraw from the review and selection process for the relevant submission. • The Peer-Review Process: Peer reviewers are external experts chosen by editors to provide written opinions, with the aim of improving the study. Working methods vary from journal to journal, but some use open procedures in which the name of the reviewer is disclosed, together with the full or edited report. The suggested actions are: – Suggestions from authors as to who might act as reviewers are often useful, but there should be no obligation on editors to use those suggested. – The duty of confidentiality in the assessment of a manuscript must be maintained by expert reviewers, and this extends to reviewer’s colleagues who may be asked (with the editor’s permission) to give opinions on specific sections. – The submitted manuscript should not be retained or copied. – Reviewers and editors should not make any use of the data, arguments, or interpretations, unless they have the author’s permission. – Reviewers should provide speedy, accurate, courteous, unbiased, and justifiable reports. – If reviewers suspect misconduct, they should write in confidence to the editor. – Journals should publish accurate descriptions of their peer review, selection, and appeals processes. – Journals should also provide regular audits of their acceptance rates and publication times. • Redundant Publication: Redundant publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross reference, share the same hypothesis, data, discussion points, or conclusions. The suggested actions are: – Published studies do not need to be repeated unless further confirmation is required. – Previous publication of an abstract during the proceedings of meetings does not preclude subsequent submission for publication, but full disclosure should be made at the time of submission. – Republication of a paper in another language is acceptable, provided that there is full and prominent disclosure of its original source at the time of submission. – At the time of submission, authors should disclose details of related papers, even if in a different language, and similar papers in press.

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• Plagiarism: Plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others published and unpublished ideas, including research grant applications to submission under new authorship of a complete paper, sometimes in a different language. It may occur at any stage of planning, research, writing, or publication. It applies to both print and electronic versions. As an action, all sources should be disclosed, and if large amounts of other people’s written or illustrative material are to be used, permission must be sought. • Duties of Editors: Editors are the stewards of journals. They usually take over their journal from the previous editor(s) and always want to hand over the journal in good shape. Most editors provide direction for the journal and build a strong management team. They must consider and balance the interests of many constituents, including readers, authors, staff, owners, editorial board members, advertisers, and the media. The suggested actions are: – Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper’s importance, originality, and clarity, and the study’s relevance to the remit of the journal. – Studies that challenge previous work published in the journal should be given an especially sympathetic hearing. – Studies reporting negative results should not be excluded. – All original studies should be peer reviewed before publication, taking into full account possible bias due to related or conflicting interests. – Editors must treat all submitted papers as confidential. – When a published paper is subsequently found to contain major flaws, editors must accept responsibility for correcting the record prominently and promptly. • Media Relations: Journalists may attend scientific meetings at which preliminary research findings are presented, leading to their premature publication in the mass media. The suggested actions are: – Authors approached by the media should give as balanced an account of their work as possible, ensuring that they point out where evidence ends and speculation begins. – Simultaneous publication in the mass media and a peer-reviewed journal is advised, as this usually means that enough evidence and data have been provided to satisfy informed and critical readers. – Where this is not possible, authors should help journalists to produce accurate reports, but refrain from supplying additional data. – All efforts should be made to ensure that patients who have helped with the research should be informed of the results by the authors before the mass media, especially if there are clinical implications. – Authors should be advised by the organizers if journalists are to attend scientific meetings. – It may be helpful to authors to be advised of any media policies operated by the journal in which their work is to be published.

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• Advertising: Many scientific journals and meetings derive significant income from advertising. Reprints may also be lucrative. The suggested actions are: – Editorial decisions must not be influenced by advertising revenue or reprint potential: editorial and advertising administration must be clearly separated. – Advertisements that mislead must be refused, and editors must be willing to publish criticisms, according to the same criteria used for material in the rest of the journal. – Reprints should be published as they appear in the journal unless a correction is to be added.

How to Deal with Misconduct in COPE As per Committee of Publication Ethics the following corrective measures were suggested: • Principles: – The general principle confirming misconduct is intention to cause others to regard as true that which is not true. – The examination of misconduct must therefore focus, not only on the particular act or omission, but also on the intention of the researcher, author, editor, reviewer, or publisher involved. – Deception may be by intention, by reckless disregard of possible consequences, or by negligence. It is implicit, therefore, that best practice requires complete honesty, with full disclosure. – Codes of practice may raise awareness, but can never be exhaustive. • Investigating Misconduct: – Editors should not simply reject papers that raise questions of misconduct. They are ethically obliged to pursue the case. However, knowing how to investigate and respond to possible cases of misconduct is difficult. – COPE is always willing to advise, but for legal reasons, can only advise on anonymized cases. – It is for the editor to decide what action to take. • Serious Misconduct: – Editors must take all allegations and suspicions of misconduct seriously, but they must recognize that they do not usually have either the legal legitimacy or the means to conduct investigations into serious cases. – The editor must decide when to alert the employers of the accused author(s). – Some evidence is required, but if employers have a process for investigating accusations as they are increasingly required to do then editors do not need to assemble a complete case. Indeed, it may be ethically unsound for editors to do so, because such action usually means consulting experts, so spreading abroad serious questions about the author(s).

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– If editors are presented with convincing evidence perhaps by reviewers of serious misconduct, they should immediately pass this on to the employers, notifying the author(s) that they are doing so. – If accusations of serious misconduct are not accompanied by convincing evidence, then editors should confidentially seek expert advice. – If the experts raise serious questions about the research, then editors should notify the employers. – If the experts find no evidence of misconduct, the editorial processes should proceed in the normal way. – If presented with convincing evidence of serious misconduct, where there is no employer to whom this can be referred, and the author(s) are registered doctors, cases can be referred to the General Medical Council. – If, however, there is no organization with the legitimacy and the means to conduct an investigation, then the editor may decide that the case is sufficiently important to warrant publishing something in the journal. Legal advice will then be essential. – If editors are convinced that an employer has not conducted an adequate investigation of a serious accusation, they may feel that publication of a notice in the journal is warranted. Legal advice will be essential. – Authors should be given the opportunity to respond to accusations of serious misconduct. • Less Serious Misconduct: – Editors may judge that it is not necessary to involve employers in less serious cases of misconduct, such as redundant publication, deception over authorship, or failure to declare conflict of interest. Sometimes the evidence may speak for itself, although it may be wise to appoint an independent expert. – Editors should remember that accusations of even minor misconduct may have serious implications for the author(s), and it may then be necessary to ask the employers to investigate. – Authors should be given the opportunity to respond to any charge of minor misconduct. – If convinced of wrongdoing, editors may wish to adopt some of the sanctions outlines as under A letter of explanation (and education) to the authors, where there appears to be a genuine misunderstanding of principles. A letter of reprimand and warning as to future conduct. A formal letter to the relevant head of institution or funding body. Publication of a notice of redundant publication or plagiarism. An editorial giving full details of the misconduct.

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Refusal to accept future submissions from the individual, unit, or institution responsible for the misconduct, for a stated period. Formal withdrawal or retraction of the paper from the scientific literature, informing other editors and the indexing authorities. Reporting the case to the General Medical Council, or other such authority or organization which can investigate and act with due process.

The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) The world association of medical editors (WAME) is an international virtual organization of editors of medical journals. It was launched on March 16, 1995 in Bellagio, Lombardy, Italy after a 3 days conference. It has more than 2000 members worldwide. The idea of a world association of medical editors (WAME) germinated in the early 1990s out of concerns that the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, the Vancouver group) as a very small, self-serving, and exclusive and that biomedical journal editors around the world needed help in developing high-quality, peer-reviewed journals. In accordance, Suzanne and Robert Fletcher (editors of Annals of Internal Medicine at the time) spearheaded the preparation of an application to hold a conference at the Rockefeller Foundation Conference and Study Center in Bellagio, Italy, to consider the needs of medical journal editors globally and to devise a plan to meet those needs. The foundation approved the application in early 1994, and in March the following year, 22 participants from 13 countries met in Bellagio to consider the following: • What are the common purposes of medical journal editors and the set of skills editors need to achieve these purposes? • What day-to-day obstacles and challenges do medical editors encounter in trying to achieve their goals? • Is there a need for global organization of medical journal editors? If so, how can it be established, and how can medical journal editors create a global electronic communication network to discuss goals and needs and share information, ideas, and solutions? • How can medical journal editors use their position to promote high-quality medical science, medical practice, and health in their regions and throughout the world? After considering the goals of biomedical journals, the group outlined the challenges globally facing biomedical journal editors, peer-reviewed biomedical journals, and scientific publishing. As a result, it proposed the: creation of a global organization of editors of peer-reviewed journals, to be called the World Association of Medical Editors . . . to facilitate worldwide cooperation among editors of peerreviewed medical journals to enhance the exchange of educational information; to improve

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editorial standards; to promote the professionalism of medical editing through education, selfcriticism and self-regulation; to expand the voice of and influence of medical editors; to develop mutual support; and to encourage research on the principles and practices of medical editing so as to improve the quality of medical science and practice.

WAME’s modus operandi in short term were to: • • • • • • • • •

develop a global electronic communications network; develop an easily accessible library of key resources for health sciences editors; create a global directory of medical journals and their editors; obtain funding to initiate the organization; plan for periodic world congresses of WAME; to establish close liaison with existing editor groups; to work with emerging regional groups of medical editors; to establish relationships with world organizations to explore collaborative initiatives; cooperate with the organizers of the International Congresses on Peer Review.

During early phase (1995–1997), WAME’s fundamental goal had been to facilitate continuing communication between editors without the possibly crippling expense for many of holding regular conventions or conferences. Hence, with the generous assistance of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, a listserv originally to enable communication among the founding members was expanded so that individual members can communicate with the entire membership unless individual members choose otherwise. With the listserv, editors around the world can ask their colleagues for assistance or information about problems, be they with authors, reviewers, or publishers. In one notable episode, after the US Department of the Treasury determined that editing a research paper from an embargoed country is equivalent to providing a service to authors and therefore violates US trade restrictions, the members responded so vehemently that WAME created a policy statement deploring the restriction. Later, the New York Times reported that the department had backed down. As a result, the messages are monitored and WAME has developed a code of conduct for members (wame.org/wametalk.htm). By 1999, WAME had established its Website wame.org. It had also attracted 367 members and funding from several journals and other agencies. Nevertheless, members of the board of directors considered that further planning was essential to ensure WAME’s continuing viability. Therefore, the directors prepared and submitted a new proposal to the Rockefeller Foundation to hold another conference to map out a strategy for WAME’s continued development. After approval of the proposal, 20 editors from 12 countries on five continents met in Bellagio in January 2001. The group was able to achieve four goals: • A statement of principles on the standards of professionalism and responsibilities of editors. • Agreement to assess the extent to which these principles are reflected in practice and to explore barriers to their adoption, using data from a survey and focus groups.

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• Development of an online program for distance learning, targeted at new editors, and a plan for formal evaluation of the program. • Agreement to support regional initiatives to strengthen local editorial capacity. The administration of WAME follows a traditional model much like that of the Council of Science Editors (CSE), and the bylaws of WAME were modeled after those of CSE. The board comprises an executive committee president, past president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer—and five directors. The executive committee meets by teleconference every 2 months to manage routine matters and to consider statements of policy resulting from issues or queries from members and other organizations wame.org/wamestmt.htm. At the discretion of the president, the executive committee may consult the directors and committees on editorial issues or matters of WAME policy. Six committees report regularly to the board. The chairs of each committee recruit committee members at their discretion. The Education Committee has established a syllabus for potential and new biomedical journal editors—wame.org/syllabus.htm—and a list of resources on the WAME Website. The syllabus provides a comprehensive outline of journal editor’s responsibilities, what to look for before accepting an editorship, the editorial process, and a number of useful information sources. The resources section—wame.org/rsources. htm—provides useful links to other websites like policies of organizations, books and monographs, journal resources, ethics resources on the Web, journal instructions for authors, and other organizations for editors. The Editorial Policy Committee, after consultation with other committees and the board, has created several policy statements, which reflect major issues discussed on the WAME listserv, issues emanating from the mass media or government, or queries from members of WAME. Topics of the policy statements include: • • • • • • • •

Publication-ethics policies for medical journals. Impact factor. Geopolitical intrusion on editorial decisions. Responsibilities of medical editors. Regional workshops for medical editors. Journal’s role in managing conflict of interest related to the funding of research. Free journal access for poor nations. Editorial independence.

The Electronics Committee is responsible for developing and maintaining the WAME Website—wame.org—with the gracious continuing support and hard work of the editors and staff at The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA). The committee is committed to improving the site by making it more interactive and by continuing to add useful resources or links for biomedical journal editors. The Ethics Committee has been responsible for developing recommendations for ethical policies for medical journals and Web resources on ethics wame.org/ethics.htm. It has been very active in considering ethical

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issues in publication. The common scenario is that a WAME member presents a case for consideration by the Ethics Committee, which, if appropriate, then submits the case, without identifying the participants, to the entire membership through the WAME listserv for rapid comment.

International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE) The International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE) was founded in August 2007 by Jason Roberts and Taylor Bowen, Alice Ellingham, Ira Salkin, Gary Bryan, Elizabeth Blalock, Jennifer Deyton, Julie Nash, Wendy Krank, Katherine DyReyes, Anne Carter, Jane Moody, Laura Lawrie, Alison Alsmeyer, Lindsay Haddon, Nicki Salcedo, and Kristen Overstreet in New Jersey. ISMTE serves a unique niche within the academic, scientific, medical, technical, and professional publishing industry—editorial office staff. ISMTE connects, educates, and provides resources for professionals who are passionate about the operations of peer-reviewed publications. Through the newsletter, discussion forum, online resources, and meetings, it connects us with others in the profession. ISMTE provides networking and training infrastructure, to establish best practices, and study and report on editorial office practices. It is a unique community for managing and technical editors at scholarly publications worldwide that combines networking, training, and industry-proven best practices allowing them to engage with other professionals, broaden their day-to-day skills, and be proud of the journals they produce. ISMTE has established an Industry Advisory Board comprised of respected leaders in the scientific publishing field. ISMTE consults members of the IAB on industry concerns and how ISMTE can best serve its members. The mission of ISMTE is to connect the community of professionals committed to the peer review and publication of academic and scholarly journals. ISMTE provides peer-to-peer networking, education and training, research and resources for best practices, and development of journal policy. The society has been governed by a volunteer board of directors. Editorial Office News (EON) is the official publication of ISMTE. The publication is comprised of informative articles and columns on editorial roles and best practices, as well as society news such as meeting announcements and reports, messages from the President, and upcoming events. A member benefit, the ISMTE publication has published 10–12 issues per year continuously since January 2008.

Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) is an international, nongovernmental, nonprofit organization in official collaboration/relationship with World Health Organization (WHO). It was founded under the auspices of WHO and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural and Organization (UNESCO) in 1949 in

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Geneva, Switzerland. CIOMS, in association with WHO, undertook its work on ethics in biomedical research in the late 1970s. Accordingly, CIOMS set out, in cooperation with WHO, to prepare guidelines. The aim of the guidelines was (and still is) to provide internationally vetted ethical principles and detailed commentary on how universal ethical principles should be applied, with particular attention to conducting research in low-resource settings. The outcome of the CIOMS/WHO collaboration was entitled Proposed International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects. The period that followed saw the outbreak of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and proposals for large-scale trials of prevention and treatment for the disease. These developments raised new ethical issues that had not been considered in the preparation of the Proposed Guidelines. There were other factors also—rapid advances in medicine and biotechnology, changing research practices such as multinational field trials, experimentation involving vulnerable population groups, and also a new perspective in both high- and low-resource settings, that research involving humans could be beneficial to participants rather than threatening. After 1993, ethical issues arose for which the 1993 CIOMS Guidelines had no specific provisions. They related mainly to externally sponsored clinical trials carried out in low-resource settings. In particular, the use of comparators other than an established effective intervention used in low-resource settings became a concern. Commentators took opposing sides on this issue. This debate necessitated the revision and updating of the 1993 Guidelines. In 2003 CIOMS constituted a core group to consider how the existing ethical guidance for epidemiological studies should be updated. Intending to ensure that ethical principles are consistently applied to all types of research, the core group decided to prepare a Supplement to the 2002 document that would address the special features of epidemiological studies. In February 2006, a draft of the supplement was posted on the CIOMS website and opened to comment from interested parties. During its annual meeting in 2009 the Executive Committee of CIOMS considered the desirability of a revision of the CIOMS Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research. In 2011, the CIOMS Executive Committee decided to set up a Working Group to revise the CIOMS Guidelines and fund the work from internal means. This Group met three times each year from September 2012 until September 2015. The Working Group decided to broaden the scope of the 2002 Guidelines from “biomedical research” to “health-related research.” The CIOMS Guidelines have always been written in collaboration with WHO. For the current guidelines, the nature and scope of this collaboration were better defined with a joint decision to follow recommendations of the WHO Guidelines Review Committee (GRC). This includes: • a description of the process of revision, prior to revision; • ensuring that the working group is global in representation and includes regional balance and representation of all stakeholders; • a clear process for reporting and managing conflicts of interests;

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• providing information on the process of evidence retrieval and synthesis for the revision of the Guidelines; • ensuring an independent external peer review of the final product. In June 2014 the Working Group organized a symposium during the 12th World Congress of the International Association of Bioethics (IAB) in Mexico City during which key issues were presented and opened for discussion. This session served as one element of the international consultation process for the proposed revision of the CIOMS Guidelines. In November 2014 the draft revision was discussed at the Forum of Ethical Review Committees in the Asian and Western Pacific Region (FERCAP) in Manila in a plenary session with more than 800 attendees. The revision was also discussed at the Advancing Research Ethics Training in Southern Africa (ARESA) Seminar on 17–18 September 2015 in Cape Town and at CENTRES (Clinical Ethics Network & Research Ethics Support), in Singapore in November 2015. The ethical justification for undertaking health-related research involving humans is its scientific and social value: the prospect of generating the knowledge and the means necessary to protect and promote people’s health. Patients, health professionals, researchers, policymakers, public health officials, pharmaceutical companies, and others rely on the results of research for activities and decisions that impact individual and public health, welfare, and the use of limited resources. Therefore, researchers, sponsors, research ethics committees, and health authorities must ensure that proposed studies are scientifically sound, build on an adequate prior knowledge base, and are likely to generate valuable information. Although scientific and social values are the fundamental justification for undertaking research, researchers, sponsors, research ethics committees, and health authorities have a moral obligation to ensure that all research is carried out in ways that uphold human rights, respect, protect, and are fair to study participants and the communities in which the research is conducted. Scientific and social value cannot legitimate subjecting study participants or host communities to mistreatment, or injustice. Sponsors, researchers, governmental authorities, research ethics committees, and other stakeholders must ensure that the benefits and burdens of research are equitably distributed. Groups, communities, and individuals invited to participate in research must be selected for scientific reasons and not because they are easy to recruit because of their compromised social or economic position or their ease of manipulation. Because categorical exclusion from research can result in or exacerbate health disparities, the exclusion of groups in need of special protection must be justified. Groups that are unlikely to benefit from any knowledge gained from the research should not bear a disproportionate share of the risks and burdens of research participation. Groups that are under-represented in medical research should be provided appropriate access to participate. To justify imposing any research risks on participants in health research, the research must have social and scientific value. Before inviting potential participants to join a study, the researcher, sponsor, and the research ethics committee must ensure that risks to participants are minimized and appropriately balanced in relation to the prospect of

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potential individual benefit and the social and scientific value of the research. The potential individual benefits and risks of research must be evaluated in a two-step process. First, the potential individual benefits and risks of each individual research intervention or procedure in the study must be evaluated as: • For research interventions or procedures that have the potential to benefit participants, risks are acceptable if they are minimized and outweighed by the prospect of potential individual benefit and the available evidence suggests that the intervention will be at least as advantageous, in the light of foreseeable risks and benefits, as any established effective alternative. • For research interventions or procedures that offer no potential individual benefits to participants, the risks must be minimized and appropriate in relation to the social and scientific value of the knowledge to be gained (expected benefits to society from the generalizable knowledge). • When it is not possible or feasible to obtain the informed consent of participants, research interventions or procedures that offer no potential individual benefits must pose no more than minimal risks. In the second step, the aggregate risks and potential individual benefits of the entire study must be assessed and must be considered appropriate as: • The aggregate risks of all research interventions or procedures in a study must be considered appropriate in light of the potential individual benefits to participants and the scientific social value of the research. • The researcher, sponsor, and research ethics committee must also consider risks to groups and populations, including strategies to minimize these risks. • The potential individual benefits and risks of research studies must be evaluated in consultation with the communities to be involved in the entire research process. As a general rule, the research ethics committee must ensure that research participants in the control group of a trial of a diagnostic, therapeutic, or preventive intervention receive an established effective intervention. Public accountability is necessary for realizing the social and scientific value of health-related research. Therefore, researchers, sponsors, research ethics committees, funders, editors, and publishers have an obligation to comply with recognized publication ethics for research and its results. Researchers should prospectively register their studies, publish the results, and share the data on which these results are based in a timely manner. Negative and inconclusive as well as positive results of all studies should be published or otherwise be made publicly available. Any publication or report resulting from a research study should indicate which research ethics committee has authorized the study. The primary goal of health-related research is to generate, in ethically appropriate ways, the knowledge necessary to promote people’s health. However, researchers, research institutions, sponsors, research ethics committees, and policymakers

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have other interests that can conflict with the ethical conduct of research. Such conflicts between the primary goal of health-related research and secondary interests are defined as conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest can influence the choice of research questions and methods, recruitment and retention of participants, interpretation and publication of data, and the ethical review of research. It is therefore necessary to develop and implement policies and procedures to identify, mitigate, eliminate, or otherwise manage such conflicts of interest. Research institutions, researchers, and research ethics committees should take the following steps: • Research institutions should develop and implement policies and procedures to mitigate conflicts of interest and educate their staff about such conflicts; • Researchers should ensure that the materials submitted to a research ethics committee include a disclosure of interests that may affect the research; • Research ethics committees should evaluate each study in light of any disclosed interests and ensure that appropriate means of mitigation are taken in case of a conflict of interest; • Research ethics committees should require their members to disclose their own interests to the committee and take appropriate means of mitigation in case of a conflict of interest.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) is a small professional working group of general medical journal editors whose participants meet annually and fund their own work on the recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals in 2001 at a conference in Berlin. The current members of the ICMJE are Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Deutsches Ärzteblatt (German Medical Journal), Ethiopian Journal of Health Sciences, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), Journal of Korean Medical Science, New England Journal of Medicine, New Zealand Medical Journal, The Lancet, Revista Médica de Chile (Medical Journal of Chile), Ugeskrift for Laeger (Danish Medical Journal), the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the World Association of Medical Editors, etc. A large number of journals follow the ICMJE Recommendations. A list of journals have contacted the ICMJE to request listing as a publication that follows the ICMJE Recommendations. There may be journals that follow the ICMJE recommendations that do not appear on this list. Users should also be aware that individual publications and their editors may have individual interpretations of and implementation of ICMJE Recommendations. The ICMJE cannot verify how closely listed journals follow the many specific recommendations contained within the ICMJE recommendations. If authors have questions about a particular journal to which they are considering submitting their work, they should consult the “Information for Authors” or the editorial office of that journal.

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The European Association of Science Editors (EASE) The European Association of Science Editors (EASE) is an international community of individuals and associations from diverse backgrounds, linguistic traditions, and professional experiences in science communication and editing. It is an international community of editors from diverse backgrounds, linguistic traditions, and professional experience who share an interest in science communication and editing. EASE was formed in May 1982 at Pau, France, from the European Life Science Editors’ Association (ELSE) and the European Association of Earth Science Editors (Editerra). ELSE was known first by the unwieldy name “European Association of Editors of Biological Periodicals” and came into being in 1968, with encouragement from UNESCO. Luckily the name was changed to ELSE at the first General Assembly in 1970. Editerra (born 1968, also with UNESCO encouragement) and ELSE soon began to cooperate closely. We welcome members from every corner of the world and have membership in every continent. EASE works in collaboration with a variety of organizations around the world to develop and endorse guidelines and good practice. The EASE mission is to improve the global standard and quality of science editing by promoting the value of science editors and supporting professional development, research, and collaboration. The three strategic pillars around which we focus our activities are as follows: • To Improve Global Standards: – Provide expertise and endorsement; – Provide representation; – Provide participation and consultation; – Undertake research; – Share and promote research and good practice advice. • To Raise the Profile of Science Editors: – Participate in editorial and publishing initiatives; – Advocate on behalf of editors; – Promote skills and knowledge of EASE members; – Publish research and information on editing. • To Support Professional Development: – Provide and share resources; – Provide networking and learning opportunities; – Provide skills and knowledge recognition for members; – Increase access to training.

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Conflicts of Interest A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest such as patient’s welfare or the validity of research may be influenced by a secondary interest such as financial gain. Perceptions of conflict of interest are as important as actual conflicts of interest. Editors, authors, and peer reviewers should disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present or review work objectively. These might include relevant financial interests, for example, patent ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, or speaker’s fees, or personal, political, or religious interests. Strict policies preventing people with conflicts of interest from publishing might encourage authors to conceal relevant interests and might therefore be counterproductive as under: • Journal editors, board members, and staff who are involved with decisions about publication should declare their interests. • Journals should consider publishing these on their website and updating them as required, as well as disclosing how conflicts of interest were managed for specific papers. • Editors should clearly explain what should be disclosed, including the period that these statements should cover. • Editors should ask authors to describe relevant funding, including the purpose of the funding (for example, travel grant and speaker’s fees), and to describe relevant patents, stocks, and shares that they own. • Editors should publish author’s conflicts of interest whenever they are relevant, or a statement of their absence. If there is doubt editors should opt in favor of greater disclosure. • If authors state that there are no conflicts of interest, editors should publish a confirmation to this effect. • Editors should manage peer reviewer’s conflicts of interest. An invitation to review a manuscript should be accompanied by a request for the reviewer to reveal any potential conflicts of interest and a request for the peer reviewer to disqualify or recuse themselves when these are relevant. • When editors, members of editorial boards, and other editorial staff are presented with papers where their own interests may be perceived to impair their ability to make an unbiased editorial decision, they should withdraw from discussions, deputize decisions, or suggest that authors seek publication in a different journal.

Editorial Independence and Commercial Issues The Council of Science Editors presents discussion of editorial independence in its white paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications. The relationship between the editor and the journal owner and publisher should be set out in a formal contract. It may

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be useful to establish a mechanism to resolve disputes before one is needed in order to help resolve any disagreements speedily. Journal owners (whether learned societies or publishers) should avoid influencing editorial decisions as under: • Editor’s decisions about whether to publish individual manuscripts submitted to their journal should not be influenced by pressure from the editor’s employer, the journal owner, or the publisher. Ideally, the principles of editorial independence should be set out in the editor’s contract. • It is appropriate for journal owners/publishers to discuss general editorial processes and policies with journal editors (for example, whether or not a journal should publish a particular type of article), but they should not get involved in decisions made by the editor about individual articles. It feels impossible to completely insulate editorial decisions from issues that may influence them, such as commercial considerations. For example, editors will know which articles are likely to attract offprint or reprint sales. Even so, it can be suggested that editors, journal owners, and publishers establish processes that minimize the risk of editorial decisions being influenced by commercial, personal, or political factors. Editors should be free to judge all submissions on their scholarly merit and on their potential importance to the community that the journal serves. Editorial decisions about individual papers should remain separate from the sale of advertising. Journals that publish special issues, supplements, or similar material that is funded by third-party organizations should establish policies for how these are handled. The funding organization should not be allowed to influence the selection or editing of submissions, and all funded items should be clearly identified. Journals should establish policies so that editorial decisions cannot be influenced by payment of an open-access-article publication charge or other type of payment made by authors.

Review Questions 1. What is publication ethics in scientific community? 2. What are the policies and duties of an editor in order to maintain publication ethics? 3. What are the functions of committee on publication ethics to maintain the moral in publications? 4. Explain the peer-review process in COPE. 5. How would you deal with misconduct in COPE? 6. What do you know about the world association of medical editors? 7. Give details of WAME’s modus operandi. 8. Which were the goals achieved by WAME? 9. Which topics of the policy statements include by WAME?

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10. Write Short Notes on the following: (a) International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (b) Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (c) International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (d) European Association of Science Editors (e) Conflict of Interest

Further Reading Bogdanovik G (2003) Publication ethics: the editor author relationship. Institute of Oncology Sremska Kamenica, Sremska Kamenica Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (1999) Guidelines on good publication practice. The COPE report Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (2016) International ethical guidelines for health-related research involving humans, 4th edn. Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), Geneva Dutfield G, Suthersanen U (2008) Global intellectual property law. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, Massachusetts Higgins C (2011) The good life of teaching: an ethics of professional practice. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, West Sussex Johnson AG, Johnson PRV (2007) Making sense of medical ethics: a hands-on guide. Oxford University Press, New York Salzano FM, Hurtado AM (2004) Lost paradises and the ethics of research and publication. Oxford University Press, New York Squires BP, Fletcher SW (2005) The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME): thriving in its first decade. Science Editor 28(1):13 Uhm C-S (2016) What is research misconducts? Publication ethics is as important as research integrity. Korean Society of Microscopy, Seoul Vervaart P (2014) Ethics in online publications. JIFCC 25(3):244–251 Wiley Network (2018) Best practice guidelines on publishing ethics. Wiley, New York http:// exchanges.wiley.com/ethicsguidelines

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Overview Most of the scientific research is conducted properly and reported honestly but a few authors invent or manipulate data to reach fraudulent conclusions. Other types of misconduct include deliberately providing incomplete or improperly processed data, failure to follow ethical procedures, failure to obtain informed consent, breach of patient confidentiality, improper award or denial of authorship, failure to declare competing interests, duplicate submission, and plagiarism. Editors, peer reviewers, and publishers may also act wrongly. Good practice guidelines are available from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the Council of Science Editors, amongst others. The Committee on Publication Ethics provides flowcharts to assist editor’s deal with authorial misconduct. The general public expects scientists, researchers, clinicians, and journal editors to be honest and trustworthy. Failure to live up to these ideals can result in science being corrupted, patients harmed and financial sponsors deceived. The majority of research is conducted properly and reported honestly, a depressing series of scandals shows that there is a dishonest minority. In the worst cases, data have been invented or manipulated to reach fraudulent conclusions. But there are also lesser or more subtle degrees of scientific and publication misconduct. The categories of scientific and publication misconduct reported to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) from 1998 to date are as under: • Carelessly or deliberately permitting basic faults in study design, performance, or documentation which may prejudice the findings; • Failure to follow accepted ethical procedures when involving live subjects (animal as well as humans), such as conducting experiments on human subjects without properly informed consent or on animals without regard to national regulations;

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_8

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• Breaches of patient confidentiality or failure to obtain informed consent to take part in research (or for permission to submit case reports); • Inadequate or partial disclosure of how data were obtained and analyzed with explanation for any exclusions; • Electronic manipulation of images in such a way as to significantly change how they are interpreted; • Improper award of authorship (all authors should have made significant contributions to the conception, design, analysis, or reporting of the study and no such author may be excluded from final attribution); • Failure to declare any competing interest, especially financial, which might bias a study’s conclusions or lead readers to doubt the conclusions; • Attempts at redundant or duplicate publication; • Breach of copyright and plagiarism.

Misconduct by Editors, Publishers, and Peer-Reviewers Authors are not the only ones who might be declared guilty of misconduct in publication. Editors, publishers, and peer reviewers also have equal responsibilities to finalize the publication. Peer reviewers have a duty of confidentiality during prepublication, they have a duty not to allow professional or personal jealousy or rivalry to influence or determine the advice they offer the editors and they have a duty not to cause undue delay to the processing of a submitted paper. Editors have a prime duty to their readers to maintain the integrity of the scientific record. This must take precedence over their other duties to make sure their journal is readable and profitable (or, at least not a financial burden for the society, academic institution, governmental body, or publisher to whom they are responsible). As a result, they should follow good practice guidelines, such as those published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) or the Council of Science Editors (CSE), etc. Important functions include correcting significant inaccuracies or misleading reports by publishing corrections; ensuring that proper ethical standards have been followed in the conduct of research or clinical practice forming part of submitted or published papers and paying strict regard to patient confidentiality. Editors can access advise from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) by way of flowcharts devised from the organization’s experience over 8 years of handling allegations of misconduct. If a satisfactory explanation cannot be supplied by authors, then editors should normally report any reasonable concerns about research misconduct to their institution (s) or those who funded their study so that they can investigate and publish a notice of concern where the initial case looks strong, followed by retraction when there is a finding of fraud or a major error which, if left to stand, would significantly distort the scientific record. Editors and their publishers must make sure that their journal is open and transparent in its instructions to authors (advice to contributors), especially with regard to describing the peer-review process as well as its definitions for authorship and requirements for

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declaration of competing interests. They should have a well-defined appeals procedure and an independently supervised complaints process. Publishers themselves cannot escape responsibility, if only because they may be required to investigate and adjudicate on complaints against editors or editorial boards. Some publishers have accepted that responsibility. Publishers should not attempt to interfere with editorial freedom unless there are exceptional circumstances whereby an editorial board or other responsible body produces cogent evidence that an editor has misused that freedom.

Types of Publication Misconduct There are many types and phases of misconduct in publication process. The international models for responding to misconduct are discussed by the council of science editors in their recommendations for identification of misconduct and guidelines for action. The World Association of Medical editors make suggestions about responding to allegations of misconduct. The Singapore Statement on Research Integrity, written during the Second World congress on Research integrity, presents “principles and professional responsibilities that are fundamental to the integrity of research wherever it is undertaken.” Members of journal publishing teams have an important role to play in addressing potential cases of data fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, image manipulation, unethical research, biased reporting, authorship abuse, redundant or duplicate publication, and undeclared conflicts of interest. The common types of publication misconduct are: • Submission of Fraudulent Data: An editor or associate editor while processing a paper may be suspicious that the results are too good to be true but without specific expertise in the topic, he/she cannot be certain about reality of the work. Statistical analysis of a research paper sometimes demonstrates that the data must have been manipulated. Likewise, reviewers sometimes express concerns about the honesty of a research paper. There have been numerous high-profile cases of fraudulent data being presented in the work. The extent of fraudulent research data is not known, although many experienced editors believe that undiscovered fraud is much more common than is supposed. It is rarely easy to detect. Fraudulent papers may corrupt future research by others as they continue to be cited. Publication of fraudulent research, apart from being intrinsically dishonest, may distort the scientific record, divert resources to projects doomed to failure as they are predicated on the false data and, ultimately harm patients. • Incomplete or Improperly Processed Data: The reliability of the scientific record can be disturbed by conduct far short of fraud. As an example, it is commonplace that inconvenient data are sometimes excluded from a study or that the most advantageous statistical analysis is performed, especially if the results can be used, to increase prescribing rates or enhance the chance of further research funding. Publication bias can distort the record when it results in a greater likelihood that positive studies will be published and negative studies rejected. This form of misconduct is as much the

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responsibility of editors as it is that of authors. One systematic review of studies comparing methodological quality and outcome according to the source of funding showed that research sponsored by pharmaceutical companies is less likely to be published than that funded otherwise, that company sponsored research is not of lower quality and that findings are more likely to be favorable to the product investigated. This begs the question of where are the negative studies? Hopefully this form of manipulation will be lessened by the recently adopted requirement for trial registration which might allow future investigators to uncover unpublished trials for inclusion in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Reporting guidelines are available for many different kinds of study. Not all journals require adherence but good practice implies that authors have taken account of the criteria within these guidelines. When reporting observational studies in epidemiology, authors are advised to follow the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines and meta-analyses are covered by the Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) guidelines. In basic science, as opposed to epidemiology and most clinical research, an emerging problem is that of the improper manipulation of images. Computer programs permit images to be sharpened, the colors changed or the boundaries altered. Questions may arise as to how extensive this manipulation is permissible before the data should be regarded as corrupted. • Breaches of Confidentiality and Patient/Subject Consent: The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines state that all patients have a right to privacy, which should not be infringed without informed consent. It adds that identifying details should be omitted if inessential. Journal editors vary in how closely they follow this guidance. An exception may be made if the author has attempted to contact the patient but found it impossible, if either has moved or if the former can no longer access case notes. Even then the journals demand that the public interest in publishing the study must outweigh any possible harm that might befall patients if they are identified. This can pose problems, such as how to disguise photographs to make them unidentifiable. Many journals are now placing their historic archives online; in previous years, sensitivities were not so great so patient identification was common. Editors and peer reviewers should understand also that submitted papers remain confidential until published. Reviewers should not pass on papers to others to read without the editor’s permission, reveal details, use information in lectures nor use the prepublication data to inform their own research. Editors are in the same position and must make sure that their instructions to peer reviewers are clear about these matters. Authors and editors must also take care that proper consent was given for the original study. In general, this task is undertaken by the authors stating that local ethical committee or institutional review board (IRB) consent was applied for and given. Problems may arise for editors when considering papers from countries which may not yet have high-quality IRBs. Many editors will decline to process such papers but others may be less restrictive.

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• Authorship Issues Raised: The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship state that all persons designated as authors should qualify and each should have participated sufficiently to take public responsibility for the contents. An individual cannot be included if he/she has not made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the trial or to the analysis and interpretation of the data or to drafting the article or revising it for intellectual content as well as final approval. Journals should make clear in their instructions to authors what criteria they will apply when assessing authorship or contributorship, as some journals prefer. When an editor is made aware of disputes between authors or groups of authors’ prepublication, it will be the best not to accept the paper until the protagonists have settled their dispute. An exception might be when it is alleged that a particular author is deliberately refusing to cooperate in order to prevent or delay publication, perhaps because of personal antipathy to one or more colleagues. One survey in India of corresponding authors of papers published in 300 large-circulation general journals and 400 specialist journals showed that 32% of articles had honorary authors and 41% ghost authors. The European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) has published guidelines which include a statement on such writer’s professional responsibilities in ensuring that papers they write are scientifically valid and produced in accordance with generally acceptable ethical standards. • Competing Interests: Editors may favor certain topics over others because of belief they might catch the eye of the public media and so lead to the editor’s name being better known to the profession and the public. Reviewers may be tempted to allow personal grievances or favors to affect their judgment. Good practice demands that, as far as possible, competing interests are subsumed by the need to be objective and fair. In defining what might be a significant competing interest, one suggestion is that if it were later revealed, readers might feel misled or deceived. The most serious is likely to be financial or commercial but personal and political conflicts can affect judgment. Financial interests may include being paid by the sponsor of a research project to undertake the work, or receiving reimbursement for lecture or travel. Holding stock or share ownership, consultancies, and holding or seeking patent rights in any product or device can also be regarded as a competing interest. The journals should require all authors to sign a declaration on submission of any competing interest. Editors and reviewers should also make it clear if a competing interest may affect their work. It is better to decline to undertake a review or transfer a submitted paper to another member of the editorial team if there is any risk of being perceived as biased. • Redundant and Duplicate Publication: Because of the professional necessity or importance of having one’s research published, authors may be tempted to produce several papers from one dataset. There may be good reasons for this, which do not represent publication misconduct in any way. The results of a study may have different implications for differing professional or specialist groups. A study may, of course, be redundant before it starts. Where a subject has been thoroughly and convincingly elucidated, some find it questionable whether resources and, more importantly, the

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contribution of patients or subjects, might be misused by repeating the study. Researchers need to consider this before designing their trial. Any attempt at duplicate publication, that is sending the same or very similar findings from the same study to more than one journal is misconduct. Firstly, the second submission may involve intellectual theft as the journal which first published the study may hold copyright or a license which only allows the author to use the material with permission. More importantly, duplicated papers may have a significant effect on systematic reviews and meta-analyses if the same data are counted twice. • Plagiarism Issue: Using the words or ideas of another person without attribution represents intellectual theft or plagiarism. Authors must realize that, when quoting the work of others, they must make it clear and provide a reference to the original material. With the advent of electronic searching and the increasing use of systematic reviews, plagiarism comes to light more easily in the past. It is also possible to self-plagiarize; as an example, it is not unknown for authors invited to write a review article to recycle their own previous work. In doing so it would be more honest to advise the editor in advance that they have done so. Many editors would regard this as improper, especially if the author has been commissioned (and paid) for writing a review. Editors can help educate about and prevent plagiarism (as well as redundant or duplicate publication) by screening submitted manuscripts. Journals should explain in their instructions to authors how submitted manuscripts are screened for duplicated text and possible plagiarism. Cross-check is one of the screening services available for this purpose. Journals may consider the following text, adapted from the cross-check website. To find out more about cross-check visit http://www.crossref.org/crosscheck. html.

Human Rights, Privacy, and Confidentiality For manuscripts reporting medical studies involving human participants, it is suggested that journals require authors to provide a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study, and that the study conforms to recognized standards. Across the scholarly disciplines there are variations in practice around privacy and confidentiality, relative to the risks of participation and the reasonable expectations of participants. In the biomedical sciences, editors should consider only publishing information and images from individual participants where the authors have obtained the individual’s free prior informed consent. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors guidance says: Non-essential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity.

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The best policy is for journals to require that authors confirm whether explicit written consent to publish has been received from any people described, shown in still or moving images, or whose voices are recorded. In the case of technical images (for example, radiographs or micrographs), editors should also ensure that all information that could identify the subject has been removed from the image. For voices or images of any human subject, permission according to applicable national laws must be sought from research participants before recording. In many jurisdictions it is a requirement that formal copyright clearance is obtained to publish any video or audio recordings. When publishing genetic sequences or family genograms editors may need consent from more than just the index case. In the social sciences and humanities, there are numerous ethical guidelines for researchers working with human participants. Social science and humanities researchers regularly work with audio and video materials gathered in public places where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. They also use materials derived from broadcast sources, as in some political science or cultural studies work, where copyright must be addressed but where consent issues do not arise. However, wherever appropriate, social scientists are also responsible for protecting the confidentiality of human participants, and obtaining informed consent from all participants by openly communicating any and all information that is likely to influence their willingness to participate (sponsorship, purpose and anticipated outcomes, and possible consequences that publication of the research may have for participants). Guidelines include those from the American Sociological Association (ASA), International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE), and American Anthropological Association (AAA). For social research data the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the commonwealth suggests in its “Ethical Guidelines for Good Research Practice” that it is not always possible or necessary to gain written consent to publish, particularly when researchers are working with people with limited literacy or in cultures where formal bureaucratic procedures are problematic. However, it remains prudent for journals to ask authors to provide evidence that they have obtained informed consent.

Cultures and Heritage There is recognition of increasing innovation in the management of joint copyright in relation to intercultural research, to enable appropriate legal acknowledgment of intellectual property in attribution and acknowledgment. This is presented in the section on authorship which follows. Editors should consider any sensitivity when publishing images of objects that might have cultural significance or cause offense religious texts or historical events. Editors should be conscious of the ethics surrounding publication of images of human remains, and should recognize that human remains are perceived differently in different cultures. Images of human remains should not be published without consideration of the views of any demonstrated genealogical descendants or affiliated cultural communities, if feasible. In cases where descendants or affiliated cultural communities

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cannot be contacted, images of human remains should not be published without consultation with and permission from the curating institution or relevant stakeholder. Cultural restrictions do exist in some cultures that prevent publication of the names of deceased people. In Aboriginal Australian culture, this often extends to publication of photographs or film footage of deceased persons. Editors are encouraged to consider any sensitivity and, if necessary, confer with the author about appropriate representation of subjects in published work.

Registering Clinical Trials and Animals in Research The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that clinical trials should be registered prospectively, before participants are enrolled. The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) also requires its members to register trials. Legislation varies point to point in these matters. Medical journals that publish clinical trials should make prospective registration a requirement for publication of such trials. Clinical trial registration numbers should be included in all papers that report their results. A suitable statement about this in journal instructions for authors might read: We require that clinical trials are prospectively registered in a publicly accessible database. Please include the name of the trial register and your clinical trial registration number at the end of your abstract. if your trial is not registered, or was registered retrospectively, please explain the reasons for this.

Research involving animals should be conducted with the same rigor as research in humans. Journals can encourage authors to implement the 3Rs principles suggested by National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research: The 3Rs are a widely accepted ethical framework for conducting scientific experiments using animals humanely: Replacement – use of non-animal methods; Reduction – methods which reduce the number of animals used; Refinement – methods which improve animal welfare.

As per the ethical guidelines of the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) for editors and reviewers, journals should encourage authors to adhere to animal research reporting standards. It describes that the details which journals should require from authors regarding study design and statistical analysis, experimental procedures, experimental animals, housing and husbandry. Journals should ask authors to confirm that ethical and legal approval was obtained prior to the start of the study and state the name of the body giving the approval. Authors should also state whether experiments were performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations. Editors may ask authors to describe in their articles how discomfort, distress, and pain were avoided and minimized, and to confirm that animals did not suffer unnecessarily at any stage of an experiment. Editors may request that reviewer’s comment on the standard of

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experimental reporting, experimental design, or any other aspects of the study reported that may cause concern.

Editorial Independence and Commercial Issues The Council of Science Editors (CSE) presents discussion of editorial independence in its White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications. The relationship between the editor and the journal owner and publisher should be set out in a formal contract. It may be useful to establish a mechanism to resolve disputes before one is needed in order to help resolve any disagreements speedily. Journal owners should avoid influencing editorial decisions. Editor’s decisions about whether to publish individual manuscripts submitted to their journal should not be influenced by pressure from the editor’s employer, the journal owner, or the publisher. Ideally, the principles of editorial independence should be set out in the editor’s contract. It is appropriate for journal owners/ publishers to discuss general editorial processes and policies with journal editors, but they should not get involved in decisions made by the editor about individual articles. It is impossible to completely insulate editorial decisions from issues that may influence them, such as commercial considerations. Editors should be free to judge all submissions on their scholarly merit and on their potential importance to the community that the journal serves. Editorial decisions about individual papers should remain separate from the sale of advertising. Journals that publish special issues, supplements, or similar material that is funded by third-party organizations should establish policies for how these are handled. The funding organization should not be allowed to influence the selection or editing of submissions, and all funded items should be clearly identified. Journals should establish policies so that editorial decisions cannot be influenced by payment of an open-accessarticle publication charge or other type of payment made by authors.

Appeals and Corrections Journals should consider establishing and publishing a mechanism for authors to appeal editorial decisions, to facilitate genuine appeals, and to discourage repeated or unfounded appeals. Editors should allow appeals to override earlier decisions only when new information becomes available (like additional factual input by the authors, revisions, extra material in the manuscript, or appeals about conflicts of interest and concerns about biased peer review). Author protest alone should not affect decisions. Reversals of decisions without new evidence should be avoided. Editors should mediate all exchanges between authors and peer reviewers during the peer-review process. Editors may seek comments from additional peer reviewers to help them make their final decision. Journals should state in their guidelines that the editor’s decision following an appeal is final. Journals should encourage readers and authors to notify them if they find errors, especially errors that could

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affect the interpretation of data or information presented in an article. Journals should work with authors and their publisher to correct important published errors. Journals should publish corrections when important errors are found, and should consider retraction when errors are so fundamental that they invalidate the work. Corrections arising from errors within an article should be distinguishable from retractions and statements of concern relating to misconduct. Corrections should be included in indexing systems and linked to the original article. Corrections should be free to access. There is little doubt that there is growing awareness that science needs policing. Much of the impetus has come from individual whistleblowers, often junior colleagues who may have to put their own careers at risk by laying information against a senior member of their department. Journal editors, with help from reviewers and readers, are gradually finding their voice. But it is not enough to leave the handling of publication misconduct in the hands of ad hoc bodies such as ICJME and COPE. Governments, universities, research councils, the pharmaceutical industry, and other funding bodies all have a duty to ensure the integrity of the scientific record.

Violation of Publication Ethics Scientific evidence can be considered as the base of progress of science and clinical practice. Research findings are disseminated to the scientific community by means of Publication. Publication ethics is the code of conduct and regulatory mechanism being developed for the publication process of scholarly journals. Its aim is to establish and maintain higher standards and scientific integrity. Publication ethics are violated by all those activities which threaten the integrity of the research publication process. These include authors’ dispute, fake affiliations, conflicts of interest, dual submissions, duplicate publication, plagiarism, salami slicing, fabrication, and falsification. It affects the scientific community, journal editors, peer reviewers but the ultimate victims are the patients. Journal editors are faced by all or many of these ethical issues. However dual submissions, duplicate publications, and plagiarism are considered to be the most concerning. The purpose of writing this editorial was to specifically address the willful or inadvertent dishonesty, foul play, and unethical practices by authors while submitting their manuscripts for publication to scientific journals. It may help raise awareness in decreasing ethical violations, promoting the publication validity and building the trust of readers on the published material. Worldwide violation of publication ethics is a major concern. With the increasing number of journals, the number of submitted manuscripts is also on the rise. Similarly, increased number of violations of publication ethics are occurring and being reported. Consequently, a significant number of articles are retracted due to research misconduct. If a manuscript is submitted simultaneously to two or more journals then it is called dual submission. The editors are unable to detect the under process dual submissions. In order to publish their manuscripts early, the authors use these kinds of unethical tactics and deceits.

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The authors when came to know that their manuscript is accepted by journal X, they withdraw it from journal Y. On top of that, they try to appear innocent and gave the reason that the processing time of journal Y is quite long and it’s difficult for them to wait that much longer. To further complicate the matters, if unknowingly both the journals published that same article, it will result in research inflation without adding anything substantial to the existing scientific knowledge. The other serious ethical issue is that of plagiarism. It is defined as the stealing or theft of another person’s words, ideas or results and without citation of reference source. It is becoming more prevalent due to publish or perish environment leading to increased publication demands. Self-plagiarism or salami slicing is also not acceptable as it is considered manipulative. In this, one research article is broken into multiple different manuscripts but sharing the same methodology, hypotheses or patient population. It will lead to unfairly skewing of research database and enhanced citation record of authors. As software applications (Turnitin and iThenticate) are now in use frequently, plagiarism can be identified more easily. As a prerequisite from Higher Education Commission (HEC) and University Grants Commission (UGC), we use Turnitin, a plagiarism detecting software, for all submitted manuscripts to the JPMI. The HEC/UGC cut off or safe limit for publication of manuscripts is less than 10%. However, it can scan only limited number of articles or journals which are MEDLINE indexed. For the interest of the readers the question arises why plagiarism is done by researchers? The stated reasons are lack of confidence in write-up of manuscript, lacking basic research skills, not enough time to complete the assignment (a busy schedule), laziness (it’s easy to do), and pressure of publishing more papers for promotions (according to institutional policies). Though there is no straightforward solution to these ethical issues but collective efforts by authors, reviewers, and editors may be fruitful. Editors need to be vigilant; the more you look, the more you find. Expert reviewers need to carefully look for potential breach of publication ethics and bring it into the notice of journal editors. Authors need to be educated and made aware of the problem (as being a culprit, they claim ignorance). It is of paramount importance that they understand the boundaries of publication ethics. If these ethical guidelines are religiously followed by authors, it will help in decreasing the instances of violation of publication ethics with resultant increase in the credibility of publications and in overall confidence in the integrity of clinical research.

Concept of Spin Publication in peer-reviewed journals is an essential step in the scientific process. However, publication is not simply the reporting of facts arising from a straightforward analysis thereof. Authors have broad latitude when writing their report and may be tempted to consciously or unconsciously spin their study findings. Spin has been defined as a specific intentional or unintentional reporting that fails to faithfully reflect the nature and range of findings and that could affect the impression the results produce in the readers. This is

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based on a literature review that reports the various practices of spin from misreporting by beautification of methods to misreporting by misinterpreting the results. It provides data on the prevalence of some forms of spin in specific fields and the possible effects of some types of spin on reader’s interpretation and research dissemination. Publication in peerreviewed journals is an essential step in the scientific process. It generates knowledge, influences future experiments, and may impact clinical practice and public health. Ethically, research results must be reported completely, transparently, and accurately. When writing a manuscript reporting the results of an experiment, investigators usually have broad latitude in the choice, representation, and interpretation of the data. They may be tempted consciously or unconsciously to shape the impression that the results will have on readers and consequently spin their study results. Spin has become a standard concept in public relations and politics in recent decades. It is “a form of propaganda, achieved by providing a biased interpretation of an event or campaigning to persuade public opinion in favor of or against some organization or public figure.” The concept of spin can also be applied to scientific communications. Spin could be unconscious and unintentional. Reporting results in a manuscript implies some choices about which data analyses are reported, how data are reported, how they should be interpreted, and what rhetoric is used. These choices, which can be legitimate in some contexts, in another context can create an inaccurate impression of the study results. It is almost impossible to determine whether spin is the consequence of a lack of understanding of methodologic principles, a parroting of common practices, a form of unconscious behavior, or an actual willingness to mislead the reader. However, spin, when it occurs, often favors the author’s vested interest (financial, intellectual, academic, and so forth). There are several ways to spin a report. These different practices are usually interrelated, and the amount of spin in published reports varies. Specific classifications of spin have been developed for different study designs and contexts [randomized controlled trials with non-statistically significant results, observational studies evaluating an intervention, diagnostic accuracy studies, and systematic reviews]. We may report practices of spin organized under misreporting the methods, misreporting the results, misinterpretation, and other types of spin. The classification of the practices that may be reported here represents our chosen approach, but several different approaches are possible. Future work based on systems to inductively code and classify data such as spin would help to provide a rigorous and exhaustive analysis of spin that is generalizable across the manuscripts. One important question is whether spin matters and can actually impact reader’s interpretations of study results. Spin can affect researchers, physicians, and even journalists who are disseminating the results, but also the general public, who might be more vulnerable because they are less likely to disentangle the truth. Patients who are desperately seeking a new treatment could change their behavior after reading distorted reporting and interpretations of research findings. Scientists are under pressure to publish, particularly in high impact factor journals. Publication metrics, such as the number of publications, number of citations, journal impact factor, and h-index are used to measure academic

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productivity and scientist’s influence. Spin in published reports is a significant detrimental research practice. However, the general scientific audience may not be fully aware of this.

Predatory Publishers and Journals A predatory publisher is an opportunistic publishing venue that exploits the academic need to publish but offers little reward for those using their services. The academic publishers perish scenario combined with the relative ease of website creation which created a fruitful market for exploitation of academic authors. Some publishers are predatory on purpose, while others may make mistakes due to neglect, mismanagement, or inexperience. While the motivations and methods vary predatory publishers have common characteristics: • Their primary goal is to mint money (handsome fees are to be charged for publication). • They do not care about the quality of the work published (no or little editing or peerreview process). • They make false claims or promises (false claims of impact factors and indexing). • They engage in unethical business practices (not as per advertisement). • They fail to follow accepted standards or best practices of scholarly publishing. Predatory publisher exploits a new publishing model by claiming to be legitimate open access operation. Online predatory publishers take advantage of the Gold Open Access model. Under this model publication charges provide publishers with income instead of subscriptions. Predatory publishers make false claims (such as quick peer-review) to lure unwary authors into submitting papers. While sending a predatory publisher a manuscript may see it published there is no guarantee that it underwent peer review, is included in indexes like Web of Science and Scopus, or that it will be available in a month much less in 5 years. A predatory journal is a publication that actively asks research scholars/authors for manuscripts without peer-review system or a proper editorial board and publishes bogus research unethically against some money. Predatory journals take advantage of authors by asking them to publish for a fee without providing peer-review or editing services. Because predatory publishers do not follow the proper academic standards for publishing, they usually offer a quick turnaround on publishing a manuscript. In contrast, high-quality academic journals take longer to publish articles because they go through a proper peer review and copyediting process. Here is a curated list of Beall’s criteria for identification of predatory journals and publishers: • No single individual is identified as specific journal’s editor with no formal editorial/ review board or the same editorial board for more than one journal. • The editor and/or review board members do not have academic expertise in the journal’s field.

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• Provides insufficient information or hides information about author fees, offering to publish an author’s paper and later sending an unanticipated “surprise” invoice. • No proper indexing. • The name of a journal is unrelated with the journal’s mission. • The name of a journal does not adequately reflect its origin (e.g., a journal with the word “Canadian” or “Swiss” in its name when neither the publisher, editor, nor any purported institutional affiliate relates whatsoever to Canada or Switzerland). • The publisher has poorly maintained websites, including dead links, prominent misspellings and grammatical errors on the website. • The publisher makes unauthorized use of licensed images on their website, taken from the open web, without permission or licensing from the copyright owners. • Re-publish papers already published in other venues/outlets without providing appropriate credits. • Use boastful language claiming to be a “leading publisher” even though the publisher may only be a start-up or a novice organization. • Provide minimal or no copyediting or proofreading of submissions. • Publish papers that are not academic at all, e.g., essays by lay people, polemical editorials, or pseudo-science. • Have a “contact us” page that only includes a web form or an e-mail address, and the publisher hides or does not reveal its location. • The publisher publishes journals that are excessively broad (e.g., Journal of Education) or combine two or more fields not normally treated together (e.g., International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology) in order to attract more articles and gain more revenue from author fees. Before submitting the research work to a journal, we must use this checklist: • • • • • • •

Do you or your colleagues know the journal? Can you easily identify and contact the publisher? Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses? Are articles indexed in services that you use? Is it clear what fees will be charged? Do you recognize the editorial board? Is the publisher a member of a recognized industry initiative (like COPE, DOAJ, and OASPA)?

Review Questions 1. What do you understand by publication misconduct? Explain COPE guidelines regarding publication misconduct. 2. What are common types of publication misconduct? Explain briefly.

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3. How do human rights, privacy, and confidentiality are concerned with publication misconduct? 4. Why legal acknowledgment of intellectual property is important in publication? 5. Why clinical trial registration numbers should be included in all research papers? 6. Why does the research involving animals should be conducted with the same rigor as research in humans? 7. Explain the relationship between the editor, the journal owner, and publisher in publication. 8. What do you understand by spin publication? Explain briefly. 9. Define predatory publishers and their policy of publication. 10. What are Beall’s criteria for identification of predatory journals and publishers? 11. Write Short Notes on the following: (a) Improper Award of Authorship (b) Breaches of Confidentiality (c) Competing Interests in Publication Misconduct (d) Clinical Trial Registration Numbers (e) Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications (f) Appeals and Corrections

Further Reading Ali Z, Ali A (2008) Violation of publication ethics: a growing concern for journal editors. JPMI 3 Clark L, Kingsolver A (2002) American Anthropological Association. Ethics Committee briefing papers. http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/bp5.html Clark L, Whiteford L (2002) American Anthropological Association. Ethics Committee briefing papers. http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/bp1.html Graf C, Wager E, Bowman A, Fiack S, Scott-Lichter D, Robinson A (2007) Best practice guidelines on publication ethics: a publisher’s perspective. Int J Clin Pract Suppl 61(152):1–26 Marcovitch H (2007) Misconduct by researchers and authors. Gac Sanit 21(6):492–499. www. esteve.org Parasuraman S, Raveendran R, Ahmed KKM (2015) Violation of publication ethics in manuscripts: analysis and perspectives. J Pharmacol Pharmacother 6(2):94–97. http://www.jpharmacol.com/ printarticle.asp?issn=0976-500X Salzano FM, Callegari-Jacques SM (1988) South American Indians: a case study in evolution. Clarendon Press, Oxford Salzano FM, Hurtado AM (2016) Lost paradises and the ethics of research and publication. Oxford University Press, New York Vervaart P (2014) Ethics in online publications. JIFCC 25(3):244–251 Willet WC (2002) Balancing life-style and genomics research for disease prevention. Science 296: 695–698 World Health Organization (1999) Proposed budget 2000–2001. Executive Board 103rd Session. Agenda Item 5. EB103/INF.DOC./5

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Global Intellectual Property Law

Overview Globalization may be defined as a process, or a series of processes, to create and consolidate a unified world economy, a single ecological system and a complex and dynamic network of communications that covers the world. The entire world is interdependent and becoming ever more de-territorialized. Geographical, social, and political boundaries do not disappear but they are eroding worldwide. In understanding globalization processes, an important distinction to bear in mind is that between localized globalism and globalized localism, which shows that globalization occurs in opposing directions often with great tensions between the two. Localized globalism refers to the situation when local conditions change and adapt to international and transnational influences. What is intellectual property? In its purest sense, it is the only absolute possession in the world. As Chaffe stated, “The man who brings out of nothingness some child of his thought has rights therein which cannot belong to any other sort of property.” One textbook defines intellectual property law as the “branch of the law which protects some of the finer manifestations of human achievement.” Another book states that intellectual property law “regulates the creation, use and exploitation of mental or creative labor.” For Spence, an intellectual property right is a right: • that can be treated as property; • to control particular uses; • of a specified type of intangible asset.

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_9

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In addition, intellectual property rights normally share the characteristics that they are: • only granted when the particular intangible asset can be attributed to an individual creator or identifiable group of creators, the creator(s) being presumptively entitled to the right; • enforced by both the civil and criminal law. Intellectual property is hardly a static conception, but is in a state of constant evolution and reconsideration. The first English and Venetian laws were public in nature, a means of harnessing foreign technologies, or of regulating and censoring domestic printing. But by the nineteenth century, intellectual property had become classified as a type of private law, conferring private property rights on the few. The domestic implementation of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement is the base of legal framework of intellectual property law. This is all rather black and white. Perhaps a more correct term would be “sustainable localized globalism” whereby some practical local structures, norms, traditions, and practices are retained. This would better reflect what so often happens when international laws are interpreted in the light of local conditions. In the British colonial era, for instance, the Privy Council always stressed that British laws had to be adapted to the local conditions. The complex way that intellectual property law is made is subsequently traded in the form of “you ‘buy’ our patent law and we will buy more of your wine” types of transaction, and the contested nature of the rights granted requires us to look at the law from all perspectives local, regional, global and also holistic. In the words of Cornish: Intellectual property may be extended to new subject matter either by accretion or by emulation. Accretion involves redefining an existing right so as to encompass the novel material; emulation requires the creation of a new and distinct right by analogy drawn more or less eclectically from the types already known

One consequence of such a multi-faceted approach is that we are bound to encounter clashes between national, transnational, international, customary, and social-economic rules as they relate to specific objects, works, and ideas. The current conventional wisdom is that the world’s most successful nations are those best at producing, acquiring, deploying, and controlling valuable knowledge. Knowledge, especially new knowledge unavailable to one’s rivals, is key to international competitiveness and therefore to national prosperity. However clichéd such a view may be, the fact is that many policymakers believe it to be true and are acting accordingly. It is generally assumed that wealthcreating knowledge of the kind that turns economies into knowledge-based ones, comes almost exclusively out of universities, corporate laboratories and film, music, art and design studios, and not out of such unlikely places as peasant farmer’s fields and indigenous communities. The intellectual property spectrum consists of the following:

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• Patent law: This law grants protection of a limited duration to technological inventions and other types of functional subject matter. However, creations which incorporate functional elements can sometimes also constitute artistic works, industrial designs, and even trademarks. • Copyright law: This law grants a less exclusive type of protection, with a longer term of duration for literary, artistic, and scientific creations, as well as for related works such as performances, broadcasts, and sound recordings; a sub-category is design rights which protects the appearance of products and often overlaps legally and conceptually with artistic works, which technically fall under copyright law. • Trademark law: Marks which function as signs in the marketplace are protected as trademarks. A sub-category is the common law action of passing off, which is less generous in protection than the wider tort of misappropriation or unfair competition. This area has the greatest potential for overlap not only with patents or copyright laws (especially in relation to aesthetic and functional shapes), but also with other areas of economic torts such as privacy, confidentiality, defamation, disparagement of personality and trade, and fraud.

The International Law and Political Economy of Intellectual Property Intellectual property rule-making has become ever more responsive to this increased pressure, as well as to the willingness of national governments keen to enhance the competitiveness of their economies to effectively give transnational corporations what they want, at least most of the time. Since the 1960s and 1970s and up to the present, developed-country intellectual property regimes have undergone some quite profound changes. These changes are of three kinds: • Widening of protectable subject matter, including a tendency to reduce or eliminate exceptions. Such accretion includes the extension of copyright protection to computer programs as if they are literary works, the application of patent protection to cover computer programs, life forms, cells, proteins, and genes, and the removal of exclusions on product patents for drugs. • The creation of new rights. New systems created during the late twentieth century included plant variety protection or plant breeder’s rights and rights to layout designs of integrated circuits. • The progressive standardization of the basic features of intellectual property rights. For instance, patent regulations increasingly provide 20-year protection terms, require prior art searches for novelty and examinations for inventive step or non-obviousness, assign rights to the first applicant rather than the first inventor, and provide protection for inventions in a widening range of industries and technological fields.

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Lying at the heart of the international intellectual property regime is the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The organization was established by the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization and came into existence in 1970 when the convention entered into force. In 1974, WIPO became a United Nations specialized agency. WIPO’s two objectives as stated in Article 3 of the Convention are: • to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation among states and, where appropriate, in collaboration with any other international organization; • to ensure administrative cooperation among the Unions. WIPO currently administers 24 multilateral agreements. TRIPS deal with the actual rights. These are very comprehensive and comprise the following: • • • • • • • •

Copyright and Related Rights; Trademarks; Geographical Indications; Industrial Designs; Patents; Layout Designs (Topographies) of Integrated Circuits; Protection of Undisclosed Information; Control of Anti-competitive Practices in Contractual Licenses.

Legal, Philosophical and Economic Justifications Legal, philosophical, and economic arguments for protecting the creations, investments, and business assets of authors, inventors, producers, and traders go back to Roman times. Over time, intellectual property rhetoric has employed such terms as “incentive,” “reward,” “natural rights,” “public interest,” “public goods,” “free-riding,” and “piracy.” While the justifications and rhetoric’s vary over time and whether the justifier or critic is a creator, investor, user, or member of the public, some of them are very persistent. The variety of rationales and terms justifying “intellectual property” as a classification of legal rights makes the concept very nebulous and ambivalent. Nonetheless, the highly successful deployment of the various justifying rhetoric’s has helped to ensure a tremendous expansion in the scope of intellectual property so that it now includes not only the traditional rights of patents, copyright, trademarks, and designs, but also trade secrets, plant variety protection, database rights, geographical indications and rights to semiconductor chip topographies. We can argue that intellectual property subject matter must be made free for others for a variety of reasons:

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• the raw materials and basic building blocks of creation must be left for future generations of creators; this would include discoveries, traditional or ancient knowledge, and creative works for which the relevant intellectual property rights have expired; • intellectual property matter which has become de facto standards to which other creators or competitors require access; • where intellectual property rights threaten the very existence and workings of the “commons,” that is, the competitive market system. It is well worth nothing at length Hegel’s final and very specific take on intellectual property as he manages to opine on all of the following exceptions for teachers (including law professors), plagiarism, transformative use, minor modifications on inventions, and the perplexing case of factual anthologies: Those engaged in the propagation of knowledge of all kinds, in particular those whose appointed task is teaching, have as their specific function and duty (above all in the case of the positive sciences, the doctrine of a church, the study of positive law, &c.) the repetition of well-established thoughts, taken up as extra and all of them given expression already. The same is true of writings devised for teaching purposes and the spread and propagation of the sciences. Now to what extent does the new form which turns up when something is expressed again and again transform the available stock of knowledge, and in particular the thoughts of others who still retain external property in those intellectual productions of theirs, into a private mental property of the individual reproducer and thereby give him or fail to give him the right to make them his external property as well? To what extent is such repetition of another’s material in one’s book a plagiarism? There is no precise principle of determination available to answer these questions, and therefore they cannot be finally settled either in principle or by positive legislation. Hence plagiarism would have to be a matter of honor and be held in check by honor. Thus, copyright legislation attains its end of securing the property rights of author and publisher only to a very restricted extent, though it does attain it within limits. The ease with which we may deliberately change something in the form of what we are expounding or invent a trifling modification in a large body of knowledge or a comprehensive theory which is another’s work, and even the impossibility of sticking to the author’s words in expounding something we have learnt, all lead of themselves (. . .) to an endless multiplicity of alterations which more or less superficially stamp someone else’s property as our own. For instance, the hundreds and hundreds of compendia, selections, anthologies, &c., arithmetic’s, geometries, religious tracts, &c., show how every new idea in a review or annual or encyclopedia, &c., can be forthwith repeated over and over again under the same or a different title, and yet may be claimed as something peculiarly the writer’s own. The result of this may easily be that the profit promised to the author, or the projector of the original undertaking, by his work or his original idea becomes negligible or reduced for both parties or lost to all concerned.

The highlighted concepts have, in turn, over the ensuing 150 years been used to justify many exceptions and the final statement on loss of profits can even be seen as the nascence of the three-step test, which can be found most recently in TRIPS, prohibiting all uses which “conflict with a normal exploitation” of a work or patent. Hegel is also prescient in predicting that the line between misappropriation and inspiration is thin, and difficult to

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draw. What is food for thought is whether future international law and policy should be based, as he suggests, more on honor rather than on positive legislation.

Copyright Printing technology revolutionized the social and legal infrastructure of the book market. But it did not create the commercial book market. Commercial authors and booksellers have existed from time immemorial. An early example of a thriving monopolistic book trade and seller is the ubiquitous undertaker found in ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and Assyrian ceremonies, who simultaneously arranged funerals and sold copies of the bestselling papyrus known as the “Book of the Dead.” This document was the vital guide to dead souls during their voyage through the next life. One view is that ancient authors had no real shares or interest in the profits of their works as what mattered most was fame and recognition. The twelfth century saw the start of the Secular Age when the book markets shifted from the monasteries to the main European cities, such as Paris and London, and to the university cities such as Bologna, Oxford, and Cambridge. The medieval book market expanded to comprise the following actors: • Stationers: Stationers and the booksellers established themselves as the primary publishers and intermediaries between the author/scribe and the consumer. These publishers were also responsible for other services including the coordination of the manuscript production which included the illuminators, bookbinders and paper/vellum suppliers, book lending, and sale of paper/vellum, and other bookmaking accessories. • Scholars: Intellectual life outside the monasteries centered around the universities, scholars, and students, leading to the further fueling of the book market. Specifically, universities led to the increased dissemination of knowledge, and a growing demand by a new reading public—the university scholars and teachers. • New markets: The entry of all these market players created two types of sub-markets. The first one was the mass-produced book market which made cheap and fast books due to the division of labor between the scribes and illuminators. The second market catered for those with luxurious tastes and produced books which were not so much literature as works of art in terms of illumination and decoration. • Creators/authors: Once divulged, it was impossible for authors to retain any rights in the work and thus authors relied on the very Roman system of patronage. Socioeconomic changes in the author’s position meant that if the work became successful and was in demand, the author could turn publisher by hiring scribes to supply the market. One historian of medieval manuscripts notes this: From the economic viewpoint, the author’s rights may be considered to be vested in that first edition, even if it only consisted of a single copy, since thereafter he had no rights in his work. Hence to some extent the patronage system allowed literary men to live by the pen; the price paid by the author was his obligation not to say anything displeasing to his patron, while at the same time trying to write to please a growing public.

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It was now well accepted that authors deserve protection against all forms of misappropriation of their works. This belief became widespread in the nineteenth century, a century which saw a publishing boom, and perhaps not uncoincidentally, the genesis of international copyright law. The nineteenth century produced not only novels, but also large numbers of histories, geographies, biographies, religious works and political treatises. Between 1837 and 1901, approximately 50,000 novels were published in Britain alone. Sound recording companies began demanding rights in the early twentieth century, especially with the advent of public radio broadcasting which broadcast both live music and recorded music. It was impossible to accommodate them within the Berne Convention (still the only copyright convention) as mechanical recordings just could not be considered to be “authorial” works. The Austrian 1936 law solved the legal dilemma by splitting the copyright regime into “author’s rights” (Urhe- berrecht) and “related rights” (Verwandte Schutzrechte), with the latter covering rights of sound recording producers and broadcasters. The primary cry of the late twentieth century has been for a broader copyright regime due to the challenges posed by even newer technologies such as the reprographic, digital, and compression technologies. The current problems did not arise from any single revolutionary invention but rather are due to the convergence of different technological developments: networked computers, digital file compression, increased computing power, the semiconductor chip leading to personal computing (not to mention affordable PCs), increased telephony coverage and, most importantly, higher communication speed. Stakeholders and policymakers from developed and developing countries face some fundamental questions about copyright law and policy such as: • Should copyright really subsist in telephone directories or lists? • Should copyright law be extended to protect traditional cultural expressions? • Is life plus 50 (or 70) years too long a term of protection for computer programs among other kinds of subject matter? • Why should the rights holder be remunerated when the lawful purchaser of a book or CD wishes to make a private copy of the work? Although copyright law is often said to be a product of technology and commerce, it is decidedly also a product of historical and cultural norms. Different national laws offer different types of rights in relation to different types of works for different durations and much of the divergence lies in the disparate historical and philosophical bases of copyright law. Nevertheless, this has a practical dimension as the world copyright system is roughly divided into the group of countries that adopt the common law or Anglo-American copyright system, and the group of countries that adopt the civil law or continental Europe—a legal tradition. Of course, within these two groups, there are idiosyncrasies such as Canada, which due to its Anglo-French legal traditions offers a truly third way by adopting principles from both sides of the divide. The European civil law countries emphasize that copyright laws emanate from the need to protect the author or creator of the work. This emphasis is even reflected in the terminology employed by such countries—

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rather than “copyright,” the rights are referred to as author’s right (droit d’auteur– French, diritto d’autore – Italian, Urheberrecht – German). Furthermore, the author’s rights are divided into two distinct categories: economic rights and moral rights. Open access publishing is not a new phenomenon as it has been the traditional basis of distributing free newspapers, television and radio broadcasts. These products can be viewed as open access products or services since intellectual property laws are not imposed on the consumer instead of advertising, government and private financing schemes pay for the scheme. There are several notions of what constitutes open accesses. One attempt offers this conciliatory definition: There is disagreement as to what constitutes an ‘open access’ journal . . . Regardless of definition, it is clear that open access publishing is in stark contrast to the traditional publishing model in two possible ways. 1) Access to articles published within these journals is free of charge to the public readership. 2) Copyright restrictions on authors may be removed, and authors retain rights rather than automatically transferring them to publishers

Copyright can be described as a property right, encompassing several distinct exclusive rights, which arise automatically upon creation of a particular class of works. This property right authorizes the copyright owner (who may not necessarily be the creator or author) to do certain acts for a limited period of time. This ambiguous definition indicates the difficulty in drawing a full technical picture of copyright law from the global perspective. Pragmatically, and irrespective of jurisdiction, a person concerned with copyright protection of his work concentrates on five issues: • • • • •

Does copyright subsist in the work? Who owns the copyright in the work? How long does copyright last for? Has someone committed any infringing acts in relation to one’s work? What defenses are available?

There are three main conditions of protection. Firstly, is the work original? Related to this condition is the important distinction between ideas and expression. Secondly, does the work qualify for protection under national law? And finally, some countries provide that works (or some categories of them) will not be protected unless the work is fixed in some material form. The notion of originality is fiendishly difficult to define, and yet is the universally enduring threshold that must be crossed in order for any work to be granted protection for a term of at least 50 years post mortem actor is (or 70 years pma in increasing numbers of jurisdictions including the European Union, the United States, and Australia). Originality in most jurisdictions presumes some level or input of authorial personality, if only it be shown that the work was not copied, but “originated” from the author. There is, however, no accepted standard as to what constitutes this authorial personality. International copyright law has seen the gradual but unceasing inflation of an owner’s rights so

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that permission is now required for reproducing, adapting, communicating, distributing, renting and lending a work. The 1996 WIPO Internet Treaties further widened the communication right to include a making available right, which has been incorporated into the national copyright laws of many countries including all the European Union member states, Australia, Singapore, and implausibly, Iraq. Most of these rights are discussed in respect of digital technology in later chapters. the Berne Convention provides for two moral rights, that is, the right to claim authorship of the work, and the right to object to any mutilation or deformation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the work which would be prejudicial to the author’s honor or reputation. The oldest and most important economic rights are those of reproduction and communication are: • Right of Reproduction: This right, historically recognized in the first United Kingdom, Prussian and American copyright laws, is also recognized under the Berne Convention, the TRIPS Agreement, and the WIPO Treaties. Copying means reproducing the work in any material form by any means. This vague and broad definition enables the rights holder, in many countries, to also control the acts of translation, adaptation, and other types of alterations to the work. The 1996 WIPO Diplomatic Conference adopted an Agreed Statement which reads as follows: The reproduction right, as set out in Art.9 of the Berne Convention, and the exceptions permitted thereunder, fully apply in the digital environment, in particular to the use of works in digital form. It is understood that the storage of a protected work in digital form in an electronic medium constitutes a reproduction within the meaning of Art.9 of the Berne Convention.

• Right of Communication: This right, again recognized early on in French copyright law, is recognizable, in various guises, within the Berne Convention, the TRIPS Agreement, and the WIPO Treaties. The WIPO Treaties confirm that the communication right is available to all authors, performers, and phonogram producers, while broadcasters are granted a limited right to control the communication to the public of their television broadcast under the Rome Convention and TRIPS. • Right to Control Physical Copies/Distribution and Importation: The WIPO Treaties provide authors, performers, and phonogram producers with the exclusive right to authorize the making available to the public of originals and copies of works through sale or other transfer of ownership, that is, an exclusive right of distribution. • Right to Control Physical Copies/Rental and Droit De Suite: The droit de suite (or resale royalty right) refers to the author’s right to a share in the proceeds of subsequent sales of his original work. Original meaning here is the original form (physical copy) in which the work is embodied. The Berne Convention provides for this right in relation to original works of art and original manuscripts, but makes it optional, and applicable only if the legislation in the country to which the author belongs so permits.

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• Technological Rights: It is a new breed of laws which was introduced under the WIPO Internet Treaties which give protection to rights holders who use technological measures to protect their copyright works and who use digital rights management systems embedded in most digital versions of creative works today which allow owners to keep track of the distribution and usage of copyright works. There is little guidance from international conventions in relation to defenses. The Berne Convention does set out certain limitations, but in a narrow sense, rather than setting out broad principles. It provides for the possibility of using protected works in particular cases, without having to obtain the authorization of the owner of the copyright and without having to pay any remuneration for such use including the following: • quotations of published works provided that their making is compatible with fair practice, and the extent does not exceed that justified by the purpose; • use of literary or artistic works in publications, broadcasts or sound or visual recordings for teaching purposes, provided the use is compatible with fair practice; • reproduction by the press, broadcasting or communication to the public by wire (cabling) of newspaper articles on current, economic, political or religious topics; • reproduction for the purpose of reporting current events. In contrast, the United States concept of “fair use” is codified in section 107 of the United States Copyright Act (USCA), which states that: . . . the fair use of a copyrighted work . . . for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include – (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Patents and Trade Secrets The modern system of patents for inventions has some fundamental characteristics that make it different from earlier patent systems. The first step in the modernization of patents came with the adoption of the notion that patents represent a bargain in which inventors are granted limited monopoly rights by the government on behalf of society in exchange for the disclosure of technical information. Over the years, states have granted patents for a variety

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of public policy purposes such as to encourage the immigration of craftsmen, to reward importers of foreign technologies, to reward inventors, to create incentives for further inventive activity, to encourage the dissemination of new knowledge and to allow corporations to recoup their investments in research and development. The way patents have been justified in different countries has always depended to some extent at least on the level of industrial development and also to whom one speaks. Nonetheless, as with other forms of intellectual property (especially copyright), justice-based arguments for stronger and better enforced rights are also frequently deployed, and such claims can carry strong moral force. Patents are tools for economic advancement that should contribute to the enrichment of society through: • the widest possible availability of new and useful goods, services and technical information that derive from inventive activity; • the highest possible level of economic activity based on the production, circulation, and further development of such goods, services, and information. Patents provide inventors with legal rights to prevent others from making, using, selling, or importing their inventions for a fixed period, nowadays normally 20 years. Applicants for a patent must satisfy a national or regional patent issuing authority that the invention described in the application is new, susceptible of industrial application, and that its creation involved an inventive step or would be unobvious to a typically skilled practitioner. Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title. The patent system recognizes inventions of various forms. In Europe, Commonwealth and United States the following are possible: • • • • •

new things (products); new processes; new uses for old things; new advantages of old things used in an old way; selection patents.

Compulsory licensing and government use measures allow third parties or the government to use a patented invention for a royalty or fee, are provided in some countries, through their patent laws, for such purposes as: • to deal with a situation in which a patent owner is unwilling to work his invention; • to satisfy an unmet demand from the public for a patented product; • to introduce price-reducing competition for important but expensive products, for example, some drugs;

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• to deal with a situation in which refusal to license a patent, or the imposition of unreasonable terms, is preventing the exploitation of another invention which is of technical or economic importance; • to prevent abuses of patent rights including by breaking up competition inhibiting monopolies and cartels; • to prevent the creation of potential competition-inhibiting monopolies and cartels.

Trademarks We can find very early evidence of the usage of marks and devices to distinguish goods of one trader from another worldwide. Branding has been in use to mark slaves, animals, and goods since the early Minoan, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Etruscan, and Chinese civilizations. From medieval times, marks were used by various guilds to police the quality of the goods produced by guild members, and to protect members from competitors. After the demise of guilds, marks were still used by traders and manufacturers, especially with the growing numbers of shop-merchants and specialized goods shops which sprang up in the Industrial Revolution. A man is not to sell his goods under the pretense that they are the goods of another man. He cannot be permitted to practice such a deception, nor to use the means which contribute to that end. He cannot therefore be allowed to use names, marks, letters or other indicia, by which he may induce purchasers to believe that the goods which he is selling are the manufacture of another person. Trademarks serve not only to identify and differentiate products in the marketplace, but also to differentiate their purchasers or wearers. Trademarks have become fashion statements. One of the basic functions of a trademark is to act as a sign, a conveyor of information. Trademarks can convey a variety of messages and information to the consumer, and to the public. Fashion trade-marks do much more than simply indicate the origin or quality of manufactured products. They enable consumers to buy goods which speak to the world and declare “this is the sort of person I am.” Modern business itself has cynically utilized this ability of a trademark to be a conveyor and purveyor of lifestyle messages, and have transformed them into sales rhetoric. A primary economic role of the trademark is to enable competitors to guard against unfair trading or competition. Consumers rely on trademark law to protect the distinctive power of the mark so that it can convey information in a more efficient manner. Trademark owners rely on trademark law to prevent other competitors misappropriating or tarnishing their business goodwill, which may lead to the dilution of the mark. As per United States Products Services: Any sign, or any combination of signs, capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings, shall be capable of constituting a trademark. Such signs, in particular words including personal names, letters, numerals, figurative elements, and combinations of colors as well as any combination of such signs, shall be eligible for registration as trademarks. Where signs are not inherently capable of distinguishing

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the relevant goods or services, Members may make registrability depend on distinctiveness acquired through use. Members may require, as a condition of registration, that signs be visually perceptible.

In brief, the absolute legal bars exclude five categories of trademarks, which we will look at in turn: • • • • •

marks which are devoid of any distinctive character; marks which are descriptive; marks which are generic; marks which comprise certain types of shapes; marks which are refused on general grounds of morality and public policy.

European Community Trade Mark Regulation (CTMR), a sign will not be registered as a trademark if it consists exclusively of: • the shape which results from the nature of the goods themselves; • the shape of goods which is necessary to obtain a technical result (for example, the head of a screwdriver; the shape of a ball; the shape of a wheel; Freewheel and crank, etc.); • the shape which gives substantial value to the goods. The registration will also be refused to distinctive trademarks which nevertheless conflict with earlier trademarks or with any other rights which exist in the sign. Protection will be refused if the mark for which registration is sought: • is identical to an earlier registered mark, in relation to identical goods; • is identical or similar to an earlier registered mark, in relation to identical or similar goods, and if there is confusion including a likelihood of association; • is identical or similar to a registered famous mark, in respect of either similar or dissimilar goods, and if unfair advantage is taken of or is detrimental to the distinctive character or repute of the famous mark (anti-dilution). The owner of a registered trademark shall have the exclusive right to prevent all third parties not having the owner’s consent from using in the course of trade identical or similar signs for goods or services which are identical or similar to those in respect of which the trademark is registered where such use would result in a likelihood of confusion. In case of the use of an identical sign for identical goods or services, a likelihood of confusion shall be presumed. The rights described above shall not prejudice any existing prior rights, nor shall they affect the possibility of members making rights available on the basis of use. A Community trademark shall not entitle the proprietor to prohibit a third party from using in the course of trade:

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• his own name or address; • indications concerning the kind, quality, quantity, intended purpose, value, geographical origin, the time of production of the goods or of rendering of the service, or other characteristics of the goods or service; • the trademark where it is necessary to indicate the intended purpose of a product or service, in particular as accessories or spare parts, provided he uses them in accordance with honest practices in industrial or commercial matters.

International Human Rights and Intellectual Property According to human rights commission of India’s definition, human rights are “a set of claims and entitlements to human dignity, which the existing international regime assumes will be provided (or threatened) by the state.” The relationship between intellectual property and human rights is an intriguing one, raising many interesting questions for policymakers. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) offers a broader notion based around an ethical rights-based society which focuses on the just distribution of material and non-material advantages. There are people within the ranks of both supporters and critics of intellectual property who would like to see the future debate on intellectual property rights reframed as a human rights issue. International laws recognize that there is a relevant nexus between international human rights instruments and intellectual property policies and laws. Human rights are not merely concerned with fighting for liberation from unjust regimes; rather they concern also the myriad everyday struggles to maintain a balance between the material and moral well-being of different individuals and groups within a society. A more recent authority who supports the notion that good government and successful societies are based on freedom and respect for human rights is Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen: . . . we also have to understand the remarkable empirical connection that links freedoms of different kinds with one another. Political freedoms (in the form of free speech and elections) help to promote economic security. Social opportunities (in the form of education and health facilities) facilitate economic participation. Economic facilities (in the form of opportunities for participation in trade and production) can help generate personal abundance as well as public resources for social facilities. Freedoms of different kinds can strengthen one another.

The more holistic approach which is further reflected in the two legally binding 1966 covenants, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), can be employed to support the following typology of human rights falling within three generations: • Classical (individual) civil and political rights (traditional bastion of rights which guarantees the rights of the private individual such as the right to life, liberty, and human

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dignity. Sometimes also included are rights of political participation and democratic governance). • Newer (individual) social, economic, and cultural human rights (obliges public authorities to take active measures to provide for the community by granting individual rights to property, food, health care, labor, and education and reflects the current discourse as to how intellectual property rights can affect access to knowledge and essential medicines). • Third generation (collective) human rights (secures collective rights, which include rights to membership in a cultural or indigenous community, access to a healthy environment, and rights to development or self-determination). There are nine core international human rights instruments, but the three most important intellectual property-related documents are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, the ICESCR 1966, and the ICCPR 1966, which together form part of the International Bill of Human Rights, and can be viewed as the constitutional-like basis of human rights norms. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. Although not intended to be a legally binding document, it is nevertheless an astounding document as it offers a universal moral code to every individual and every organ of society and was born due to the disregard and contempt for human rights which had resulted in the Second World War. The primary intellectual property provision is Article 27, UDHR. This provision prescribes rights for moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production. The ICESCR recognizes at a general level that a nation’s social and economic development is realized by improving methods of production, conservation and distribution of resources through technical and scientific knowledge and by developing efficient systems so as to achieve efficient development and utilization of resources. Article 15, ICESCR, reads as follows: • The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone: – To take part in cultural life; – To enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications; – To benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author. • The steps to be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include those necessary for the conservation, the development, and the diffusion of science and culture. • The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to respect the freedom indispensable for scientific research and creative activity. • The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the benefits to be derived from the encouragement and development of international contacts and cooperation in the scientific and cultural fields (emphasis added).

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Whereas the human right to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from one’s scientific, literary, and artistic productions safeguards the personal link between authors and their creations and between peoples, communities, or other groups and their collective cultural heritage, as well as their basic material interests which are necessary to enable authors to enjoy an adequate standard of living, intellectual property regimes primarily protect business and corporate interests and investments. Copyright is a human right lies in the Solemn Declaration adopted in the 1986 Centenary Assembly of the Berne Union, where member states declared, inter alia, the following: . . . that copyright is based on human rights and justice and that authors, as creators of beauty, entertainment and learning, deserve that their rights in their creation be recognized and effectively protected both in their own country and in all other countries of their world.

There is, undoubtedly, a major flaw in intellectual property law in that existing exceptions and limitations are not governed by coherent international rules but are ad hoc home-grown provisions which tend to assume that intellectual property laws are compatible with international human rights norms. A second difficulty is that national courts tend to treat a defendant’s claims based on human rights as an attempt by the defendant to invoke a defense to an infringement of an intellectual property right. This is a wrong approach as any counter-argument based on human rights calls for a balancing exercise between two competing and equal sets of positive rights.

Information Technologies and the Internet There is a nexus between technology, especially digital technology, and intellectual property policy from a contemporary historical perspective. New technologies for society and business, can upset the established patterns of production, distribution, and consumption of goods. We need technology-friendly intellectual property policies. But designing such policies is far from easy. New technologies are helping the commercial, creative, and cultural industries by opening up new streams of revenue from licensing and exploitation. E-commerce has made brand managers realize that trademarks, which were hitherto geographically limited to national markets, could now become global marks. This is all good for business, but the public can undoubtedly gain a great deal too. The twin phenomena of digitization and the internet present several formidable challenges and opportunities to both creators and users of intellectual property. Copyright was technology’s child from the start. There was no need for copyright before the printing press. But as movable type brought literature within the reach of everyone, and as the preferences of a few royal, aristocratic or simply wealthy patrons were supplanted by the accumulated demands of mass consumers, a legal mechanism was needed to connect consumers to authors and publishers commercially. Copyright is the only solution and answer for this problem. Here is a summary of the balance sheet as it stands:

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• Risks for Owners: – Perfect copies (all protected content in the networked environment is in a digital form, and each new generation of software and hardware technology makes it easier to make perfect mass copies of such works). – Distribution (the distribution of digital works undermines the ability of creators and rights owners to derive profits from their works, which may in some circumstances lead to the stifling of creativity as the rewards and incentives for producing works disappear). • Opportunities for Intellectual Property Owner: – Price diminution (technology has led to the reduction of costs of printing and distributing books to consumers, which in turn has led to lower book prices, surely quelled the average consumer’s enthusiasm in developed countries for photocopying whole books as opposed to purchasing them lawfully). – New income sources (the introduction of works, especially music and films, in improved digital formats raises a new source of income as the average consumer replaces his existing collection of works with these digital versions). • Consumer Demands: – Lower costs of products (books and music can be distributed in an electronic format directly from the creator/producer to the consumer, and several well-known authors are toying with this phenomenon. Middlemen or retailers could be eliminated). – Cheaper and wider distribution (the current formulae for the sale of consumer products is dictated by the retailer or the producer. For example, students must purchase an entire book rather than just the chapters or pages that they wish to study though as discussed below, Google print may change this model). – Knowledge accessibility (moreover, with the advent of digital libraries, difficult to obtain works and information could be readily accessed at a fraction of the current cost). – Cultural diversity and preservation (global music and film production and distribution are controlled by a small group of producers/distributors who dictate the tastes of many consumers according to market demands). Increased availability of electronic resources, particularly at locations remote to the library buildings, is thought to have contributed to a 60% fall in the number of visits to library premises over the last 5 years. Digital libraries, thus, challenge the old order of copyright which operates neatly in a bifurcated world of scholarly libraries and commercial publishing. If the photocopier created new competing markets domestically, digitization and the internet created new competing markets on a global scale. The ability to scan works onto computers and networks changes the way in which knowledge resources are managed and accessed. This is a perennial problem in relation to intellectual property goods: public interest merely dictates access to essential intellectual property goods, but does not necessarily provide the funds to give such access a practical effect. Consequently, we often find ourselves having to share the exploitation of our common heritage with those

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best able to do so, often corporations having particular interests that are not always in complete alignment with those of the general public. Legal difficulties might be faced by authors, publishing houses, and corporations like Google and Microsoft who wish to create digital libraries. On the other hand, these difficulties appear pretty insignificant and bureaucratic if one believes that the future of electronic libraries is to become “a universal archive that will contain not only all books and articles but all documents anywhere—the basis for a total history of the human race.” The relevant Wikipedia entry sets out the advantages of digital libraries, which include: • easy access to books, archives, and images; • low cost as no payment for staff, book maintenance, rent, and additional books though digital libraries incur costs in relation to software development and technical staff; • no physical boundary, and multiple accesses allowing same resources to be used at the same time by a number of users all over the globe; • information retrieval system which enables one to search the entire collection with any search term; • preservation and conservation as an exact copy of the original can be made any number of times without any degradation in quality; • space as traditional libraries are limited by storage space; • networking as digital libraries can provide a seamlessly integrated and shared resource. Peer-to-peer (P2P) systems usually lack dedicated, centralized infrastructures. Instead, they depend on the voluntary participation of peers to contribute resources out of which the infrastructure is constructed. In a P2P distribution network, the information available for access does not reside on a central server or one computer; rather, each computer makes information available to every other computer in the network. The new provisions on Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) allow copyright owners to limit reproduction or communication of a locked copyright work, sometimes even to the extent of stopping third parties accessing works which have been digitally locked up (either by encoding, scrambling, encryption, or other tools). The TPMs provisions implemented in some countries to expose a lawful purchaser of a digital product to both civil and criminal sanctions if such a lawful purchaser circumvents a technological lock to access forbidden material on the digital product. This is so even when the product comprises the following types of material or data: • pure data or ideas, either wholly or substantially; • those materials or data which are not subject to copyright protection under certain jurisdictions. These may include laws, government reports, and court judgments (specific exceptions which are allowed under the Berne Convention and the TRIPS Agreement);

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• materials which have fallen out of copyright protection; • educational or historical documents which may be used in normal circumstances under a fair use or fair dealing or educational or a public interest defense. Computer programs are primarily protected under copyright law. They have been accepted as “literary works,” both in the international and European legal arena. There is no definition of computer programs under EC law, though the term includes preparatory design material leading to the development of a computer program provided that the nature of the preparatory work is such that a computer program can result from it at a later stage. Under EU law, protection will be granted to a computer program which is original in the sense that it is the author’s own intellectual creation—no further criteria as to the qualitative or aesthetic merit of the program will be applied. In a British court decision, the court issued the following guidelines as to how the question of substantial copying should be dealt with: • First, a literal comparison between programs is difficult as programs can be written in different computer languages which bear no literal similarity. Thus, non-literal elements such as structure, arrangement, menus, formats, etc. should be considered. • Secondly, one should compare the protected program with the offending program to see whether there are any similarities between the two works. If so, were such similarities due to copying? • Finally, if some elements have been copied, are such elements a substantial part of the protected program or an insubstantial part of the protected program.

Intellectual Property and Development Development is a term whose meaning is contested by social scientists and international development experts and organizations. Nowadays, it is common to speak of economic development, which focuses on a country’s measurable economic performance relative to that of other countries of human development, which supplements economic development by incorporating social welfare considerations; and of sustainable development, which takes into account the environment as well. In 2000, the United Nations Millennium Summit was held at which UN member states agreed on a set of goals and targets for achieving development. The eight goals are now known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and are as follows: • • • • •

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Achieve universal primary education; Promote gender equality and empower women; Reduce child mortality; Improve maternal health;

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• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; • Ensure environmental sustainability; • Develop a global partnership for development. The first official attempt to challenge the international intellectual property regime for failing to meet the development needs of poor countries was made in 1961, when the government of Brazil submitted a draft resolution co-sponsored by Bolivia to a committee of the United Nations General Assembly. United Nations Secretary-General prepared a report containing: • a survey of patent legislation in selected developed and underdeveloped countries, with primary emphasis on the treatment given to foreign patents; • a study of the effects of royalties paid for the use of patents in the balance of payments of underdeveloped countries; • a preliminary analysis of the characteristics of the domestic legislation of underdeveloped countries in the light of economic development objectives; • an indication of the possibility of revising legislation in accordance with the principles of international law, with a view to permitting the rapid absorption of new products and techniques to accelerate the rate of economic development; • a recommendation on the advisability of holding an international conference with the aim of adjusting the existing patent conventions to the needs of developing countries. As to pro-development intellectual property norm-setting, the document offered some principles and guidelines to make negotiations more inclusive and pro-development. These include: • undertaking independent, evidence-based “Development Impact Assessment” (DIA) to consider the possible implications of each norm-setting initiative for core sustainable development indicators; • incorporating provisions recognizing the difference between developed and developing WIPO member states in all norm-setting initiatives; • holding public hearings prior to the initiation of any discussion toward norm-setting in WIPO, with the broad participation of different stakeholders, including other intergovernmental organizations, academia, consumer groups, and other civil society organizations.

Education, Culture, and Knowledge The advent of the internet coupled with the increasing availability of individual computing power has expanded access to and usage of informational products, especially cultural, scientific, and academic works. However, the downside has been that far-reaching

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provisions have been introduced into international and national intellectual property laws especially copyright law which curtail access to such products, and may even have tipped the balance toward the intellectual property owners and away from the general public. There is a growing realization of the potential impact of current intellectual property laws on cultural and educational policies. The increased availability and attraction of digital works, as well as public domain and public commons projects and organizations such as Open Source, IP Justice, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Global Internet Liberation Campaign, the Digital Divide Network, the Digital Libraries project by Google and Microsoft, the Adelphi Charter, the BBC Creative Archive, and the Creative Commons license project, have merely highlighted the growing public interest need for a review of the balance which copyright law has hitherto attempted to achieve vis-à-vis access and learning. The human right to education implicitly carries much larger public welfare and communitarian elements than compulsory elementary education alone. The gist of the education components as found in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Articles 13–14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), is as follows: • education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity; • to secure compulsory, free primary education; • to ensure secondary education is made generally available and accessible to all, especially by the progressive introduction of free education; • to ensure higher education is made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, in particular by the progressive introduction of free education; • fundamental education shall be encouraged or intensified. The 1999 General Comment No. 13 on the right to education 11 states that part of the aim of the provision is to make states set up an adequate infrastructure to facilitate the proper functioning of educational institutions. Accordingly, factors to be taken into account include teaching materials, library facilities, computer facilities, and information technology. The national government in India, for instance, took the position that: the high production costs of scientific and technical books standing in the way of their dissemination in developing countries could be substantially reduced if the advanced countries would freely allow their books to be reprinted and translated by underdeveloped countries

The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions 2005 (Cultural Diversity Convention) entered into force on 18 March 2007 and adopts the approach that intellectual property rights should be subservient to demands concerning culture and development. Although not an international human rights instrument in the strict, technical sense, the Cultural Diversity Convention has eight guiding

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principles which do explicitly espouse several human rights principles. The pertinent sections within the Convention are: • . . . importance of traditional knowledge as a source of intangible and material wealth, and in particular the knowledge systems of indigenous peoples (Preamble); • . . . freedom to create, disseminate and distribute their traditional cultural expressions and to have access thereto, so as to benefit them for their own development (Preamble); • Recognizing the importance of intellectual property rights in sustaining those involved in cultural creativity (Preamble); • . . . cultural activities, goods and services have both an economic and a cultural nature . . . must therefore not be treated as solely having commercial value’(Preamble); • Cultural diversity can be protected and promoted only if human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of expression, information and communication . . . (Article 2.1); • Equitable access to . . . cultural expressions . . . and access of cultures to the means of expressions and dissemination (Article 2.7); • Cultural expressions are those expressions that result from the creativity of individuals, groups and societies, and that have cultural content (Article 4.3); • . . . cultural policies and measures . . . may include . . . measures aimed at nurturing and supporting artists and others involved in the creation of cultural expressions (Articles 6.1 and 6.2(g), emphasis added); • . . . protection, promotion and maintenance of cultural diversity are an essential requirement for sustainable development for the benefit of present and future generations (Article 2.6); • . . . encourages individuals and social groups . . . to create, produce, disseminate, distribute and have access to their own cultural expressions . . . including indigenous peoples (Article 7). A recent report by the British Academy argues that copyright is impeding scholarship in social sciences and the humanities and that the existing copyright exceptions are not clear enough. Suggested strategies by the Academy report are the same as one read in almost every other report on intellectual property rights and knowledge and education: • educating authors about their interests; • clarifying copyright law to make clear that the use of copyright material in the normal course of scholarly research in universities and other public research institutions is covered by the exemptions; • preventing from using legal or technological measures to circumvent copyright exemptions; • monitoring digital databases to ensure access for the purposes of scholarship.

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Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

What is intellectual property? Define intellectual property law. What is the function of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)? What do you know about TRIPS? Explain its functions briefly. Explain the rights of reproduction and communication of Intellectual property. Which are legal, philosophical, and economic arguments for protecting the creations, investments, and business assets of authors, inventors, producers, and traders? How patents are tools for economic advancement? How printing technology revolutionized the social and legal infrastructure of the book market? Explain fundamental characteristics of patent systems. Why trademarks serve to identify and differentiate products in the marketplace? Write Short Notes on the Following: (a) Intellectual Property Spectrum (b) The International Law and Political Economy of Intellectual Property (c) Legal, Philosophical and Economic Justifications (d) Economic Rights of Reproduction and Communication (e) United States Products Services (f) Universal Declaration of Human Rights (g) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Further Reading Bently L, Sherman B (2004) Intellectual property law, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Dutfield G (2003) Intellectual property rights and the life science industries: a twentieth century history. Ashgate, Aldershot Dutfield G, Suthersanen U (2008) Global intellectual property law. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, Massachusetts Gowers A (2006) Review of intellectual property: a call for evidence. HM Treasury, London Kaufer E (1980) The economics of the patent system. Harwood Academic Publishers, Chur Koskinen-Olsson T, Gervais D (1999) Electronic commerce and copyright: a key role for WIPO. In: WIPO Advisory Committee on management of copyright and related rights in global information networks. WIPO, Geneva. Document ACMC/2/1 Ladas S (1975) Patents, trademarks, and related rights: national and international protection. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rose M (1993) Authors and owners: the invention of copyright. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Spence M (2007) Intellectual property. Oxford University Press, Oxford

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Sterling JAL (2003) World Copyright Law, 2nd edn. Sweet & Maxwell, London Stewart SM (1989) International Copyright and neighbouring rights, 2nd edn. Butterworths Law, London Twining W (2000) Globalisation and legal theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UNDP (1999) Human development report. UNDP and Oxford University Press, New York WIPO (2007) Report of the Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda [WIPO Document A/43/13 Rev]

Open Access Publishing

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Overview Open access is the concept of making publicly funded research freely available to all at the point of use. This is a change from traditional academic publishing where there is a subscription charge before the item, usually a journal article in this context, is available. There are two models for achieving this aim, both of which rely on having publicly accessible repositories available in which authors can deposit their work; these can be subject or institutionally based. There have been three influential meetings which have progressed this concept of open access. The first was in Budapest, Hungary in December 2001, the second in Bethesda, USA in April 2003, and the third was in Berlin, Germany in October 2003. These are each examined in turn below: • The Budapest Open Access Initiative: This meeting brought together a small set of interested parties to discuss how literature which is provided freely by authors can be disseminated freely to end users. The meeting identified two strategies to achieving the long-term goal: – Self-Archiving: depositing a copy of the peer-reviewed article in an open repository; – Open Access Journals: these will be funded by other means rather than subscription and will encompass both new and existing journals making the articles freely available to the end user. • The Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing: This meeting brought together interested parties in the biomedical subject area to discuss how progress could be made in achieving the goal of freely available academic literature. These parties included publishers, librarians, and funding organizations. The resulting statement defined two criteria for publications to be considered to be open access:

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_10

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– rights to access and use the material are granted to users in perpetuity by the copyright holders; – a complete version of the work is submitted to an appropriate repository which is committed to long-term archiving. The meeting had three working groups which also made statements: 1. Institutions and funding agencies encouraged the authors they supported financially to adopt the principles of open access publishing, acknowledged that there would be financial implications, reaffirmed that the quality of the work was the most important factor in publishing, and stated they would consider open access publishing when looking at appointments or grant applications. 2. Libraries and publishers acknowledged that there would be disruption as the publishing paradigm altered. The libraries proposed to support the transition publicize the benefits and to highlight open access journals. 3. Scientists and scientific societies endorsed the principles, highlighted the importance of the publishing process, and committed to using and educating others about the benefits of open access and reflecting this in appointments and tenure.

• The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities: This meeting set out to suggest measures to promote the internet as an instrument for providing and maintaining the academic knowledge base within an open access context. Their definition of an “open access contribution” went further than papers and included original scientific results and digital representations of pictures, etc. Two conditions were put forward: first, that there be no restrictive licenses or copyright assigned, and second, that the content be in at least one publicly accessible repository. With the gold route, the paper is published in a journal which is free at the point of use. As there are costs involved with journal production, the payment has to be transferred to another point in the cycle. There are two common methods: either the journal is subsidized by interested parties or the author pays a fee when the paper is submitted for publication. In an ideal world the institution or project that is supporting the research has a dissemination budget to ensure that open access titles can be used. There are growing numbers of these and the Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/) is a good source of information about them. With the green route, the paper is placed in an openly accessible repository (subject or institutional) as the primary place of publication but may also be formally published. Most publishers allow the deposition of an article into a repository, although there are differences as to whether this version is prepublication or the final published version. Some publishers also have an embargo period, which means that there is a gap between the article being published and accessible from a repository. The SHERPA/RoMEO service (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php) tracks the different publisher and journal positions on this and is an invaluable resource.

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Most of the digital systems and services for technology-supported learning/education, referring to innovative methods, tools/systems/techniques, and technology-supported services are recognized as the key drivers to transform the way that individuals/groups/ organizations earn and the way to assess learning in the modern era. These transformations influence objectives moving from acquiring new knowledge to develop certain new and relevant competences/methods moving from classroom-based teaching to context-aware personalized learning, and assessment moving from lifelong degrees and certifications to on-demand and in context accreditation of qualifications. Within this context, promoting open access to formal and informal learning is currently a key issue in the public discourse and global dialogue on education/research.

Promoting Open Access Over the past decade, the term Open Educational Resources (OERs) has emerged, aiming to promote open access to digital educational resources, in the form of Learning Objects (LOs) that are openly licensed and available online for everyone to use (Caswell 2008). UNESCO (2002) has defined OERs as the “technology enabled, open provision of educational resources for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes.” The expected benefits of OERs for learners and teachers can be summarized as follows (Geser 2007): • They are free to use and publicly available; • They can be used and/or reused in teaching and learning (usually with attribution to the creator); • They can be repurposed, i.e., modified/adapted for different educational contexts of use; • They can improve teaching by building on other people’s work; • Their development is a global movement and as a result educational community across borders can be created around them. Traditionally, in higher education, a course is a teaching unit that lasts one academic semester, which is led by one or more instructors, and has a fixed roster of students. Students may receive a grade and credit after completing the course. Generally speaking, a course should contain elements of instructors, students, content, interaction between the teacher and students, evaluation, etc. Since 2006, Khan Academy (Salman Khan) became well known for its micro video lectures on various subjects; a similar and popular video lectures project, the Open Yale Courses, was offered to share lectures recorded in the Yale College classroom in video, audio, and text transcript formats since December 2007. Such video open courses were popular because they met people’s microlearning needs, but the interaction and evaluation were missing in these video open courses, which meant that the video open courses were good resources but not high-quality courses. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) were first applied in 2008 to describe a particular model of open online

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courses developed by Stephen Downes and George Siemens (Boyatt et al. 2014). The concept of the MOOC has extended to denote almost all courses offered for free, online, and at scale. As a new and emerging type of course, MOOCs fully utilize technologies to support interaction between the teachers and learners, and among learners, which enhanced the learning outcome. However, the balance of scale and personal learning quality is a big issue for MOOCs. Inclusive learning has been the focus of numerous efforts worldwide (Florian and Linklater 2010). Therefore, several frameworks have been developed aiming to support the provision of flexible or individualized learning experiences that address inclusion such as differentiated learning (Tomlinson and McTighe 2006) and universal design for learning (Rose and Meyer 2002). These frameworks recognize the broad diversity of learners with respect to ability, language, culture, gender, age, and other forms of human difference and they provide specific learning design principles to ensure accessibility of all learner types to the learning environment or education delivery. In higher learning up till now, the idea of individual learners having an overall grasp of their attainment level with reference to a target did not exist. This was because the teachers providing the curriculum were specialists in specific domains and did not pay much attention to students’ overall growth and development. The students for their part studied only the specialized subjects set out for them and did not appreciate what they learned from the perspective of the global question: To the formation of which attributes and skills does each subject contribute? In online, asynchronous courses, whereby the students and instructor do not meet, obtaining reliable assessment measures becomes more difficult than in a traditional faceto-face (F2F) class. It is important to collect several pieces of information about the performance being assessed to increase reliability (Airasian and Russell 2007). Although it is possible as an instructor to elicit online quizzes, papers, and projects from students, there is still the dilemma of determining who is (and how many are) involved in the submission of the common assessment items. There are issues with the Course Management System (CMS) interfaces that influence testing processes in a manner that impacts results. It is possible to look at the process of developing one’s content knowledge as input and demonstrating what one knows as output. More commonly, this is referred to as learning and assessment. In introducing any topic of investigation, it is usually helpful to understand why it is presented and what its key drivers are; a listener or reader often finds it helpful to understand the context of an investigation in order to make some initial sense prior to embarking on giving it further attention. Such a context can also be described in terms of motivation, purpose, rationale, and/or justification for the work or as advance organizers (Ausubel 1960). Perspectives that emerge from responding to questions can also help to establish context to answers: • Why is this chapter included in this current volume? • What is the central argument of this chapter? • How does this chapter connect with the theme of open access?

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Social networks, crowdsourcing, and open access to learning have recently received a lot of attention in the area of technology-enhanced learning and have moved over into hot topics of conversation within the wider educational community. These ideas have introduced new concepts along with ideas of learning as a social activity and communities of learners (Haythornwaite 2011). Learners who already engage with social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, and accept that they live their lives in the social age with the public or openness that goes with it (Jarvis 2011), expect similar capabilities in their learning environments, sometimes even expecting the learning processes to be connected in some way to their social networks. Technology is refining the “natural alliance between learning as a contextual activity and the new personal, mobile technology, so that it is becoming feasible to equip learners with powerful tools to support learning anytime, anywhere.” Mobile and learning are so closely connected that experts have started to define learning as native in the mobile world: Learning is going native in the mobile world—ubiquitous, always on, real-time, built into everyday life. The kinds of learning that have traditionally been the subject of classroom instruction will soon cease to necessarily be an event-driven static interruption for employees, students, and customers (Brandon 2013).

The strength of mobile learning lies in taking advantage of the rapidly evolving scope of mobile technologies. Woodill (2011) acknowledges that there is a shift in the perception of mobile learning, claiming that “Ten years ago, mobile learning was about displaying e-learning on a small screen.” He argues that now it allows learners to learn in an anywhere, anytime manner and to access information when needed. Being able to sense the context and location of the learner has opened up many possibilities for researchers to create more engaging, contextualized, and personalized learning activities, thus maximizing the benefit of the learning experience. Personalization is one of the strengths of mobile learning. According to Kinshuk (2009), personalization could be acquired either by adapting to the learner’s characteristics, learning styles, performance, and needs, or by adapting to the context in which the learning is taking place. The understanding of “learning to learn together” (L2L2) is inspired by the real working lives of professionals having to work together with others in teams to solve complex problems and make decisions. The United States National Research Council (2000; Grandy and Duschl 2007) strengthened its definition of dialogical processes of inquiry beyond conceptual learning goals and decided to add the following dialogic features to inquiry learning process: • • • •

Responds to criticisms from others. Formulates appropriate criticisms of others. Engages in criticism of own explanations. Reflects on alternative explanations and not have a unique resolution.

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Game Based Learning (GBL) or learning with Digital Learning Games (DLGs) has been one of the most discussed and propagated forms of media-based learning in recent years. Some programmatic authors (Gee and Prensky 2007) are extremely optimistic in regard to the potential benefits of GBL, and there is a growing corpus of empirical research on educational uses of DLGs (Shelton and Wiley 2007; Tobias and Fletcher 2011). However, little effort has been spent until now in systematically analyzing the theoretical underpinnings of learning with digital games. The main goal of teaching in higher education is to foster autonomous knowledge construction and skill development. Considering the present knowledge society and the demands of the socioeconomic environment, the learning processes cannot be limited by traditional teaching frameworks. Although teaching in the traditional system, in either a formal or informal way, is necessary and, in some knowledge areas, irreplaceable, the use of other teaching and learning approaches is crucial. Digital media and software should be used as a help supporting learning in combination with traditional materials rather than using the software as an exclusive means for learning.

Institutional Repositories: Content and Culture The word repository has a number of meanings subject to different communities while its formal definition has changed over the last 35 years. The tenth edition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary (2000) defines repository as a “receptacle; place where things are stored or may be found, museum, warehouse, store, shop; burial place.” This is a useful starting point as it captures two of the most important aspects of any repository: a safe place to put something and the expectation that there will be a method of finding it again. By the 13th (revised) edition in 2012, the definition is “a place where, or receptacle in which, things are stored; a place where something is found in significant quantities.” Here, the emphasis on quantity of content is another useful aspect to repositories in general and institutional repositories in particular, as successful repositories need a critical mass of content to justify the effort of searching it, in terms of the investment in time and learning new information location skills. In these general definitions we can see that there is no clear description of the content of the repository. In a digital context, the term “repository” implies that, in addition to the objects themselves or the digital representation of objects, there will be information describing said objects. In this context, such information is referred to as metadata. There are many types of metadata but the most common is descriptive metadata, which is the type of information about an object that would go into a library catalogue record. The Digital Library Federation uses the following working definition of a digital library: Digital libraries are organizations that provide the resources, including the specialized staff, to select, structure, offer intellectual access to, interpret, distribute, preserve the integrity of, and ensure the persistence over time of collections of digital works so that they are readily and economically available for use by a defined community or set of communities.

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Repositories use technological mechanisms to achieve the same subject-based functionality. A mechanism for achieving cross-searching repositories is the use and availability of the Open Archives Initiative—Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). A large amount of the freely available full text at present is held in subject-based repositories such as arXiv (http://arxiv.org/) for particle physics and PubMed Central (http://www. pubmedcentral.nih.gov/) and PubMed UK (http://ukpmc.ac.uk/) for the biomedical sciences. These have been developed by sections of specialist communities for their research community.

The Changing Information Environment Computers have revolutionized information storage and retrieval. In the library domain, information retrieval routes use resources such as card catalogues with present indices. Printed paper abstracts from third-party aggregators have been swept away by library management systems with their associated online catalogues and abstract and indexing databases, where the metadata in bibliographic records can be used to locate the required information. This has also been further developed with digital library systems to provide digital access to the object. The same changes have affected publishing, making the production of the written word easier and opening access to the prepublication stages more widely than before. To be able to influence the decision makers and the potential users of the repository, it is first useful to identify them and their particular viewpoints. In this environment, stakeholders can be grouped into four broad categories: • Users of Information (End Users): End users are defined as the group of people who need access to the contents of academic material to support their research, teaching, or learning. These users are likely to have a strong sense of belonging to a subject-based community with a set of expectations of the type of material that will satisfy their requirements. They must be able to identify, locate, and read relevant information. In this context, end users are a collection of individuals, not corporate entities. • Information Providers: This group consists of both individuals and corporate entities. The common theme is the dissemination of information, either by producing it or providing the mechanisms to provide access to it. This is an area with a lot of symbiosis, as authors depend on a publishing mechanism as the main dissemination method, publishers depend on people and organizations buying the material, and organizations, usually through their library, depend on the material being available and of sufficient quality to be useful for their user communities. The entire publishing paradigm is based on having authors. They produce their written output to disseminate the results of their research or project. Peer reviewers are recognized experts within their domain and contribute to the dissemination field by peer-reviewing material, typically journal articles or conference papers. The peer-review process is designed to ensure that the intellectual content of the material is checked for validity. They provide their services

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free of charge but gain recognition within their domain for their expertise. Publishers are the organizations that take the written intellectual output from an author and transform it into an information commodity which is acquired by, or on behalf of, end users. The role of the library and information service is to select resources at the appropriate level(s) for their user communities and to use their skills to provide access in the most appropriate manner within the budget allocated by the organization. • Information Mediators: These organizations or individuals contribute to the provision of content by providing alternative location methods. They are not actually responsible for the creation or distribution of the content. Such organizations overlay specific publishers to provide information resources at a higher level than aggregation at a specific subject level, such as provided by journal title. These information resources are now usually provided in electronic form and give access to information on content within certain domain or material types. These are following developments such as Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) and changes in the way’s publishers make their journals available electronically, general purpose search engines, designed to locate any resource on the internet, are often the starting point for many readers when trying to locate scholarly work. • Users of Meta-Information: This group of organizations is more interested in using information about the content, rather than the content itself, for internal management processes. These organizations have a great influence as they tend to have sufficient budget to support research, teaching, and learning. Funders provide financial support to institutions, projects, and programs to broaden knowledge in particular domains and there is an expectation that the results will be disseminated through public mechanisms so that the full benefits of the research reach the community for which it is intended. It can be difficult for a funder to assess the publishing success of a particular program due to the inherent problems in collecting this information. The organization’s academic performance can be measured by levels and quality of research output and the publishing sphere is a strong component of this at present. The production and distribution of journals have undergone the most change where advances in technology and the format of the material being provided have given the greatest opportunities for expanding information provision. One such high impact factor is the change to an electronic delivery mechanism. For some titles this is achieved by producing an electronic version of the print original, in other cases the title is only available electronically. Most journals in the science, technology, and medicine (STM) sector have electronic services and the number of electronic-only titles is steadily rising. These electronic journals have many benefits to end user stakeholders as outlined below: • They are the preferred delivery mechanism for most academic users. The information required is accessible from their working environment without physically having to go to the library building.

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• Electronic versions are able to link to simulations, graphics and even the underlying data, thus exploiting capabilities that the print medium cannot offer. • For print titles, issues need to be physically distributed from the printer to the reader; for titles published overseas this could take weeks and this delay is therefore apparent to the subscriber. In delivering the article to the desktop, electronic access has accelerated, or in some cases abolished, the access lead time to publications. This has obvious benefits to the readers of the material. • Electronic access extends beyond the period that the technology has been available. The medium has been so popular that many publishers have invested in digitizing their entire back catalogues of journal titles to increase access, usage, and leverage value on existing outputs. • Electronic access has reduced barriers by allowing for multiple concurrent use of the same subscription so the journal is always available for the end user regardless of how many other people are reading it. The benefits to organizations and the libraries can be summarized as under: • Multi-site licenses have reduced the need for duplication for libraries with more than one site. This has widened the potential usage of each subscription. • Statistics are easy to produce and with the standardization work of Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER) it is possible to compare across journal providers and publishers (http://www.projectcounter.org/). • Electronic back catalogues have meant that retention schedules can be examined to see if the print version is still required, thus releasing space in the physical environment. • The technique of bundling or big deals has widened the number of titles to which libraries can give access. The positive changes for libraries may be considered as under: • The license restrictions mean that there are limitations on who can use the material. This is a particularly complex area. In the print world, a library could allow anyone who was entitled to enter the building to use their journal collection. In the electronic world, especially for libraries using academic licenses, then the status of the person is important. • The medium makes it difficult to ensure that the title is accessible and has led to a new collection of access issues beyond the journal being lost in the post. • Access to the full subscription period may become unavailable if the title is cancelled by the publisher. This models the database subscription world where access ceases once it is not being paid for. • Bundling may provide access to titles that are less relevant to the collection. Subsequently there is a management decision about what to do with these additional titles.

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• As electronic journals have shifted the paradigm from ownership of print to access to electronic resources typically located on the provider’s equipment, preservation and perpetual access to the information that has been purchased is outside the remit of the library with the subscription. • Persistent identification of electronic articles is addressed by the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) service provided by CrossRef (http://www.crossref.org/).

Changing Information Seeking Behaviors The changes in the way information is provided together with other technological and social changes have led to a revolution in the way that information is located and perceived by those who need to find and use it. These changes which have been enabled through technology have led to a learning and research environment where information needs blend seamlessly with everyday needs. For example, the same information retrieval skills might be used to locate electronically a telephone number or an academic paper. Those people whose environment has always included networked computers have a more seamless attitude to information than those who have lived through these changes in information provision. Online communities have been built using tools such as mailing list services, like JISCmail (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk) in the UK, for at least a decade. A well-known and early example of this shift is Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/), which uses wiki technology to produce an encyclopedia. Wikipedia has brought both strengths and weaknesses to information content and provision. It builds on shared values and altruism to aggregate and disseminate information. The next stages in collaborative work, which can be used in both formal and informal settings, are services such as the webpage bookmarking site Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/) and the digital picture sharing site Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/), which allow the sharing of personal resources with a wider community which is not formalized in the way that mailing lists are. Another interesting development is Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com/), a virtual world in which users can interact with each other and the environment through avatars. However, there is an acknowledgment in the development of tools such as Google Scholar that the concepts of relevance and quality are important to some topics. Google Scholar limits the harvesting/ indexing domain to sites which are considered to be academic and high quality, thus building a quality factor into the search engine. The cult of personality in this new wired world is being mirrored from the external world. It is easy to adopt new identities in chat rooms or personal e-mail addresses where the names can reflect how one would like to be seen, rather than the formal identity that work brings.

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The Organizational View Most of the organizations, especially academic ones, need to take a strategic view of the information landscape, assess the potential changes and the associated impacts in conjunction with the requirements of their organization. Any organization that funds an academic library is likely to buy journals. The changes in publishing paradigm and the rise of open access will, however, affect the service provided and present staffing and budgetary implications. For these reasons alone it is important for the library to be involved in an institutional repository project. An institutional repository fulfills two requirements for an organization in the present information landscape: • a method of disseminating outputs under the aegis of the organization; • a central location and focus for the collection of the outputs of the organization. An institution may have more than one repository for academic information. In an ideal world, the author would complete a full and accurate metadata record and attach the full text at the end of the publisher’s embargo period. However, this may not happen in real life. The trick is to ensure that inputting the details into the institutional repository has payoffs in other areas. Open access and other information developments mean that once a repository is developed, then it is likely to be a long-term investment. The espida project (http://www. gla.ac.uk/espida/), funded by the Joint Information Steering Committee (JISC) has produced a model and handbook for developing project proposals or business cases which can be successfully applied to repository proposals.

Infrastructure, Sustainability, and Advocacy An institutional repository is a long-term commitment and consideration of the technical infrastructure and financial issues involved in running a high-visibility and possibly high impact service is essential. Infrastructure is taken to mean the hardware and software chosen to run the repository together with the associated support functions to enable the system to run effectively. With a clear understanding of what is required, and hopefully some sense of any specialist organizational requirements that might not form part of a standard service, the project team can look at the available systems to decide on what best meets the needs of the organization. There is also the consideration of the staff expertise available will they have the skills and the time to be able to install and modify or set up the chosen system as required? Regardless of the decisions made on the software to be used and the associated support, there will be both set-up and ongoing costs. Taking the in-house service provision, the following areas need to be considered: • Hardware: The purchase cost of the equipment on which the service runs, if it is to be a dedicated service, in addition to a rolling replacement/upgrade schedule to ensure that

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the hardware remains in a suitable condition for providing the service. Any support costs in maintaining computer equipment on site should also be identified. These costs should include any that result from running equipment, such as backups and security patching the operating system. • Software: Although there may not be any direct costs for the software, there may be costs involved in belonging to user groups or other support communities. • Staffing: There must be some staff costs involved with the technical running of the service, such as installation of software upgrades and ensuring that the security patches for the hardware are up to date. Purchasing decisions are as important as technical considerations regarding the implementation and maintenance of software. Depending on how the infrastructure is supported, these issues may be subject to other service’s policies. Current software is under development to ensure that it stays in step with changing requirements. This brings a host of decisions about upgrading the software: • • • • •

Who will perform them? What external factors may affect the timing of upgrades? What position does the project take on when to upgrade? Is a test server necessary? What acceptance tests will there be and who will perform them?

Intertwined with software upgrades are the decisions made on local customisation of the software. One of the benefits of open source software is than it is possible to modify the underlying structure to one’s needs and that such developments can be shared within the community. The points to be considered here are: • What is the policy on customizing the software and adding local tweaks? • Will these customizations need redoing after upgrades or could they be adopted by the developers to become part of the final version? Some standards, such as OAI-PMH, are part of the software and are well developed. All systems are able to provide Dublin Core output, but this is not descriptive enough to be able to ensure complete interoperability and transfer of data between different systems. Thus, although much of this area is fixed, there should be policy regarding what metadata standards have been chosen and complied with. The preservation approach over the long term will have an effect on the financial sustainability of the service. The issues to consider are: • What data migration and preservation strategies will be adopted and does this apply to the whole collection or specialized subsets? • At what stage are preservation actions going to take place?

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• Is the preservation going to be done in-house? A system is only as good as the support staff and so their learning and development needs should be taken into consideration. As such, the mechanisms and costs for ensuring that staff are up to date with developments is an important area. Once the infrastructure and policy decisions are in place and documented then there should be structures in place to ensure the smooth running of the service. An important part of this is a business continuity plan. If possible, the recovery plan should be tested before any real disaster happens to ensure that it is accurate. These plans and procedures should be checked every 6–12 months for accuracy. Examples of areas to consider include: • • • • •

Damage to the IT infrastructure providing the service; Staffing problems, such as succession planning, skills gaps, etc.; Funding; Not achieving strategic goals; Physical damage to the building.

New pilot projects might be funded through shifting priorities or special projects, once the institutional repository is embedded into the business process of the organization, more long-term funding mechanisms should be explored to ensure that the service is on an even keel. Content is the most important area as an empty repository, even one with very clear policies, is of no use without any content. There are many decisions to be made about the content to ensure that it is fit for purpose and satisfies as many stakeholder groups as possible: • • • • • • • • •

What material types is it designed to hold? Who is entitled to deposit content? Who do you expect to be the main content builder? Are the authors likely to self-deposit or will they get someone else to do it for them? Will professional cataloguers be involved in the process? How will the repository be structured? Will there be data validation and checking? What processes will be put in place to ensure consistency and accuracy of information? What is the position on retrospective information?

There are many stakeholders in the institutional repository but the key ones are the authors who produce the content that should be deposited in the repository. There are two parts to a successful partnership between depositor and repository: a clear understanding of the purpose and remit of the repository to ensure that the deposit process is as straightforward and time-efficient as possible. Interacting with authors is where the culture of the organization and subject domain comes into play as, on the surface, the authors are those with the least clear immediate personal benefits in the process. Assuming that the author is

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prepared to self-deposit, they have the added task of making the deposit using the provided workflow mechanism, but having done so, the benefits are intangible unless the repository is embedded in organizational processes such as personal reviews. Continuing with the theme of authors, there are some readily identifiable external influences on the researcher on their attitude to using an institutional repository: • • • •

Department policy; Funder policy; Domain attitudes; Organization policy.

To be successful with all the users and stakeholders involved in institutional repository building the advocacy campaign should be planned in an organized fashion. The general points to start the planning process with might include: • • • • • • • •

Which group of stakeholders to start with? To understand the discipline differences; To identify key organizational committees; To identify early adopters of open access principles; To identify areas with complicated requirements; To be responsive to criticism; Publicity; Branding. The key messages define the type of advocacy used to get the message are:

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Information landscape and open access; What is an institutional repository and why should anyone have one? The local policy on content; Local policy on who inputs the content, and any approval/checking mechanisms; Removal policy; Demonstration of the system.

As part of the advocacy process, there is likely to be some content concerned with training and documentation. There are three types of repository user who might require documentation and training: the end users of the information who need to know how to locate information, the author or author’s intermediary who inputs the metadata and the associated digital object, and system administrators. The end users represent a wide range of people within the organization and may include library staff using the repository to answer enquiries, or authors using the repository at the endpoint of a research project/piece of work. It may be viewed as an administrative task rather than a dissemination route. Training might include one or more of the following methods:

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department briefing and/or sessions, where domain specific issues can be addressed; formal training events; drop-in sessions at set times; one-to-one sessions—useful for those people who are likely to input a lot or for important stakeholders who need to have a positive learning experience.

Useful types of written material might include: quick start; user manuals; help and on-screen guidance; news articles. Once the organization has decided to implement a repository, the hardware and software infrastructure needs to be put in place and any decisions documented. For successful content generation, careful thought must be given to which community members should be approached first and what aspects of a repository will motivate them to get involved. Once content has started to be input, there are new issues around maintaining it, including validation and verification.

Content Decisions and Legal Issues It is a difficult task, what the content of an institutional repository might be, what the cultural and legal issues involved are, and touches on the complicated issue of versions and being able to identify which version has been located. As repositories are designed so that those once considered end users can input metadata, a straightforward method of ensuring consistency of data quality within the repository is important. Library catalogues and other information resources are generally produced by people who are trained to use precise rules and conventions, who understand the importance of accuracy for retrieval and that the information in such resources is on public display. End users need enough information about the content from the resource discovery service to ascertain whether it will be of use to them. By using metadata standards and protocols, third-party service providers can use the information within the system for other purposes, widening the dissemination remit.

Conceptual Models of Information The most important conceptual models in this area have been developed by the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and are called Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR). This model identifies four entities needed to describe a bibliographic work together with an entity relating to agents and the actions they perform on the bibliographic record. • Work represents a particular conceptual idea. This does not have any physical embodiment on its own this is done by describing expressions of the work. • Expression is a particular version or representation of the idea with some distinct intellectual content. If describing an existing item there will always be at least one

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expression. Due to different editions of the same item, or the same concept rendered in different ways, there may well be more. • Manifestation is a physical representation of the expression and the first point where consideration of the actual format is made; there is always at least one. The expression could be realized, for example, by a print run, a piece of art or a digital object. A digital object with the same intellectual content but in a different format is a different manifestation of the same expression. • Item describes a particular representation of the manifestation. There is always one, but this need not be a single entity as there may be many physical items for some manifestations.

Metadata Standards The baseline for interoperability in metadata standards available is Dublin Core. This standard has its roots in web-based discovery and was developed to describe this type of material in a uniform manner rather than library-specific material. Dublin Core is maintained by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (http://dublincore.org/). Dublin Core is the lingua franca of the web world, it is important to be able to generate this, regardless of what internal standards are used to describe the objects. The original set is as follows: • Contributor (an entity responsible for making contributions to the content of the resource, typically a person or an organization); • Coverage (extent or scope on the content of the resource); • Creator (an entity primarily responsible for making the content of a resource, typically a person or an organization); • Date (associated with the lifecycle of the resource, typically the creation date); • Description (an account of the resource); • Format (the physical or digital manifestation of the resource); • Identifier (unambiguous reference to the resource in a given context); • Language (language of the intellectual content of the resource); • Publisher (entity responsible for making the resource available); • Relation (a reference to a related resource); • Rights management (information about rights held in and over the resource); • Source (reference to a resource from which the present resource is derived); • Subject (topic of the content of the resource); • Title (a name given to the resource); • Type (nature or genre of the content of the resource). Data exports could include a Dublin Core scholarly works application profile for services that are able to understand and use this more detailed information as well as

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providing straightforward Dublin Core. It breaks the metadata required for a scholarly work into five sections: • The scholarly work (title, creator, subject, funding information and abstract); • An expression of the scholarly work (title, description, status, language, versioning information, dates, citation, references, and identifier); • The manifestation (format, publisher, where available); • The copy (access right, date available, license information); • The agent (name, workplace homepage, mailbox, and identifier). Dublin Core standpoint of an entity primarily responsible for making the content of the resource to be an author of the e-print and the notes specify that the expected input is a name or a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) link to a person. There is no overall detailed standard in use for all repositories as there is in library catalogues with Machine-Readable Cataloguing (MARC). If the MARC style approach and level of detail is important then the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), which has been developed by the Library of Congress and the MARC Standards Office, might be the way to go. With the trend in information resource description to use XML as the standard for web-based resources, MARC21 has been adapted to the XML standard as MARCXML. It was acknowledged that MARCXML and MARC21 may be too rich for some purposes and so MODS was developed. As part of the development process it supports or extends METS and harvesting protocols. As it is based on a widely used library standard, the metadata created using MODS is compatible with existing information resources. The high-level elements are: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Element (information); Title Info (information about the title, including if it has an alternative, etc.); Name (name, including type, role, and affiliation); Type of Resource (from a set of values describing possible works); Genre (type of material); Origin Info (place, publisher, date (created, captured, valid, modified, copyright and other), edition and frequency); Language (of the work); Physical Description (form, digital origin, and preservation details); Abstract; Table of Contents; Target Audience. Note; Subject (type of subject term, such as topic, temporal, geographic, etc.); Classification (including the scheme used); Related Item (type of relation and the link); Identifier; Location (physical location and/or URL);

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Access Condition; Part (ordering information); Extension; Record Info (information on record and coding scheme used).

Types of Material and their Differences A research institution might produce many different types of research output from data collected from an experiment, through software to written publications and one-off performances in the arts. In certain disciplines, access to the research record is a straightforward and well understood process, in others it is more complicated and related to the output itself. A more interesting issue is data. Data is not a homogeneous collection always requiring similar metadata. It is a very complex domain and sometimes even a project specific area. It underpins the scholarly communication cycle in many disciplines but is not always formally recognized in the same way as publication has been. As books are substantial intellectual outputs, it is less likely that they will have been published in an open access environment and therefore the full text of the work may not be available. This is a rather different concept to journal issues as each article stands alone and is only related to the next one through the decision-making process of the editor rather than being part of a related series of information packages: • • • •

Description (all or part of a formally published item, it will stand in its own right). Discipline (all disciplines). File formats (text-based). Quality standards (the publishers of the work will ensure that it meets their quality standards before publishing it). • Alternatives to institutional repository (depending on the discipline there may be subject-based repositories where the full text can be deposited, and many location tools such as library catalogues and online bookshops can be used to locate the item and arrange for a copy to be acquired).

There are many outputs from conferences and these can vary from the presentation aids used during a talk to a formal refereed paper. The formality of the conference is set by the discipline and organizers as under: • Description: One or more of – speaker’s aids for a presentation; – poster describing the project; – a formal written piece of work. • Discipline: All disciplines, however, it is a more important method of dissemination than journal articles in certain disciplines, such as computer science.

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• File formats: Word-processing formats, presentation graphics formats, or even video of the event. • Quality standards: – Most academic conferences review the submissions, and therefore the intellectual content and the papers which are formally published, although the presentations/ posters are not reviewed; – For conferences for practitioners, especially those relating to user groups, there is likely to be less, or even no, review of the content; this is especially true where the proceedings are not formally published but put on a user group website. • Alternatives to institutional repository: – Website for the conference, which may be limited to those who attended or a particular user group; – The standard library catalogues for the formal conference proceedings; – Project or personal websites.

Gray Literature and Journal Article Gray literature is material that is not formally published but is released informally. It can be the hardest type of material to locate due to this form. The nomenclatures of gray literature are: • • • • •

Description (material that is not formally published and thus can be very hard to track). Discipline (most likely to be in all disciplines). File formats (mostly text file formats). Quality standards (no external input to the quality, but may be some internal review). Alternatives to institutional repository (depending on the context in which the material is produced, it may be available electronically).

Journal article refers to the finally produced version. The author’s rights to deposit this version are dependent on the agreement with the publisher. The nomenclatures of journal articles are: • Discipline: – All disciplines. • File formats: – Initial stages may have different components in separate packages but the formally published version is likely to be available as a PDF file. – Text file formats will include Microsoft Word, Latex, postscript, open source wordprocessing formats. • Quality standards:

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– A peer-review process is undertaken for most journals to ensure the work is of appropriate quality. • Alternatives to institutional repository: – Specialist subject-based repositories such as arXiv for particle physics preprints, Cogprint for psychology, or PubMed for medical/biological sciences; – Access to the publisher’s version; – Access through aggregators and document supply services, for which a fee would be levied.

Preprint and Other Modes The term preprint refers to any version(s) of the work before any formal publication. This may be a loose term and may include alterations following peer-review comments. The nomenclatures of preprint are: • Description: – This is a piece of text, with associated illustrations, intended to disseminate the results of research; versions before the formally published one may be available, depending on discipline; – Illustrations can include photographs, diagrams, graphs, output from scientific instruments, or output from analytical software packages. • Discipline: – All disciplines. • File formats: – Initial stages may have the different components in separate packages but the formally published version is likely to be available as a PDF file. – Text file formats will include Microsoft Word, Latex, postscript, open source wordprocessing formats. • Quality standards: – It may be unclear as to whether the preprint has undergone any external review. • Alternatives to institutional repository: – Specialist subject-based repositories such as arXiv for particle physics preprints, Cogprint for psychology, or PubMed for medical/biological sciences. Technical reports and working papers are text with associated illustrations, intended to record and disseminate interesting or important technical details which are not suitable for journal publication. These are usually published by the research institution or university of the author. They are likely to be part of a formal series, published in all disciplines, and the unique report number reflects this. Initial stages may have the different components in separate packages. Text file formats will include Microsoft

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Word, Latex, postscript, open source word-processing formats. These will have been put in place by the institution which published it, usually to ensure that the reputation of the organization is not harmed and that valuable intellectual property is retained. Thesis is a piece of text with associated illustrations, submitted by the author to a university in order to gain a doctorate or master’s degree. Illustrations can include photographs, diagrams, graphs, output from scientific instruments, or output from analytical software packages. The thesis is not formally published anywhere but will have acknowledgment of both the author and the awarding institution. These are published in all disciplines in text-based formats such as Word and Latex. The awarding institution decides whether the thesis is of the appropriate quality for the qualification for which it is being presented.

Open Archival Information System Model Open Archival Information System Model (OAIS) is a conceptual model to ensure that data repository archival needs are considered. It has come out of the space data community, but is now applied in other areas rather than science data repositories and is an ISO standard (ISO 14721). The basic underlying principle of this model is that representation information must be applied for a particular data object to be meaningful and usable in a particular context. The OAIS model uses a concept of information packages. It defines three types of package, varying according to their functional use: • Submission information package (SIP): This is generated as the item is ingested in the repository. There is not necessarily a one-to-one relationship with archival information packages (AIPs). Many SIPs can make up an AIP; however, the packaging information will always be present. • Archival information package (AIP): This is the preservation entity and as such should contain all the information needed to be able to preserve the content for the long term. • Dissemination information package (DIP): This is produced by the repository from one or more AIPs in response to a user request for information. For every type of information package, there are two types of entity: the content information and the Preservation Description Information (PDI). The PDI covers the provenance of the content information, context, reference to unique identifiers of the content, and finally fixity to provide a mechanism for identifying unauthorized changes. Associated with the concepts related to the information, there are a series of processes to be considered and planned:

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• Ingest: This process manages the submission, both physical and at a policy level, of content and the generation of archival quality information and the AIP. It will perform the necessary verification and validation checks on the input and record information within the system. • Data management: This manages the underlying database which manages the system, ensuring that the structure (schema) is correct and also runs any queries needed to retrieve information. • Archival storage: Provides the ability to store, maintain, and retrieve the AIPs. • Access: Supporting the consumers of the repository to be able to retrieve the information and use it, this process generates DIPs. • Preservation planning: Monitoring the environment and providing recommendations to ensure that this remains suitable, this includes both technical facets and user requirements. Migration planning is also part of this role. • Administration: Manages the policies for ingest by providing reporting tools and documents processes and systems. The Research Libraries Group (http://www.rlg.org/) and the American National Archives and Records Administration (http://www.archives.gov/) are working on the concept of digital repository certification to be able to build up a network of trusted repositories. The Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies (PREMIS) model and associated Data Dictionary are produced by a working group sponsored by OCLC (http:// www.oclc.org/) and the Research Library Group (RLG). The model builds on the OAIS reference model.

Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies (PREMIS) Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies is a metadata standard for recording information required for preservation of digital objects. The PREMIS model has five entities: intellectual entities, objects, events, agents, and rights. An intellectual entity may be made up of one or more objects. These objects will have rights associated with them to be able to control access and permissions and events, which can be preservation actions. Both rights and events are linked to agents which are people, organizations, or automated software. The Data Dictionary considers the metadata that will be required. The following is an overview of the areas suggested: • Identifiers (It must be possible to uniquely identify the objects). • Preservation level (If the repository aims to curate items to different precisions, then this should be recorded). • Technical information on the item (This describes whether the files are encoded, some measure of fixity, the size of the file, the version of the format, etc. This can either be captured within the record or be a pointer to a registry of format types such as the UK

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National Archives PRONOM (Public Record Office Nom, Developed by National Archive of UK) service). Information relevant to this particular item (This includes such as properties of the item that need to be preserved for the action to be meaningful, in addition to any potential problems). Creating application (This includes information about the creating application and the dates that the files were generated. This is another area where a registry would be useful). Original name and content location within the storage system. Environment needed to access the content (Describes what hardware and software will be required to be able to use the file without any further actions). Digital signature (If the repository uses a digital signature for deposit or for the agreements, then this needs to be recorded together with information on how to check it). Relationship with other content (A particular entity may be related to other content in the repository: it may be a different version or the same version in a different format. These links are useful to record. For an intellectual entity rendered in many files, such as a digitized version of a printed work, it is important to record the order of the files so that the final work can be rendered in the right order). Events (For events/actions on the content of the repository there should be an audit trail). Agents (The repository needs to know who the agents are). Rights and permissions (This should record what permissions and rights have been given to the repository and its agents).

Access Tools and Services to Open Access Tenopir (2004) states that Open Access: includes many publication and distribution schemes. E-journals that are published, distributed electronically, and subsidized by universities, government agencies, and volunteer organizations are the most common. In addition, collections of separate articles or research reports could fit the definition, including e-print servers such as arXiv.org, institutional repositories, and author web pages. (Tenopir 2004)

Framing the Issue, published by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL 2004) outlines some issues relating to Open Access. Open Access is an ongoing discourse among scholars, researchers, and libraries. It addresses questions such as: • Why is access to information important? • What obstacles limit access? • What is Open Access?

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Repositories adhere to an internationally agreed set of technical standards that means that they expose the metadata (the bibliographic details such as author names, institutional affiliation, and date, titles of the article, abstract, and so forth) of each item in their contents on the Web in the same basic way. In other words, they are “interoperable.” This common protocol to which they all adhere is called the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). According to Giarlo (2005), the OAI-PMH works in much the same way that Z39.50 does, enabling a common set of functions to be accessed via a standard protocol. The great benefit of OAI-PMH is the ability to harvest records from numerous providers (e.g., Open Access journals, institutional repositories, etc.), and aggregate them under a single search. The contents of all repositories are then indexed by Web search engines such as Google and Google Scholar, creating online Open Access databases of freely available global research. As the level of self-archiving (the process by which authors deposit their work in repositories) grows, the Open Access corpus will represent an increasingly large proportion of the scholarly literature. To achieve Open Access to scholarly journal literature, BOAI (2002) recommend two complementary strategies: • Self-Archiving (Green OA): At first, the scholars need the tools and assistance to deposit their refereed journal articles in open electronic archives, a practice commonly called, self-archiving. When these archives conform to standards created by the Open Archives Initiative, then search engines and other tools can treat the separate archives as one. Users then need not know which archives exist or where they are located in order to find and make use of their contents. When authors make their articles freely available in digital form on the Internet, they are said to be “self-archiving” them. These articles can be either “preprints” or “postprints.” Preprints are draft versions of articles that have not undergone peer review or editorial review and modification. Most preprints are intended for submission to journals, but some are not. Self-archiving has some well explained strategies in itself as Bailey (1980) stated that “the most common ways that e-prints are made available on the Internet are: – authors’ personal websites; – disciplinary archives; – institutional-unit archives; – institutional repositories. But authors at times find it difficult to do self-archiving due to some apprehensions about publisher’s policies. This is why SHERPA/RoMEO is existing to offer list of publisher permissions policies with respect to self-archiving. • Open Access Journals (Gold OA): These are journals that are freely available to scholars online for downloads and use. According to Suber (2013) as cited in Wikipedia (2013b), Open Access journals are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader “without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from

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gaining access to the Internet itself.” Some are subsidized, and some require payment on behalf of the author. Second, scholars need the means to launch a new generation of journals committed to Open Access, and to help existing journals that elect to make the transition to Open Access. Suber characterizes the core concept of Open Access this way: Open Access removes price barriers (e.g., subscription fees) and permission barriers (e.g., copyright and licensing restrictions) to royalty-free literature (i.e., scholarly works created for free by authors), making them available with minimal use restrictions (e.g., author attribution). Open Access has the following characteristics: – It is free availability of scholarly publication. – It is free of copyright and licensing restrictions. – Materials are available online or on the Internet. – Material is full text. – Material can be accessed by anybody from anywhere without any discrimination. – Material can be freely used by anyone. – Open Access contents can be in any format from texts and data to software, audio, video, and multi-media, scholarly articles and their preprints. Open Access is beneficial to as many as include: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

teaching staff and students; authors; readers; society; journals and publishers; funding agencies; governments; citizens; libraries; universities and nations; accelerates research; enriches education; shares learning across rich and poor nations.

Open Access is especially important for research and academic libraries since all academic institutions are research-intensive and a library’s main mandate is to support the teaching, learning, and research activities of their parent institutions. All three activities are research-based (Jain 2012).

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Role of Libraries One of the key goals of the institutional repository, simply stated, is to capture the intellectual output of an institution and make it available via a single interface, so that one no longer needs to scour disparate faculty and graduate student websites in order to find their research. A single point of access, search, and organization of scholarly materials within the institution would be of value to the communities served by academic libraries, and there are certainly other values of institutional repositories. One such value is digital preservation, as “libraries are in a better position than individual academics to guarantee that the collection is systematically available even after decades.” Librarians all over the world have become advocates of Open Access. It has been observed that when authors selfarchive their works, it lessens the burden on librarians. Hence, the need to educate researchers in universities on Open Access and its place in research how authors can put up their works not only for the world to see, but to boost their careers as this will encourage scholarly communication. When another author cites an author’s work, it goes a long way in career promotion. Open Access also requires policy and procedure changes, in order to accommodate the additional collections of institutional repositories and Open Access journals. Subject specialists, bibliographers, and cataloging librarians need to establish guidelines to perform quality control and regular catalogue maintenance on these titles. Ideally, a repository is a place or container where anything could be kept for safekeeping. But whenever “repository” is mentioned, “books” come to mind, especially where librarians are concerned. A library could be likened to a repository where books are stored for safekeeping and easy reference. More recently, a repository is usually associated with digital contents due to the advent of the Internet. Ideally, a repository ought to be a storehouse of archival contents whereas a digital repository is where digital content and assets are stored and can be searched and retrieved for later use. With the advent of the Open Access Initiative (OAI), the advocates never really differentiated between these two terms; rather, it is assumed that repositories are digital in nature. So, when a repository is mentioned, “digital repository” comes to mind. Access tools are pointers to information obtained in databases and repositories. “Lib 111 Glossary on Information Technology, Internet and Library Terms” defines access tools as bibliography, catalog, database, or other information source, which leads us to information on our topic. An access tool helps a researcher, student, or librarian gain access to relevant documents located on the web. Some of the Open Access tools as discussed in this paper are: DOAJ, DOAR, ROAR, SHERPA/RoMEO, and SPARC.

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) The Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/) is a website that lists Open Access journals and is maintained by Infrastructure Services for Open Access (IS4OA). Until January 2013, the DOAJ was maintained by Lund University. The aim of the DOAJ

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is to increase the visibility and ease of use of Open Access scientific and scholarly journals, thereby promoting their increased usage and impact. The DOAJ aims to be comprehensive and cover all Open Access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content. In short, the DOAJ aims to be the one stop shop for users of Open Access journals. The project defines Open Access journals as scientific and scholarly journals that meet high-quality standards by exercising peer review or editorial quality control and “use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access.” The Budapest Open Access Initiative’s definition of Open Access is used to define required rights given to users, for the journal to be included in the DOAJ, as the rights to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles. Open Access journals are defined by DOAJ as “journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access.” DOAJ is the most recognized and most authoritative list of scholarly, peer-reviewed, fully Open Access journals. More than 10% of the world’s peer-reviewed journals are now included in DOAJ, making DOAJ among the world’s largest collections of peer-reviewed scholarly journals, period. There are more peer-reviewed journals in DOAJ than Science Direct; more non-embargoed, peer-reviewed journals in DOAJ than in EBSCO’s Academic Search Premiere or Gale’s OneFile. The DOAJ vetting process involves querying journal editors to ensure that peer-review or equivalent quality controls are in place and that journals meet the criterion of true Open Access as per the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition. To be included in DOAJ, a journal must have an ISSN. Journals included in DOAJ go through a periodic review process to ensure that the journal continues to meet the criteria for inclusion (Morrison 2007).

DOAJ has the following Coverage: • Subject (All scientific and scholarly subjects are covered); • Types of resource (Scientific and scholarly periodicals that publish research or review papers in full text); • Acceptable sources (Academic, government, commercial, nonprofit private sources are all acceptable); • Level (The target group for included journals should primarily be researchers); • Content (A substantive part of the journal should consist of research papers. All content should be available in full text); • All languages DOAJ has access as: • All content freely available. • Registration: Free user registration online is acceptable. • Open Access without delay (e.g., no embargo period).

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DOAJ offers the Search and Browse interfaces, to offer users opportunity to gain access to all the journals available in the directory. Search interface is a service that enables researchers search the directory by journals or articles by typing a desired title or subject. This is similar to a library user who visits the library for research, needing a material without knowing the author or name of the book or journal he/she is looking for. There is also the advanced search option whereby journals can be searched for using either the title, ISSN, author, keyword, abstract, publisher.

The Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic Open Access repositories. As well as providing a simple repository list, OpenDOAR lets you search for repositories or search repository contents. OpenDOAR is one of the SHERPA Services including RoMEO and JULIET, run by the Centre for Research Communications (CRC). OpenDOAR has also been identified as a key resource for the Open Access community and identified as the leader in repository directories in a study by Johns Hopkins University. OpenDOAR was one of the services, which contributed to SHERPA being awarded the 2007 SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications. Oliver and Swain (2006) conducted a research on “Directories of Institutional Repositories: Research Results & Recommendations” and came to a finding that “the University of Nottingham’s OpenDOAR stands out as the leader among the directories identified, particularly for the purposes envisioned at the Section’s 2005 business meeting. It is international in scope. Subject coverage is noted and it is possible to browse and retrieve repositories with health and bioscience content.” A directory such as OpenDOAR makes it easier to identify and mine the individual repositories. The website of DOAR is: www.opendoar.org and therein are listed as a submenu, the services offered by the directory such as: Search for repositories, Search repository contents, List of repositories, Repository Statistics. DOAR’s Strengths are: • It is user-friendly; • It offers Open Access to over 2200 listings; • It gives a quality-controlled list of repositories.

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) SPARC(r), the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (URL: http:// www.sparc.arl.org) is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. SPARC was developed by the Association of Research Libraries in 1998 and believes that faster and wider sharing of the outputs of the scholarly research process increases the impact of research, fuels the

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advancement of knowledge, and increases the return on research investments. SPARC focuses on taking action in collaboration with stakeholders including authors, publishers, and libraries to build on the unprecedented opportunities created by the networked digital environment to advance the conduct of scholarship. SPARC Europe was established with LIBER in 2001. SPARC’s primary focus is on journal literature, but their evolving strategy reflects an increasing focus on Open Access to research outputs of all kinds—including digital data and open educational resources (OER). SPARC supports the immediate, barrier-free online availability of scholarly and scientific research articles, coupled with the rights to reuse these articles fully in the digital environment, and supports practices and policies that enable this. SPARC recognizes that the conduct of scientific and scholarly research is increasingly digital, and that its advancement is predicated on being able to access, comment on, build upon and reuse data. SPARC supports practices and policies that promote broad, Open Accessibility and utility of scholarly and scientific research data. SPARC believes that Open Education makes the link between teaching, learning and the collaborative culture of the Internet. SPARC’s role in stimulating change focuses on the following: • Educating stakeholders about challenges in the scholarly communication system and the opportunities for change; • Advocating for policy changes that leverage technology to advance scholarly communication and that explicitly recognize that dissemination is an essential, inseparable component of the research process; • Incubating demonstrations of business and publishing models that leverage openness for the benefit of scholarship and academic.

Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) The aim of ROAR is to promote the development of Open Access by providing timely information about the growth and status of repositories throughout the world. Open Access to research maximizes research access and thereby also research impact, making research more productive and effective. ROAR is hosted at the University of Southampton, UK and is made possible by funding from the JISC. ROAR is part of the EPrints.org network. See Figure R for ROAR homepage (Website: http://roar.eprints.org/). ROAR offers opportunity for individuals to create an account for their institution’s repository in order to submit records to the registry. Repositories can be browsed by either by country, year, repository type, or repository software. Open Access and institutional repositories are here to stay. Librarians and academicians need to embrace this trend and get involved in self-archiving and sending the publications to Open Access journals. There is also need for advocating this trend by librarians, following the pace set by the coalition agencies like SPARC. This is a stepping-stone to

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greater heights in the library field. We talk of information societies and knowledge societies, so we have to delve into it too. Open Access and institutional repositories help in breaking the digital divide whereby more people gain access to scholarly publications.

The SHERPA/RoMEO Application Programmer’s Interface RoMEO is part of SHERPA Services based at the University of Nottingham. RoMEO is a searchable database of publisher’s policies regarding the self-archiving of journal articles on the web and in Open Access repositories. If an academic author wants to put their research articles online, they are faced with an increasingly complex situation. Evidence shows that citations to articles made openly accessible in this way are taken up and cited more often than research that is simply published in journals. Also, some funding agencies require Open Access archiving for their research, to increase the use of the information generated. However, some publishers prohibit authors from using their own articles in this way. Others allow it, but only under certain conditions, while others are quite happy for authors to show their work in this way. Authors can be left confused: RoMEO helps to clarify the situation. RoMEO contains publishers’ general policies on self-archiving of journal articles and certain conference series. The SHERPA/RoMEO Application Programmer’s Interface (API) is a machine-to-machine interface which lets programmer’s access RoMEO data from their applications. For instance, the API could be used to incorporate the automatic look-up of journals or publishers into a repository’s deposition process. Applications submit queries to RoMEO as HTTP requests, using the API’s URL with appropriate query parameters attached. For example, http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ api29.php?pub=university%20press&qtype=all where: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ api29.php is the URL of the API. ?pub=university%20press is the first parameter. In this example, “pub” is the name of the parameter (indicating a search for publisher’s name), and “university%20 press” is its value. Note that the parameters are URL-encoded, so that a space character is represented by the code “%20”. “+” may also be used instead—e.g.? pub = university + press. & qtype = all is the second parameter. “qtype” is the name of the query type parameter, and in this case, “all” indicates that all the strings specified in “pub” must be present in the publisher’s name. (Note: The first URL parameter is signified by a “?” character. Subsequent parameters start with a “&”. The parameters can appear in any order, provided this convention is maintained. Thus “. . .?qtype=all&pub=university%20press” is also valid.) The HTML requests are sent to the SHERPA server where they are run against the RoMEO database, and the results returned as an XML file. For test purposes, API requests may be entered into the address bar of a browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. Properly structured XML should then be displayed.

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Eight types of request can be made in this API: • • • • • • • •

Publisher name (Search using keywords and strings); RoMEO Database Record ID (Search using ID number for a single publisher record); Journal Title (Search using keywords and strings get a list of matching titles); Journal Follow-up (Follow up a journal title search to get the publisher’s information); Journal ISSN (International Standard Serial Number); RoMEO Update Date (the date the publisher recorded as last updated); Country of the publisher’s head office; RoMEO Colour (RoMEO’s grading system for archiving permissions). As an addition, there are three general parameters that can be used with any query:

• Access Key (Allowing registered users to bypass RoMEO’s access controls); • Language (Returning data in a language other than English); • Research Funder (Returning information on compliance with the relevant funder’s open access mandates).

Elsevier Journal Finder To find the right journal to submit a paper is one of the most important steps during the process of paper publishing. For most authors, this job becomes difficult because many journals have a wide diversity of topics, and many articles involve several academic disciplines or professional specializations. The Scopus database is used as the source of journals and papers for the Elsevier journal finder. The Scopus database is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature from scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. It contains more than 78 million records and over 25,000 publishers and covers all major scientific domains: Agriculture, Chemistry, Economics, Geo-Sciences, Humanities and Arts, Life and Health Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, and Social Sciences. The Elsevier journal finder uses noun phrases as features for the paper matching and journal ranking algorithm. The noun phrases are annotated and normalized by the Elsevier Fingerprint Engine. The Elsevier Fingerprint Engine (EFE) applies a variety of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to mine the input text and generates all relevant annotations, including sentence boundaries, tokenization, part-of-speech tags, and phrase chunking. Noun phrases are extracted based on a relatively simple pattern of part-of-speech (POS) tag sequences. They have employed a simple noun phrase syntax, sketched in Backus-Naur-form: • • • •

::= | | “in” ::= “jj” | “nn” | “nn$” | “np” ::= | ::= “nn” | “np” | “nns”

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In this noun phrase grammar, POS tags are used as terminals (jj is “adjective,” nn is “noun,” np is “proper noun,” nn$ is “possessive noun,” nns is “plural noun,” and in is “preposition”). To improve feature generation however, we made the algorithm to select subphrases of full noun phrases, in order to avoid a very sparse vector space containing only very specific noun phrases. The journal recommendation ranking algorithm is divided into two parts. The first part is matching the submitted query to existing papers in the database. The Okapi BM25 algorithm is widely used in the domain of information retrieval. It ranks matching documents according to their relevance to a given search query. The ranking algorithm only works well if there are enough sample papers (at least more than 100) in each journal. However, for some new journals, there are not enough published papers. To solve this problem, we asked the editors to select some papers from other journals that are relevant to the scope of the new journals and then used these selected papers as the sample papers for the ranking algorithm. Theoretically, the Elsevier journal finder can recommend any journal in the Scopus database. Although the recommended journals are limited to Elsevier journals only, the system can always recommend highly relevant journals to the authors for their papers, since Elsevier has more than 5500 peerreviewed journals that cover almost all major scientific domains.

Springer Journal Suggester To find the right academic journal is central to preventing the common mistake of editorial rejection of manuscripts, prior to peer review. The Springer Journal Suggester is an academic research tool that enables users to select the best-suited journal for their research. The automated process can enable journal selection from a database of over 4800 Springer publications. The web-based semantics technology refines a list of relevant journals, based on inputs of manuscript title, abstract, and publishing model. The personalized recommendation process will search Springer and BioMed Central to find the best publication that suits the author’s choice. A refined list of potential journals can thereby assist authors to delineate a core publication for their final manuscript submission. The web-based Journal Suggester is easily accessible, requiring only an abstract/description of the unpublished manuscript to find matching journals. When manually selecting the right journal for manuscript submission, stepwise instructions below, via Springer and BioMed Central can offer general guidance. Conversely, the online Journal Suggester automatically considers the same key points, during the process of personalized recommendations: • • • • •

Choosing the theme; Choosing the audience; Type of article; Impact Factor; Publication timeline.

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Springer journals conveniently present a list of Springer Videos for user-friendly assistance on its online platform and on journal selection. When Journal Suggester provides a list of target journals, SpringerLink journal tutorials can guide the selection of our final choice. Automation offers a fast-track process for busy scientists to select a journal best suited for their research with ease. If we are keen to publish fast, Journal Suggester provides the option of deciding the maximum time to first decision. To strengthen our readership, it is possible to select open access exclusively during the journal refining process. After choosing the journal of interest, it is beneficial to identify a second and third choice of interest as well. This provides a broader range of alternatives for consideration should the first attempt at publication fail. This automation process of Journal Suggester is beneficial overall for fast-paced and cutting-edge research publications. However, the portal’s limitations would be its influence on broader research; for example, additional experiments could increase the publication’s research impact. Furthermore, the manual process of browsing journals may provide us first-hand experience on relevant journals, albeit timeconsumingly. The expected outcome of the automated Journal Suggester is to minimize editorial rejection of manuscripts prior to peer review. Overall, the benefits of this web-based academic research tool appear to outweigh its potential limitations.

Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

What do you understand by open access publication? Explain its merits and demerits. Which three initiatives made open access publications popular? How can you promote open access publication in your research? What are institutional repositories in open access publications? Explain Infrastructure, Sustainability, and Advocacy in open access publications. Explain open archival information system model. What is SCOPUS database? Explain its search process. Explain briefly Elsevier Fingerprint Engine. What is the expected outcome of the automated Journal Suggester? Write Short Notes on the following: (a) The Budapest Open Access Initiative (b) The Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (c) Metadata Standards (d) Gray Literature (e) Open Archival Information System Model (f) The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (g) Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) (h) Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) (i) SHERPA/RoMEO Application (j) Elsevier Journal Finder

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Further Reading Azarmi B (2014) Talend for big data: access, transform, and integrate data using Talend’s open source, extensible tools. Packt Publishing, Mumbai Jacobs N (2006) Open access: key strategic, technical and economic aspects. Chandos Publishing (Oxford) Limited, Oxford Jones C (2007) Institutional repositories: content and culture in an open access environment. Chandos Publishing (Oxford) Limited, Oxford Kang N, Doornenbal M, Schijvenaars B (2015) Elsevier Journal finder: recommending journals for your paper. ACM, New York, NY. 978-1-4503-3692-5/15/09. Millington P (2013) SHERPA document. The SHERPA/RoMEO Application Programmers’ Interface (API). University of Nottingham, Nottingham Mullen LB (2010) Open access and its practical impact on the work of academic librarians collection development, public services, and the library and information science literature. Woodhead Publishing Limited, Cambridge Okpala HN (2017) Access tools and services to open access: DOAR, ROAR, SHERPA-ROMEO, SPARC and DOAJ. Informatics Stud 4(3):5 Sampson DG, Dirk IJ, Spector M, Isaías P (2014) Digital systems for open access to formal and informal learning. Springer International Publishing, Cham Scheufen M (2015) Copyright versus open access on the organisation and international political economy of access to scientific knowledge. Springer International Publishing, Cham Solomon D (2008) Developing open access journals: a practical guide. (Chandos Publishing Oxford) Limited, Oxford Tavares R, Moreir A (2017) Implications of open access repositories quality criteria and features for teachers’ TPACK development. Springer International Publishing, New York, NY

Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism

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Overview Most information or other forms of communication, including performance and visual arts, that have been written, recorded, filmed or presented into the public domain in some way to others can potentially be used. The basic principle of referencing is to support and identify the evidence used in the assignments. As we progress through different levels of study in higher education, we are expected to be increasingly more critical of ideas and theories and their application in models and practices. Ideas are often a product of a particular period of history and of the social, economic, and cultural norms and values of that time, and a critical approach demands that we are aware of and able to acknowledge the source of ideas. In so doing we are able to alert the reader to the origins of the ideas, theories, models, or practices under discussion. Education needs ideas, arguments, and perspectives to thrive, but these have to be tested rigorously and subjected to the critical scrutiny of others. This is done by researching, preparing, and presenting work into the public domain. This is a formidable task for any writer or commentator, and one that can take years to achieve. Referencing is then, about respecting and honoring the hard work of writers and commentators by acknowledging them in our assignments. Referencing can also help us to find our own voice in assignments, by helping us write essays and reports that project or reflect the way we see or perceive things. Evidence presented and correctly referenced supports and strengthens our opinions and converts them into arguments. Why reference? And why is there so much emphasis on referencing? Referencing in Britain and Asian countries has to be seen, not just in an academic, but also in a social and political context. It is a part of a societal value system that vigorously supports the idea of the intellectual property rights of others. It has been argued that in countries characterized by individualism, which includes competition, self-interest, self-reliance, and personal achievement, the respect for copyright is usually strong. However, in societies with a

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26971-4_11

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more collective ideology people are often more willing to sublimate their individuality to the benefit of the community as a whole. Ideas are regarded as being more in the public domain: to be shared and used for self or community improvement. In this social context, copying is widely practiced as a legitimate form of sharing of ideas with others, without the necessity to refer continually to a named originator. Referencing in a higher education context is built on three key assumptions: • The main purpose of referencing is to facilitate the development and transmission of knowledge (powered by human endeavor and communication; referencing is one element in this communication process). • Referencing is a practical manifestation of the engagement with knowledge (as student’s progress through higher education they are expected, increasingly to become more critical of ideas and theories and their application in models and practices. This critical approach includes the intelligent selection and presentation of ideas and an awareness of their sources). • The standardization of referencing practice supports this communication process (presented in such a way that allows everyone who has learned the practice to recognize and understand the meaning of codes and formulas presented). Six knowledge-related reasons for referencing are: • Facilitates the tracing of the origin of ideas: Academic study involves not just presenting and describing ideas, but also being aware of where they came from, who developed them, why and when. The “when” is particularly important. Ideas, models, theories, and practices originate from somewhere and someone. These are often shaped by the social norms and practices prevailing at the time and place of their origin, and the student in higher education needs to be aware of these influences. Learning builds on learning. However, like trying to discover the “real” source of a mighty river, there are often many contributory networks to knowledge, and it is sometimes impossible to work back to the beginning and to the origin of an idea. • Helps to build a web of ideas: Knowledge connects and spreads the past, connects with the present, and has an impact on the future. As we build our argument in an assignment, it is rather like a spider building its web. We build carefully engineered connections between ideas. We advance an argument in one section, but then counter it with another threaded and connected group of ideas, each supported by its own referenced evidence. • Supports our own voice in academic writing: Many students, when they enter higher education, are confused about a gap they perceive between the conventions of academic writing and the need to make their own points in essays. We can strive to gain ownership of our own work in the following ways: – We can decide which position or direction to take in an assignment. – We can select evidence that allows us to present a strong set of arguments or descriptions. – We can summarize or paraphrase in our own words what we read. – We can write in a style that comes from within.

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• Validity of arguments: This is done by the presentation of reliable evidence, usually in the form of facts, definitions, statistics, and other data that have an appeal to the intelligence of a particular audience. This ageless principle can be applied equally to written arguments. Referencing reliable and valid evidence in assignments has such an appeal to the intelligence of the reader. • Spreading knowledge: Referencing also presents an opportunity for the tutor and other readers to advance their own knowledge. It gives them the possibility of tracing the sources we cite and using the same evidence for their own purposes. We have probably discovered already how useful bibliographies and lists of references at the end of journal articles can be in identifying other related sources for our own research. Once we start following up sources in bibliographies, it can open up a fascinating trail of knowledge. • An appreciation: Education needs ideas, arguments, and perspectives to thrive. But these have to be tested rigorously and subjected to the critical scrutiny of others. This is done by researching, preparing, and presenting work into the public domain, which, as was noted earlier, is a formidable task for any writer, and one that can sometimes take years to achieve. Referencing is, then, also about giving appreciation: a modest genuflection to the work of others. The selection of relevant evidence and accurate referencing is an important element in the marking of assignments, particularly at postgraduate level. Accurate referencing can often make the difference between a pass, credit, or distinction. Referencing can be traced back to back to Roman jurists who provided very precise references to the earlier legal treatises they drew upon. In other early manuscripts annotation, glosses, or explanations were included to connect the finished work to its sources. The invention of printing in the late fifteenth century that made ideas more accessible and established the notion of an author. The growth of printing encouraged people to write and to make a living from their ideas and talent for writing. It also encouraged the cult of personality, and the emergence and promotion of artists distinguished by their style of writing. This led to writers wanting to protect their work against plagiarism. The development of printing also standardized the practice of annotation into printed footnotes. These appeared within scholarly works from the eighteenth century onward. References appeared in textbooks in footnotes and were referred to in the text by printer’s symbols, including asterisks and daggers. These influenced the growth of referencing styles from the nineteenth century onward. The development and growth of universities in the nineteenth century in Europe and the USA resulted in the mass examination of student knowledge by way of essays and examinations. There was a rigorous testing of knowledge and, as part of this, students were expected to cite the origins of ideas and offer detailed analysis and interpretation of sources. Citing and analyzing the works of authors became a way for students to demonstrate their scholarly engagement with a text. In the twentieth century, a range of referencing styles have developed, all building on these earlier foundations.

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Accurate referencing will help us to avoid being accused of plagiarism. Western concepts of plagiarism are based on an economic model of capitalism and the notion that someone can claim ownership of an idea if it has been presented in the public domain in some tangible way. However, the explosion of global communication mediums has created difficulties in identifying original sources of ideas, and there is a gray area between deliberate cheating and carelessness with referencing or ignorance of it. The important point to bear in mind in selecting evidence for use in assignments is about their credibility and reliability, and distinguishing between primary and secondary sources. • Primary source: This source deals with the evidence that comes directly from the people involved in the event or phenomenon in question. This would include theories, models, ideas, interpretations, definitions, and practices as described and presented by their originators, rather than their commentators. • Secondary sources: These sources include material produced about the event or phenomenon, including the commentary or interpretation of others about theories, models, ideas, definitions, and practices. They might also include, reportage material in newspapers, magazines, reference books, and on the Internet. At the end of our assignment we produce a list that is headed either “Bibliography” or “References,” unless we have been asked by our tutor to include both in the assignment. What is the difference between a list of “References” and a “Bibliography”? The terms are often used synonymously, but there is a difference in meaning between them. References are the items we have read and specifically referred to (or cited) in our assignment. A bibliography is a list of everything we read in preparation for writing an assignment. A bibliography therefore normally contains sources that we have cited and those we found to be influential, but decided not to cite. We should reference evidence in assignments in the following situations: • To inform the reader of the source of tables, statistics, diagrams, photographs, and other illustrations included in our assignment; • When describing or discussing a theory, model, practice, or example associated with a particular writer; or using their work to illustrate examples in our text (this links specifically to the next two items); • To give weight or credibility to an argument supported by us in our assignment; • When giving emphasis to a particular theory, model, or practice that has found a measure of agreement and support among commentators; • To inform the reader of the sources of direct quotations or definitions in our assignment; • When paraphrasing another person’s work, which is outside the realm of common knowledge, and that we feel is particularly significant, or likely to be a subject of debate.

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There are four situations when we do not need to reference sources. These are: • • • •

When presenting historical overviews; When presenting our own experiences; In conclusions, when we are repeating ideas previously referenced; When summarizing what is regarded as common knowledge.

Plagiarism: Issue and Facts Anxiety, about being accused of plagiarism, underpinned many of the frustrations and insecurities expressed by students in a research. Discussion about plagiarism has been a dominant concern in higher education over the past decade and it is clear that many students have got the message. However, it has also made many anxious about expressing their own views in assignments, as they question if it really is their own view that they are expressing, which in turn raises the issue of where do our own ideas come from? At what point can we take ownership, of them? And can we risk presenting them as our own, when these ideas may now be found, prolific and Internet-fresh, in the public domain? There is no doubt that plagiarism continues to be a hot topic of discussion in higher education. But it is certainly not a new phenomenon. It can be argued that all imitative learning is plagiarism. We use ideas from other people all the time, weave them into our working and academic lives, gradually taking ownership of them until we eventually forget who influenced us in the first place; referencing becomes difficult, if not impossible, in some situations. Plagiarism is one of the number of practices deemed by universities/institutions to constitute cheating, or a lack of academic integrity. These include (as we have discussed earlier also): • Collusion without official approval between two or more students, with the result that identical, or near identical work, is presented by all those involved; • Falsification: where content of assignments, e.g., statistics, has been invented or falsely presented by a student as their own work; • Replication: where a student submits the same, or very similar piece of work, on more than one occasion to gain academic credit; • Taking unauthorized notes into an examination; • Obtaining an unauthorized copy of an examination paper; • Communication with other students in an examination in order to help, or be helped, with answers; • Impersonation of another person in an examination. Life is not that simple, nor students so blatant, although a minority appear to be reckless enough to plagiarize regularly and deliberately in this way. Howard has tried to unpick the forms of plagiarism that can occur, cheating, non-attribution, and patchwork writing. The first is done deliberately, while the second usually results from the inexperience of the

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student with referencing, or from misunderstanding about academic conventions. The third results when a student tries to put together bits of assorted, copied text to make up an unsatisfactory whole; or what Barrett and Malcolm call omission paraphrasing, which is when a student copies in a single source and selectively changes words and sentences to make it fit the assignment. This latter practice moves them into a gray area betwixt paraphrasing and plagiarism and can lead to criticism, or worse, loss of marks. When students are asked what proportion of their peers are engaged in plagiarism, the estimates tend to be high. So why do students do it? One reason may be that they have always done it—maybe to the point when it becomes ritualized behavior, and because it is easier and more tempting now than it ever has been to do it. Dordoy found the most common reasons cited by students for cheating were related to grades, poor time management and ease of opportunity: • • • • •

To get a better grade (59%); Because of laziness or bad time management (54%); Because of easy access to material via the Internet (40%); Because they did not understand the rules (29%); Because it happens unconsciously (29%).

Dennis also found a similar range of reasons given by students for why others cheated. The reasons given by 80 students were ranked as follows, with the most frequently cited at the top: • • • • • • • • • •

They started too late and ran out of time; They simply could not do the coursework otherwise; They did not think it was wrong; They have to succeed; They got higher marks this way; They did not need to learn that material, just pass the module; They could not keep up with the work; They wanted to see if they could get away with it; They felt the tutor did not care, so why should they; They thought paraphrasing would be disrespectful.

Putting the issue of plagiarism aside, many academics discourage form of patchwork writing by arguing that the process of summarization and paraphrasing helps students to gain a deeper level of understanding about a topic. By converting the ideas into a choice of one’s own words, we have to think hard about them and thus gain a deeper level of knowledge. This may be true, but some of us may not see it like this. Students/researchers, and not just those from overseas, argue that to put together an argument by patchwork copying does require an understanding of the topic. It requires the ability to select and connect ideas, and this cannot be done successfully if the student does not have a grip on

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the main arguments and counter-arguments around a topic. The convention of academic writing in higher education is still largely one where we are encouraged to step back from the assignment topic and look down at it, and to describe the scene in an objective way. In Britain, students/researchers are still largely discouraged from writing in the first person. The able, experienced student has learned the art of selecting material to suit his own viewpoint, but presenting it in a way that gives the veneer of objectivity to the reader thus satisfying the conventions and traditions of academic writing. The postgraduate student, and certainly one with his or her first degree experience in the UK/US, has usually learned how to do this. However, the undergraduate and international postgraduate student can both struggle with this, not really knowing what is expected. Plagiarism prevention, rather than prosecution, tends to be the approach adopted by most British/American universities, although some have been driven to take action to discipline, and even expel students, for worst-scenario case plagiarism, which are usually cases involving repeated incidences of copying wholesale from texts without any attempt at acknowledgment of the original source. Attention has also turned to schools and colleges in an attempt to discourage pupils (and parents) from plagiarism, so that by the time students enter higher education they would have learned effective referencing and techniques of summary and paraphrasing. Universities are also using software to detect where copied text has been slotted into assignments. Software, such as Turnitin and Ferret, can compare submitted assignments with a database of billions of web pages, and highlight passages that are directly copied. Some institutions are also encouraging students to check their assignments against the software, to highlight and change copied areas before they submit the work. This seems to be producing some positive results. If higher education is devalued by a view from the outside that the degree is not worth the paper it is printed on, then this will do no good for either the morale of teachers or our morale—and career prospects. To avoid plagiarism applying, analyzing, criticizing or quoting other people’s work is perfectly reasonable and acceptable providing always: • Attempt to summarize or restate another person’s work, theories or ideas and give acknowledgment to that person. This is usually done by citing your sources and presenting a list of references. • By always using quotation marks (or indenting lengthy quotations in the text) to distinguish between the actual words of the writer and our own words. Once again, we should cite all sources and present full details of these in our list of references. It can be sometimes difficult, to avoid using some of the author’s original words, particularly those that describe or label phenomena. However, we need to avoid simply copying out what the author said, word for word. Choose words that we feel give a true impression of the author’s original ideas or action.

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Referencing Styles All referencing styles are built on the same idea of citing a source in the text of an assignment, either with a name or a number. The name or number connects with the full source details in a footnote, endnote or a bibliographic list. There are an estimated 14 referencing styles to be found within higher education in the world, although they fall into 3 main groups: • In-text name styles: These styles involve giving (or citing) the name(s) of author(s) or organization(s) in the text with the year of publication (or page number for MLA style). All sources are listed alphabetically at the end of an assignment and labeled “References,” “Reference list,” “Work cited,” “Works consulted” or “Bibliography,” according to the style. Names of referencing styles are Name–date (Harvard), American Psychological Association (APA), The Modern Language Association of America (MLA), Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA), Chicago (Turabian), Council of Science Editors (CSE). The pros are: – Most useful when all sources are printed, and these have one or more designated authors; – Easy to follow the chronological progress of a particular debate; – Easy to add or subtract in-text citations and references (particularly useful for last minute assignments!); – Relatively easy to learn; easy to teach; – Familiar: recognizable from many book and journal articles; – No distraction from the text to look at footnotes or endnotes. The cons are: – Less useful when citing and referencing sources without authors and/or dates, and particularly Internet references; – Can be awkward for citing television, radio and other audio-visual sources; – Long-winded for citing secondary sources; – In-text citations are normally counted in assignments on most degree courses, as the student takes “ownership” of evidence cited. This can add significantly to the word count. Examples: – APA: Yadav, S. K. (2020), Research and Publication Ethics, New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd., 2020. – Chicago: Yadav Santosh Kumar, 2020, Research and Publication Ethics, New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd. – MLA: Yadav Santosh Kumar, Research and Publication Ethics, New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd., 2020. – MHRA: Yadav S. K., 2020, Research and Publication Ethics, (New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd).

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– CSE: Yadav S. K., 2020, Research and Publication Ethics, New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd. • Consecutive numbering: This style uses superscript numbers in the text that connect with references in either footnotes or chapter/assignment endnotes (usually the former) This system uses a different and consecutive number for each reference in the text. A list of sources is included at the end of the assignment, which lists all the works referred to in the notes (“References,” “Works cited”). Some tutors may also require a list of all works consulted in preparation for the assignment (i.e., a “Bibliography” or “Works consulted”). Names of referencing styles are British Standard (running notes), MHRA, Chicago (Turabian), Oxford: Oscola. Examples: – MHRA: Yadav Santosh Kumar, Research and Publication Ethics, (New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd., 2020). – Chicago (Turabian): Yadav Santosh Kumar, Research and Publication Ethics, New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd., 2020. – British Standard: Yadav Santosh Kumar, “Research and Publication Ethics,” New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd., 2020. • Recurrent numbering: This style uses bracketed or superscript numbers in the text that connect with a list of references at the end of the chapter/assignment. The same number can recur, e.g., if a source is mentioned more than once in the text our tutors may also require us to include a bibliography, which could include additional sources consulted, but not directly referred to in the text. Names of referencing styles are British Standard (numeric), Vancouver, IEEE, Council of Science Editors (CSE). Examples: – British Standard: Yadav, S. K. (1st ed) Research and Publication Ethics, New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd., 2020. – IEEE: S. K. Yadav, Research and Publication Ethics, New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd., 2020. – Vancouver: Yadav, S. K., Research and Publication Ethics, 1st ed. New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd., 2020. – CSE: Yadav, S. K. 2020, Research and Publication Ethics, 1st ed., New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd. Referencing styles can become adopted because of recommendations from the librarian at the institution, or because of departmental affiliations to style guides produced by an organization representing the interests of a professional group or discipline. Other reasons for the adoption of a particular style include departments imitating departments across institutions; an arbitrary past decision by someone in a department, probably now long gone; or because of an institutional or departmental decision to standardize practice.

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Name–Date (Harvard) Style of Referencing The name–date (Harvard) style does indeed appear to have its origins at Harvard University. Chernin argues that it grew from a referencing practice developed by Edward Laurens Mark, professor of anatomy and director of Harvard’s zoological laboratory, who in turn appears to have been inspired by a cataloguing system in the Library of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. The basic idea of the Harvard style is to: • Use citations (a partial reference) in the text, by citing the last or family name of the author(s), or organizational name, and the year of publication in the text of an assignment; • List all references in full and in alphabetical order at the end of an assignment; • ensure that the name used in the citation connects with the name used to start the full reference entry. Although British Standard recommendations are the benchmarks for the Harvard style in Britain and entire world, these are not prescriptive and so have been interpreted differently between higher education institutions. The students need to follow the recommendations on these stylistic matters given by their own institutions. Citing the source as we write involves giving a partial or shortened reference (last/family name of author(s) and year of publication) in the main body of our written assignment and then giving full details of the source in full at the end of the assignment in a “References” or “Bibliography” section. We can abbreviate lengthy organizational names in the citations providing to explain the citation in the full reference. The name used in the text citation connects with the full reference entry. The full list of references at the end of the assignment for just these four citations would look like this, and in this alphabetical order. We can introduce citations into the text in a variety of ways. The two key points are: • The importance of giving credit to authors who have influenced our ideas and arguments; • The importance placing the citation in the sentence in a way that makes clear the authorship or origin of the source. If there is no specific author name, or the term “Anon.” is not shown in lieu of a name, look for the name of an “originator,” particularly an organizational name in the case of websites. In printed material, if no author’s name is shown, we can cite the title of the work, or an abbreviated version of this. In the References or Bibliography section at the end of an assignment the basic format for listing references in the Harvard style is shown, as follows: • All sources are listed in alphabetical order by last name or name of originator; as stated earlier, the citation connects with the alphabetical item in the reference.

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• Where there is a named author, start with the surname/last name/family name, followed by the initials of the author’s first names. Where there is more than one author, the initials of the first name of the second and subsequent writers precede the last name, for example: Santosh Kumar Yadav, Mamta Sharma, Sandeep Kumar Sharma (2017), Concepts of Education Management, New Delhi: Ane Books Pvt. Ltd. • The forename(s) can be reduced to initials, as shown above, provided that the identity of the person is not obscured by doing this. It is common practice in the Harvard, APA, and numerical styles to use initials only of forenames for printed material, although British Standard examples of Harvard and numerical referencing show the full forenames of originators of most audio-visual material and public performances of creative work. • Compound and hyphenated last names, such as Russell-Harris, should be alphabetized by the first part of the compound. • If the name of author is shown as Anon., this goes alphabetically into the list. If there is no author or originator’s name shown, and Anon. is not presented in lieu of an author’s name, a title for printed material (as used as a citation) can be substituted. The first letter of the first proper title word can be the guide to placing it alphabetically in the list of references. • If we are including several works by the same author, they are listed in chronological order, with the earliest work first. • If we have references with the same first author, but different second and third authors, arrange these alphabetically by the surnames of these subsequent following authors. • Author name is followed by the year of publication. Although British Standard does not show the year in brackets, as stated earlier, it has become common practice now in the Harvard style to do this to differentiate it from other similar name–date styles. The year of publication should be easy to find on printed documents; just look at the printer’s imprint and copyright page, which usually follows immediately after the main title page. All the information we need should be there, including name of publisher, where published, when first published and edition. Always show the edition number for the source we looked at although the edition is different from the impression or reprinted number. • This is followed by the title of the main source consulted. The main source is usually emphasized in some way, e.g., underlined or italics. The main source would be, for example, the title of a book, name of the magazine, journal or newspaper, item title from an Internet site, broadcast production source, title of video or CD-ROM, etc. Whichever mode of emphasis we choose—underlining or italics—keep it consistent throughout. • If our source is a chapter from an edited book, then give the name or names of the editors of the book, followed by the title of the edited book, underlined or in italics. To distinguish the name of the editor(s) from the writer, the initials of the editor(s) should precede the last name. • In most printed items, we would give details of the publisher. We first give the name of the town or city where the source was published, followed by the name of the publisher.

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• In the case of a journal article, we finish with the reference details of volume, edition/ issue number (if shown) of the journal and the page number(s) of where the article can be located within the journal.

Abbreviations in References Abbreviations in the text of assignments are not generally encouraged by tutors, except in scientific and technical writing, in tables, graphs and charts, and in relation to the terms “ibid,” “op cit.” and “loc cit.” In footnotes and in lists of references or bibliographies they can be used, although clarity always takes precedence over brevity in references. We should use a full word if the abbreviation might confuse readers. British Standard guidelines, the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, and the APA style guide all give advice on abbreviations commonly found and acceptable within full references. For Harvard, MLA, Chicago, and British Standard numerical styles, the months of the year in full reference can be abbreviated, except May, June, and July. The APA style shows all the months of the year spelt in full. Table below shows certain abbreviations: Term Abbreviated/abbreviation Abstract Adapted Bibliography Compact disc read-only Cassette Chapter Circa Department of... Diagram Disk Edition (Revised edition) Second edition, etc. Editor(s) Electronic mail Figure Folio From Index Number/number No date Opus (work)

Abbreviation abbr. abs. adapt. bibliogr. (MLA: bibliog.) CD-ROM cas. ch. or chap. c. or ca. Dept. of. . . diagr. dk. edn. Rev. edn. 2nd edn. ed/s. e-mail fig. fol. fr. ind. No./no. n.d. op. (continued)

Reference Foreign Author Names

Term Page/pages pp. Paragraph Record(ed) Summary Supplement Table Technical Report Variant Volume

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Abbreviation p./pp. par. rec. sum. suppl. (MLA: supp.) tab. Tech. Rep. var. vol.

Reference Foreign Author Names When alphabetizing names for citations and reference lists in languages other than English, we should treat the last name in accordance with the conventions that apply in the country of origin. For instance, when the name of an author consists of several words, the choice of entry word is determined as far as possible by agreed usage in the country concerned. In parts of Asia, for example, a father’s personal name is commonly combined with the son’s name, so that in two-worded names the second is the father’s personal name, and not the family name. We may need, therefore, if we are unfamiliar with these conventions, to seek advice from the librarian at our institution or the help of a fellow student from the country in question. In European names: • French: The de following a first name is not normally used with the last name for referencing purposes. However, there are some exceptions, as follows: when De is normally used or associated with the name, e.g., De Quincy; or when the last name has only one syllable, e.g., de Gaulle; or when the name begins with a vowel, d’Arcy; or when the prefixes Du and Des are applied. • German: the prefix von is usually not used with the last name in references, unless it has become associated by tradition and convention with a particular person. • Italian: Renaissance or pre-Renaissance names are cited and alphabetized by first name, e.g., Leonardo da Vinci. Post-Renaissance and modern Italian family names are often prefixed with da, de, del, della, di or d’, which should be included in the reference, although the alphabetization should be with the last name, e.g., De Sica, placed in the alphabet under “S.” • Spanish: last names should be shown in full, e.g., García Márquez; García Lorca. The prefix Del is capitalized and used with the last name for referencing purposes.

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In Arabic names: Arabic last names that begin with “al-” or “el-” should be alphabetized against the name that follows, e.g., al-Hakim, would be listed under “H.” Arabic names that begin with “Abu,” “Abd,” and “Ibn” are similar to Scottish names beginning with “Mac,” so they should be alphabetized accordingly, e.g., “Abd” would precede “Abu.” In Asian names: In some countries, e.g., China, Korea, and Japan, the family name is followed by a given or personal name. So the male Chinese name “Mao Zedong” consists of the family name: “Mao,” and his given or personal name: “Zedong.” However, full names often consist of three parts, e.g., “Kim Yong-il.” In this example, “Kim” would be treated as the surname, while “Yong” indicates the generation of the person, and “il” the personal name. If an author’s name does not easily conform to APA or any other European or North American referencing style guides—where it is relatively easy to establish what is the “surname,” “last name” or “family” name—then it is reasonable, and culturally respectful, to give the name in full in the citation, which is repeated in the same order in the full reference; If an author has adopted a Christian-European name, which they place first in their full name, this should be reversed in the reference.

Avoiding Plagiarism as an Author For us as an author to avoid plagiarism, the best way is learning and compliance with the basic principles of good academic from our academic career’s starting. As signaled by the University of Oxford’s website “avoiding plagiarism is not simply a matter of making sure our references are all correct, or changing enough words so the examiner will not notice our paraphrase; it is about deploying our academic skills to make our work as good as it can be.” Further from the perspective of the global scientific integrity, as points by a new book edited by Japan Society for Promotion of Science Editing Committee, “Scientists should themselves take positive steps to learn a new the nature of principled research and to build upon that concept in fostering the next generation of scientists so as to soundly advance science and establish public trust in it.” In Singapore Statement on Research Integrity, there are total of 14 principles and professional responsibilities among which Article 7 requires “Researchers should acknowledge in publications the names and roles of those who made significant contributions to the research, including writers, funders, sponsors, and others, but do not meet authorship criteria.” We should know these rules which are fundamental to the integrity of research wherever it is undertaken. In other words, if we are an honest scientific author, we have to fulfill these responsibilities. In recent years, a growing number of leading universities have provided their own rules of conduct for scholarly authors, whether undergraduates, postgraduates, or faculty. Some outstanding examples are listed below.

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• Cornell University: Code of Academic Integrity (http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/aic.cfm) • Harvard University: Harvard Guide to Using Sources (http://usingsources.fas. harvard.edu/icb/icb.do) • Harvard Medical School; White Paper: Plagiarism and Research Misconduct (2010) (http://hms.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/assets/About_Us/COI/files/plagia rism_statement_121510.pdf) • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): Academic Integrity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: a handbook for students (2012) (http:// web.mit.edu/academicintegrity/handbook/handbook.pdf) • Princeton University: Academic Integrity (2011) (http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/ integrity/pages/intro/) • Yale University: (http://writing.yalecollege.yale.edu/advice-students/usingsources/ understanding-and-avoiding-plagiarism/what-plagiarism) • University of Cambridge: University-wide statement on plagiarism (http://www. admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/plagiarism/students/statement.html) • University of Oxford: Plagiarism (http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/ skills/plagiarism) • University of Tokyo: Code of Research Integrity (2006, in Japanese) (http://www.utokyo.ac.jp/ja/administration/codeofconduct/index.html) • Zhejiang University: Academic ethical code and management policy (2009-No. 15—Document, in Chinese) (http://xfjs.zju.edu.cn/redir.php?catalog_id=5&object_ id=346) • Australian National University: Academic Misconduct Rules 2014 (http://www. comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2014L01785) Some publishers also provide guidance on their websites for authors; for example, Elsevier offers educational materials for authors on “Ethics in Research and Publication” (http://www.elsevier.com/ethics). And Wiley-Blackwell has its “Best Practice Guidelines on Publication Ethics—a Publisher’s Perspective” (https://authorservices.wiley.com/ bauthor/publicationethics.asp) in English, Chinese, and Japanese, respectively. Particularly based on its Author Services, authors will learn not only what are both ethical broad ethical issues and practical points, but also be aware of principle of transparency that requires authors must let the reader know who did the work and has the work been published before in order to avoid plagiarism and promote research integrity. In 2015, JZUS became the first Chinese journal to post an Anti-Plagiarism Policy (http://www.zju.edu.cn/jzus/Policy.php) that will be journal guidelines for the authors, which clear point. The following are acceptable, provided always that: (a) the quotation (if any) is typographically identified (by quotation marks or, for longer extracts, indentation), (b) the source is acknowledged in the text, (c) a full citation to the original is given as under:

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• Quotation of a modest amount (under 100 words) of the author’s own or other’s text; • Paraphrase of previously published text in the author’s own words; • Repetition of someone else’s ideas; • Reproduction of a chart, image, table, or key equation from your own or someone else’s work (provided copyright permission has been obtained from the original copyright owner, and acknowledgment is included in whatever form they request); • In Biosciences papers it is acceptable to reproduce the description of a standard/ homemade method from a previously published source, provided the source is properly acknowledged; • Republication of a previously published conference paper is acceptable, if 60% or more of the content is new and substantive (provided copyright permission has been obtained from the original copyright owner, and acknowledgment is included in whatever form they request). • Republication of a paper in translation is acceptable only if, in the view of the peer reviewers, it is necessary in order to reach part of the intended readership, and then only with copyright permission from the original publisher. The following are unacceptable in any circumstances: • • • •

Duplicate publication of an entire article; Major plagiarism of the work of others (SMSI >10% or OSI >35%); Serious self (or team)-plagiarism (SMSI >10% or OSI >35%); Review papers which reproduce substantial amounts of the texts discussed (OSI >35%)

Other author’s work should always be treated with the same respect that would wish for our own work. That means: • Not relying excessively on quoted (or our own previously published) material; • If we have nothing new to add, don’t write it! • Always identifying the source of ideas, words, data, figures, etc., with a full citation to the originally published source, whether the work is our own or someone else’s. Reference styles differ from journal to journal, but are generally variants of the Vancouver style (common in science, technology and medical journals) or the Harvard style (more usually found in social sciences and humanities journals). • Always identifying actual quotations from someone else’s work with quotation marks (if the extract is short) or indentation (if it is long). Bear in mind that copyright issues are likely to arise if we are quoting substantial passages (or non-textual material, such as figures, graphs or diagrams) from anyone else’s work; we need to seek the original publisher’s permission (the author’s permission alone is not enough). Even if reword,

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rephrase, summarize or translate someone else’s writing (or own previously published) material, we should still credit the original source.

Detecting Potential Plagiarism There exists a variety of online tools which can compare a submitted text with texts already in its database or freely available online. The most widely used are CrossCheck, which is mainly used for texts in English, and Academic Manuscript Literature Checking (AMLC) from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) that almost covers all contents of Chinese Integrated Knowledge Resources Database and is mainly used for texts in Chinese. These tools enable journal editors to check submitted material against large databases of already published content, and to produce succinct statistical reports of the amount of similar or identical wording found. The author’s editorial team relies on CrossCheck, which is described in detail in this chapter, to carry out these checks. CrossCheck powered by iThenticate is an initiative started by CrossRef, or PILA-the Publisher International Linking Association that is an association of scholarly publishers that develops shared infrastructure to support more effective scholarly communications, because in 2006 the Board of the CrossRef project raised plagiarism as an area of particular concern. The CrossCheck plagiarism detection project (http://www.crossref.org/ crosscheck/index.html) was piloted with seven international publishers and a technology partner (iParadigms) during late 2007 and early 2008. CrossCheck was commercially launched in June 2008, and won the ALPSP Award for Innovation in the same year. CrossCheck is an international project intended to help cope with the high incidence of plagiarism in recent years, by reliably detecting the extent of duplication between texts. It is led by its parent organization, CrossRef, and many global publishing groups are members. Four distinct types of plagiarism were identified, which we consider sufficiently serious to be considered as a form of academic misconduct: • Duplicate publication: Identification of duplicated text is not difficult using CrossCheck. However, currently CrossCheck is unable to check duplication in figures and tables, so we have recourse to other sources (Google, PubMed Central, etc.) for further analysis of articles highlighted by CrossCheck. • Self-(or team) plagiarism: This can frequently be found in papers of authors from the same research program. Some authors, or even program leaders, believe that this is justified by different focuses in the same research project, even when the equipment and methods adopted are the same; thus they do not feel it is unreasonable to duplicate parts of the introduction, methods, and discussion sections. Once a paper is published the authors should not recycle any of its content in new papers. Self-plagiarism wastes not only the publication resources of journals but also the time of readers. Instead, authors should simply cite previous studies, giving no more than an overview in their current paper.

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• Direct copying of Methods section, with new data inserted: This is a particularly common phenomenon in biomedical papers, where all or part of the Methods section may be copied verbatim, only changing some of the experimental conditions and data. Some authors feel that it is an acceptable to copy all or part of the Methods section from a previously published article, simply inserting their own data. • Uncited or excessive extracts: When we raised the matter with the author, he/she argued that, since his/her own view was identical to that of the other author, it was acceptable to use the same words without citation. However, such conduct misleads readers into believing that they are reading the author’s own words and, quite apart from its academic impropriety, this is an infringement of copyright. Sometimes, too, authors believe that, with a full citation, it is reasonable to copy whole paragraphs from other papers; this is not the case, and the fair dealing rules always apply. The phenomenon of copy and paste is also all too common, particularly in papers from non-English-speaking authors. In a few extreme cases, we found that many sentences and whole paragraphs were identical to those in published papers, and scarcely any of the words were the author’s own. Piracy is defined as the appropriation of ideas, data, or methods from others without adequate permission or acknowledgment. Again, deceit plays a central role in this form of misconduct. The intent of the perpetrator is the untruthful portrayal of the ideas or methods of their own. Plagiarism is a form of piracy that involves the use of text or other items (figures, images, tables) without permission or acknowledgment of the source of these materials. Plagiarism generally involves the use of materials from others, but can apply to researcher’s duplication of their own previously published reports without acknowledgment (this is sometimes called self-plagiarism or duplicate publication). Academia is not a perfect world; inevitably academic journals all over the world are likely to encounter these or similar problems. As editors, we have a responsibility to promote professional ethics. CrossCheck enables us to see that most scientists do behave ethically. However, it is up to the editorial community to propose criteria and processes for handling these types of academic misconduct. In this way we can help to protect the copyrights of original authors, and promote the healthy development of academic journals.

Critical Analysis Critical analysis is about looking at a subject from a range of perspectives, and following or creating logical arguments. There is a choice of six directions of critical analysis in academic and research: • Agreeing with a particular point of view, and giving good reasons to support it; • Rejecting a particular point of view, but again using reliable evidence to do this;

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• Conceding that an existing point of view has merits, but that it needs to be qualified in certain respects, and stating what these are; • Proposing a new point of view, or reformulating an existing one, backed with supporting evidence; • Reconciling two positions, which may seem at variance, by bringing new perspectives to bear on the topic; • Connecting or synthesizing different ideas, so that new approaches and points of view can be advanced. It is important for every academic writer to avoid this narrow-minded argumentation trap; academic works are not only about compiling existing arguments, but adding new perspectives, finding new arguments, or new ways of combining existing knowledge. Referencing a work indicates that the writer finds the referenced material important; hence references create academic clout in an assignment. In the global academic community a more-cited article will find more recognition. What to include in critical analysis (as reference): • Originator or creator of the source: this should be the starting point for the reference. The originator or creator can be the name, nickname or nomenclature of the author, writer, editor; or name of a government or government body, an organization, institution, group, or website/website host. Then include the following: • Date: the year of origin of the information, and other specific dates, if relevant, e.g., in the case of newspapers, journals, etc. • Title: title and subtitle of source in question. If the creator/originator of the source is unknown, the reference can be started with the source title. • Specific identifiers: for example, the nature of the source, e.g., [DVD], volume and edition numbers, and page numbers. • Where to locate the source: this can be the location and name of the publisher/ originator; or in the case of the Internet, a web address. • The golden rule of referencing: The Golden Rule of referencing is to give an interested reader enough information to help them easily and quickly find the source we have cited. If they wanted to look at our source and check it for themselves, could they find it easily with the information we have supplied?

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Referencing Electronic Sources Electronic sources are very important to students/authors/researchers. The Internet is quick, accessible, and easy to use and, if the right keyword searches are made, it can produce useful evidence for assignments. However, there are drawbacks to use electronic sources and students/researchers often experience considerable difficulty in citing and referencing them. The apparent absence of authorship details, dates, page numbers on some websites, plus length of some website addresses, can cause so many problems. Citation of sources in the text of an assignment can also cause difficulty, with the students often uncertain what to put. The common mistakes we made are: • We should not put a www address as a citation. We always put the name of an author, or the source organization, but never cite a uniform/universal resource locator (URL) or digital object identifier (DOI) address in the body of an assignment unless there is absolutely no other way of identifying the source. • We do not need a separate list of www sites in our References, Works cited, or Bibliography sections. In all referencing styles, Internet sites are incorporated along with other sources into one list at the end of the assignment. • Another common mistake is to simply paste in a URL address to a list of references, without any other supporting information, such as the title of item, name of hosting organization, or date the information was viewed. There are four main principles or guidelines to referencing electronic sources: • First, and this is common for all referencing styles, the citation should link with the full reference. What appears in the citation, either a name or a number, will connect with the full reference entry. • Second, tutors should be directed as closely as possible to the online information being cited and referenced. This usually means giving the complete URL addresses or DOI tags to take our tutors to the same screen we looked at, rather than leading them to just home or menu pages. Digital object identifiers offer a more permanent means of finding a source, as URLs are vulnerable to change if the site is moved to another host. Digital object identifiers sources are given an alphanumeric label that will track sources and thus offer a more persistent and consistent way of locating them. • Third, ensure to show website addresses that work! There is nothing more frustrating than to type out the URL address given, only to find later that the address given is incorrect. Make sure that we have copied them or pasted them in correctly. • Fourth, because sites do disappear without warning, it is wise to print out copies of sources used for citation purposes to show a tutor, if required, and some tutors will insist us to do this. These copies can be included in an appendix, or a note included in the assignment for the reader to the effect that they can be made available to the tutor, if required.

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The following elements are listed in the order in which they appear in a full reference entry. However, there may be occasional exceptions to this rule. This may be because of particular referencing style guidelines, or because of the nature of the source or the context in which it is to be used in an assignment. We can include the following: • Originator: the person or organization taking the main responsibility for the source; • Year of origin. This element is second listed in the case of Harvard, APA, and MLA styles; • Title of work consulted; • Type of medium; • Publisher and place of publication; • Date of publication; • Online address or location within portable database; • Name of database, if applicable; • Other identifying features; • Date looked at the information.

The Future of Plagiarism Honesty is the best policy for research and publication. In addition to transparency, honesty is crucial if one wants to succeed as an author, researcher, journal publisher, or editor. As Alisher Navoiy, the national poet of Uzbekistan said as long ago as the fifteenth century: Truthfulness is the essence of honourable people. Two themes are seen within it. Firstly, be honest not only in words But also in thoughts and deeds. Secondly, scorn the world of falsehood But speak out the truth intrepidly. Both qualities are good in themselves And together mark greatness of spirit.

We can borrow from Cicero’s words: We are not born for ourselves, our country has given us the responsibility’ to interpret the responsibilities of science, that is, researchers, authors, journal publishers and editors, we are not born for ourselves, our work has given us a real responsibility, that is to say, we must be responsible for the facts and truth.

Scientists have to be responsible for gathering data carefully, using appropriate analytical and statistical techniques, reading more previous writings or printing information, and finally reporting their results accurately. Some researchers or authors have found guilty of plagiarism can pay a high personal price due to their academic misbehavior. However, during discussion with Prof. Kiang about “Thoughts on Intellectual Property and Practical Implications,” he mentioned “for the most part, an intellectual offense is usually unpunished except for some damage to one’s reputation.” So today as a senior scientist, he

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strongly stresses it is time to think of “enforcing edicts against plagiarism; perhaps an analogy may be made to the history of enforcing laws against drugs and alcohol, etc.” We can predict that the Future of Plagiarism almost has a limited market because these strict policies and new digital techniques (ORCID, CrossCheck, etc.) are the bane of it, although we have to admit that plagiarism is an eternal topic in human society, and we cannot stop all plagiarism, which will always exist somewhere, just as there will always be drugs, always corruption, etc. More police cannot stop it. But we can positive steps to reduce it, don’t we think? Below are six concluding points: • • • • • •

The whole world should pay attention to research integrity; Create a culture of transparency in science and publication; Take the honesty as the best policy for researchers and authors; Make responsibility the foundation of scientific research and publication; Sanctions are necessary in scientific and publishing areas; We can never completely eradicate plagiarism, but we have to make it morally and culturally unacceptable!

So as to sum up, Integrity, Transparency, Honesty, Responsibility, and Sanctions, these are the keywords in the fight against plagiarism in the past, present, future.

Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

What do you understand by term referencing of literature? Why is referencing in higher education a unique context? What are primary and secondary sources in referencing? What is the difference between a list of “References” and a “Bibliography”? Which are those four situations when we do not need to reference sources? How can we introduce citations into the text in a variety of ways? Explain basic format for listing references in the Harvard style. Explain choice of six directions of critical analysis in academic and research. What is the future of plagiarism? Write Short Notes on the following: (a) Plagiarism: Issue and Facts (b) Referencing Styles (c) Name–Date (Harvard) Style of Referencing (d) Reference Foreign Author Names (e) Avoiding Plagiarism as an Author (f) Potential Plagiarism (g) Referencing Electronic Sources

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Further Reading Angélil-Carter S (2000) Stolen language? Plagiarism in writing. Pearson Education, Harlow Dordoy A (2003) Cheating and plagiarism: staff and student perceptions at Northumbria. Working paper presented Northumbrian conference: ‘educating for the future’, Newcastle Gustavii B (2003) How to write and illustrate a scientific paper. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Hart M, Friesner T (n.d.) Plagiarism and poor academic practice—a threat to the extension of e-learning in higher education? Academic Conferences Limited. www.ejel.org. Accessed 13 Mar 2006 IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (n.d.) Transactions, journals, and letters: information for author. http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/authors/transjnl/index.html. Accessed 20 Aug 2006 Maimon EP, Peritz JH, Yancey KB (2007) A writer’s resource: a handbook for writing and research. McGraw Hill, New York Neville C (2009) How to improve your assignment results. McGraw Hill/Open University Press, Maidenhead Neville C (2010) The complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism. Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education, Berkshire Rumsey S (2004) How to find information: a guide for researchers. Open University Press, Maidenhead Walker JR, Taylor T (1998) The Columbia guide to online style. Columbia University Press, New York Zhang Y(H) (2016) Against plagiarism, a guide for editors and authors. Springer International Publishing Switzerland, Cham

Database and Research Metrics

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Overview The study on database technologies, or more generally, the technologies of data and information management, is an important and active research field. Recently, many exciting results have been reported. After decades of development, today’s database systems all have numerous features, making it very difficult to choose these features toward the need of the specific applications using them. For example, building indexes and materialized views often dramatically improve the performance on a given query workload, but it is very difficult to select the necessary indexes and views because such decision depends on how these queries are executed. On the other hand, the cost of hardware has dropped dramatically. Thus, the cost for human to tune and manage the database systems often dominates the cost of ownership. To reduce such cost, it is desirable to automate database tuning and administration. Database tuning and administration include physical database design and tuning system parameters. Physical database design includes selecting indexes, views, vertical partitioning and horizontal partitioning, parallel database design, etc. Tuning system parameters includes selecting the serializability level, locking granularity, placement of log files, buffer pool size, RAID levels, cache sizes and placement, etc. There are many research problems unsolved in this area. First, very little work has been done in automatically tuning system parameters, and it is challenging to predict the system performance after changing such parameters. Second, little is known on how to adjust the system to changes of the workload. Ideally, the database system shall be able to automatically adjust to such changes. Third, given the numerous features to tune, it remains challenging to identify the system bottleneck as well as to tune all these together. The purpose of data integration is to support seamless access to autonomous, heterogeneous information sources, such as legacy databases, corporate databases connected by intranets, and sources on the Web. Many research systems have been developed to achieve

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this goal. These systems adopt a mediation architecture in which a user poses a query to a mediator that retrieves data from underlying sources to answer the query. A wrapper on a source is used to perform data translation and local query processing. Intensive research has been conducted on challenges that arise in data integration. The first challenge is how to support interoperability of sources, which have different data models (relational, XML, etc.), schemas, data representations, and querying interfaces. Wrapper techniques have been developed to solve these issues. The second challenge is how to model source contents and user queries, and two approaches have been widely adopted. In the local-asview (LAV) approach, a collection of global predicates is used to describe source contents as views and formulate user queries. Given a user query, the mediation system decides how to answer the query by synthesizing source views, called answering queries using views. A growing number of emerging applications, such as sensor networks, networking flow analysis, and e-business and stock market online analysis, have to handle various data streams. It is demanding to conduct advanced analysis and data mining over fast and large data streams to capture the trends, patterns, and exceptions. Recently, some interesting results have been reported for modeling and handling data streams for a comprehensive overview, such as monitoring statistics over streams and query answering. Furthermore, conventional OLAP and data mining models have been extended to tackle data streams, such as multi-dimensional analysis and classification. While extending the existing data mining models to tackle data streams may provide valuable insights into the streaming data, it is high time we considered the following fundamental question: Compared to the previous studies on mining various kinds of data, what are the distinct features/core problems of mining data streams? In other words, from mining data streams, do we expect something different than mining other kinds of data? The spatio-temporal database (STDB) has received considerable attention during the past few years, due to the emergence of numerous applications (e.g., flight control systems, weather forecast, mobile computing, etc.) that demand efficient management of moving objects. These applications record object’s geographical locations (sometimes also shapes) at various timestamps, and support queries that explore their historical and future (predictive) behaviors. The STDB significantly extends the traditional spatial database, which deals with only stationary data and hence is inapplicable to moving objects, whose dynamic behavior requires re-investigation of numerous topics including data modeling, indexes, and the related query algorithms. In this section, we survey the existing solutions for these issues. Currently, bio-informatics has become one of the research areas that receive most of attention. In general, bio-informatics aims to solve complicated biological problems, e.g., gene regulatory network induction, motif discovery, etc., with computation algorithms. Many of the data are in the form of sequences, e.g., DNA sequences, protein sequences, etc. It is widely believed that the functionality of these biological sequences is highly dependent on the structures. Automatically extracting/analyzing the biological structures is an important step in better understanding their functionality. Clustering has been widely recognized as a powerful data mining technique and has been studied extensively during recent years.

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The major goal of clustering is to create a partition of objects such that objects in each group have similar features. The result can potentially reveal unknown object groups/ categories that may lead to a better understanding of the nature. In the context we address, each object is a symbol sequence and all potential features of a sequence are encoded (implicitly) in the specific symbol layout in the sequence. It is interesting to notice that these structural characteristics sometimes can uniquely determine the functional properties of the sequence and often plays a decisive role in meaningful clustering of the sequence. The use of derived data to facilitate access to base data is a recurring technique in many areas of computer science. Used in hardware and software caches, derived data speeds up accesses to the base data. Used in replicated systems, it improves reliability and performance of applications in a wide-area network. Used as index structures, it provides fast alternative access paths to the base data.

Bibliometrics Bibliometrics are an inevitable part of the conversation a goal they must strive for or a hurdle they must leap over. But what are bibliometrics exactly, and how did they come to dominate our modern sense of what makes impactful research? We can have a look at the twentieth-century origins of bibliometrics before continuing on to a more detailed discussion of the present-day state of the field, including major categories of metrics, popular bibliometric tools, and the bibliometric practices of twenty-first-century researchers and librarians. Bibliometrics was therefore born not only at a time when books and journals monopolized scholarly communication, but also in an academic era that had yet to see the rise of personal computers, let alone word-processing, the Internet, or mobile devices. Its early champions were also almost exclusively scientists and science-oriented librarians, whose mutual interest in scientometrics another mid-century “-ometrics” field that focused, as one might guess, on measuring science scholarship set the disciplinary tone for bibliometric research for decades to come. Today, bibliometrics has evolved into a significantly broader field of study but its focus on print-based methods of communication and analysis has continued more or less unchanged. For purposes of this book, we will define bibliometrics as a set of quantitative methods used to measure, track, and analyze printbased scholarly literature.

Bibliometrics Milestones Year by Year • • • • •

1961: Eugene Garfield founds the Institute for Science Information (ISI). 1963: ISI releases the Science Citation Index (SCI). 1973: ISI releases the Social Science Citation Index. 1975: ISI releases SCI Journal Citation Reports with impact factor calculations. 1977: ISI adds new types of citable non-article materials to the Science Citation Index.

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

1978: ISI releases the Arts & Humanities Citation Index. 1979: The new journal Scientometrics is first published. 1988: ISI releases the SCI on CD-ROM. 1992: Thomson Scientific & Healthcare acquires ISI and becomes Thomson ISI. 1997: Thomson ISI’s new Web of Science Core Collection launches online. 2002: Web of Knowledge launches as a consolidated research platform. 2004: Elsevier launches Scopus as a competitor to Web of Science. 2005: ISI is dropped from Thomson ISI and becomes Thomson Scientific. 2005: Jorge E. Hirsch invents the h-index for quantifying scientific research output. 2007: Thomson Corporation acquires the Reuters Group to become Thomson Reuters. 2007: Ann-Wil Harzing releases the first version of the program Publish or Perish. 2008: The new h-index metric is added to Web of Knowledge. 2008: Thomson Reuters adds citation mapping tool to Web of Science. 2011: Thomson Reuters launches the Book Citation Index. 2011: Google announces the new Google Scholar Citations feature. 2012: Thomson Reuters launches the Data Citation Index. 2013: Thomson Reuters launches the Scientific Electronic Library Online Citation Index. • 2014: Thomson Reuters launches the second generation of InCites, including Essential Science Indicators and Journal Citation Reports in one platform. Most of the impact metrics might be grouped into four levels, which distinguish between the items different metrics choose to focus on rather than the methods they produce their results by. These levels are as follows: • • • •

Level 1: Metrics focused on individual scholarly contribution. Level 2: Metrics focused on the venues that produce individual scholarly contributions. Level 3: Metrics focused on author output over time. Level 4: Metrics focused on group and institutional output over time.

Calculating Journal Impact Factor An important and predictive measure of research impact in research is the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of the journal in which the article appears. The JIF is the average number of citations per article per year. It is an indication of the importance and uptake of that research, denoting the relative importance of a journal within its field, like journals with higher impact factors are deemed to be more important than those with lower ones. Impact factors are generally calculated yearly. As with the times cited metric that underlies impact factor, it’s important to remember that no single source can provide 100% complete data about journal citation patterns. In fact, since the classic impact factor is only calculated for sources indexed in Web of Science (see the Proprietary Article Databases section in this

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chapter for more about Web of Science’s sources), many smaller academic journals and journals outside the STEM disciplines simply don’t have an impact factor, even though they have strong reputations within their areas of specialization. Most of the faculties are surprised to discover this gap when searching Web of Science or JCR for the first time and can feel flustered or discouraged by the lack of a particular journal’s inclusion. For this faculty, it may be worth informing them about alternatives to Web of Science’s suite of journal metrics. To understand impact factor, we can take an example. Let us begin with an imaginary journal called Journal of Bibliometrics. In the two previous years, 2018–2019, Journal of Bibliometrics published a total of 1000 citable items in its issues. Citable items are defined by Web of Knowledge and include all items of scholarly substance, from peer-reviewed articles to reviews. Let A = Total citable items published by the journal in the 2 previous years A = 1000. Next, we do a comprehensive search of the references of all the scholarly items indexed within Web of Science this year, 2019. In doing this, we may discover that these 1000 citable items published by Journal of Bibliometrics between 2017 and 2018 were collectively cited a total of 3000 times—again, just in the year 2019. Let B = Total number of times that the items in A were cited in the current year B = 3000. To arrive at the impact factor for Journal of Bibliometrics, we simply divide the total number of collective citations from this year by the number of citable items published by the journal in the previous 2 years. The result is an average of three citations per citable item, when examined 1–3 years after publication, which we call an impact factor of 3.0. Impact factor = B=A 3000 total citations ð2019Þ=1000 citable items ð2017–2018Þ = 3:0 The ratio of 2-year impact factor (2YIF) to 2-year impact factor without self-citations (2YIF*) is intended to capture how journal self-citations inflate an impact factor of a journal. An Impact Factor Inflation (IFI) is defined as “IFI = 2YIF/2YIF*”. The minimum value for IFI is 1, with any value above the minimum capturing the effect of journal selfcitations on the 2-year impact factor. ISI has implicitly recognized the inflation in journal self-citations by calculating an impact factor that excludes self-citations and provides data on journal self-citations, both historically and for the preceding 2 years, in calculating 2YIF. The Self-citation Threshold Approval Rating (STAR) is the difference between citations in other journals and journal self-citations. If S = journal self-citations, STAR is defined as “STAR = [(100 - S) - S] = (100 - 2S).” If S = 0, 25, 50 or 100, for example, STAR = 100, 50, 0, and -100, respectively. As STAR can be calculated using journal self-

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citations, both historically and for the preceding 2 years, historical STAR is H-STAR and a 2-year STAR is 2Y-STAR. Article Influence is intended to measure the average influence of an article across the sciences and social sciences. As an article with zero citations cannot have influence, a more suitable measure of the influence of cited articles is Cited Article Influence (CAI), which is defined as “CAI = (1 - PI-BETA) (Article Influence).” If PI-BETA = 0, then CAI is equivalent to Article Influence; if PI-BETA = 1, then CAI = 0. As Article Influence is calculated annually, whereas PI-BETA is updated daily, CAI may be updated daily. Disadvantages of impact factor are: • The Impact Factor is an arithmetic mean and doesn’t adjust for the distribution of citations. • The JCR doesn’t distinguish between citations made to articles, reviews, or editorials. • The Impact Factor only considers the number of citations, not the nature or quality. • We can’t compare Impact Factors like-for-like across different subject areas. • Impact Factors can show significant variation year-on-year, especially in smaller journals.

Immediacy Index Immediacy index is another journal-level metric developed by Thomson Reuters and published as part of JCR. It operates similarly to both, except immediacy index focuses only on the citation patterns and publications of a single calendar year whereas impact factor and 5-year impact factor metrics look to balance article citations generated within a single year with citable items published by a journal in the previous 3 or 5 years (respectively). For example, if a journal has a 2018 immediacy index of 0.350 that would indicate that in 2018, each citable item published by the journal generated an average of 0.350 citations within the same year it was published. Because many articles take more than a year to start generating citations by other scholarly works, immediacy indices for journals tend to be quite low, with few reaching higher than a value of 1.000. Again, however, this is not the case for every specialization, and certain journals may choose to specialize in publishing cutting-edge research. Users within a given discipline may be interested in JCR’s alternative aggregate immediacy index essentially an average of the immediacy indices for all journals within a JCR-defined subject area.

Cited Half-Life, Eigenfactor, and Article Influence Score Cited half-life is considered another metric published via Web of Science’s JCR it refers to the median age of the items cited in the current JCR year. As an example, if a journal has a cited half-life of 10 years that means half of the citations generated by the journal in the

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current year come from items the journal published in the last 10 years. As an impact metric, cited half-life therefore indicates in theory about how long articles published by the journal continue to be considered impactful, although as JCR is quick to point out, “a higher or lower cited half-life does not imply any particular value for a journal.” This caveat is partly a nod to the fact that different disciplines and different types of publications have different expectations for currency and usefulness when it comes to their citations. A journal that publishes primary research would presumably have a longer cited half-life than one publishing reviews or secondary research on a quickly evolving topic like educational technology. On a related note, some librarians have found the cited half-life metric useful for purposes of collection weeding (e.g., binding or archiving only those journals with relatively high cited half-lives). Eigenfactor and Article Influence Score are interesting examples of metrics based on the same citation data as Thomson Reuters’ JCR but developed independently by a team of researchers at the University of Washington, led by cofounders Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom. Based on algorithms that combine advances in network analysis with information theory, both Eigenfactor and Article Influence Score use citations to measure the impact of scholarly journals according to the broad dissemination of their articles, such as the frequency with which researchers might encounter concepts that stem from articles published by that journal. Both calculations begin with 5 years’ worth of citation data almost double the number of years examined by traditional impact factor and proceed by following a journal’s published articles as they are cited by various papers. For more information about how to interpret Eigenfactor and Article Influence Score, refer the FAQ page on the Eigenfactor website (http://www.eigenfactor.org/faq.php).

SCImago Journal Rankings Affiliated with both the SCImago Lab group and Elsevier’s Scopus database, SCImago Journal Rankings (SJR) is a relatively new but increasingly popular metric for journal-level impact. Like its competitor, Web of Science, Scopus works by indexing citations from academic journal articles across a range of publications, dates, and disciplines. However, unlike Web of Science, which grew its own bibliometric formulas out of the ISI in the 1970s, Scopus’s bibliometrics are provided by an outside group called SCImago, and then subsequently displayed within Scopus’s journal-level records. As for the value of SJR, it provides the major alternative to Web of Science’s impact factor as it is similarly aimed at measuring the level of impact a journal has on its field or discipline. However, ScImago has developed its ranking based on a more complex method than ISI. According to researchers, SJR is based on Google’s PageRank algorithm an approach to impact that uses elements of probability as well as actual cases of use (i.e., citation). More information about the formula and rationality for the SJR algorithm can be found in a white paper titled, “The SJR Indicator: A New Indicator of Journal’s Scientific Prestige.”

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Source Normalized Impact Per Paper Source Normalized Impact per Paper, known more commonly as SNIP, is a metric calculated by the Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University. It is closely related to but independently calculated and maintained from SCImago’s SJR. SNIP is based on another metric called Raw Impact per Paper (RIP), which is comparable to both impact factor and SJR. As an impact metric, SNIP is unique because it attempts to correct for varying sizes and citation rates across different scientific fields to allow for a fairer comparison of metrics across each discipline. Realistically, the result is a virtual flattening of the normal distribution curve we could plot with SJR metrics for indexed scientific journals in Scopus. Thus, journals with higher SJR numbers will sometimes see their SNIP metrics decrease, and journals with lower SJR numbers will occasionally see increases in their SNIPs. It is also important to note that while SNIP was created by CWTS to compare scientific discipline journals only, every journal in Scopus is given a SNIP value alongside its SJR value. Our unofficial observation has been that SNIP values for non-science journals don’t adequately equate to SNIP values within science disciplines, so that the flattening effect cannot be observed across all journals.

H-Index The H-index, sometimes called the Hirsch index or Hirsch number, was first developed by Hirsh as a measure to quantify the impact and quality of the published work of a scientist or scholar. A scientist has index h if h of his Np papers has at least h citations each, and the other (Np - h) papers have no more than h citations each. In other words, a scholar with an index of h has published h papers, each of which has been cited in other papers at least h times. As an example, if the h-index is 15, we have 15 papers cited 15 times or more. If our h-index is 20, we have 20 papers cited 20 times or more. Citation reports in Web of Science and citation tracker in Scopus calculate the h-index of a search result. Harzing’s Publish or Perish program calculates the h-index based on Google Scholar entries. Various proposals to modify the h-index in order to emphasize different features have been made. Bornmann et al. recently proposed three additional metrics, h2lower, h2center, and h2upper to give a more accurate representation of the distribution shape. Scientists with high h2upper percentages are perfectionists, whereas scientists with high h2lower percentages are mass producers. It was first suggested by Jorge E. Hirsch in 2005 as part of a paper on the relative quality of theoretical physicists, the Hirsch index, or h-index, has fast become one of the best-known bibliometrics for comparing the impact of different authors over time. H-index is calculated by using the number of articles an author has published to date (h) to determine a citation count threshold, which the author’s articles must meet or pass over (also h) to be included as part of the index. The more prolific the author, the higher the potential for the final index value. This index cap can be frustrating for early career researchers, whose h-indexes may appear very low, despite having

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authored one or more articles that have generated a very high number of citations. H-index does not account for works other than articles or citations that appear outside of articles. The debate over the advantages and disadvantages of h-index as a measure of impact has been active for years and has helped spawn the creation of numerous variation metrics, such as g-index, a-index, h2-index, h5-index, and countless others.

H5-Index and H5-Median In regular research, h5-index and its corollary h5-median are journal-level impact metrics that are increasingly popular due to their inclusion in Google Scholar Metrics. Many readers may already be aware that Google Scholar tracks times cited for individual author contributions. However, fewer readers are aware that Google Scholar Metrics maintains metrics at the journal level, just like Web of Science and Scopus. Its metrics, the h5-index and h5-median, are based on citations collected from the last 5 years of a journal’s publication history. The h5-index seeks to determine how many of those articles have been cited at least h times during the 5-year period. Consequently, an h5-index metric of 200 means that the journal has published 200 articles in the past 5 years that have been cited at least 200 times each. As of 2013, the highest h5-index was 349 for the journal Nature. As one might expect, the h5-median takes the journal articles included in the h5-index and returns the median number of citations they have generated.

Fuzzy Metrics: Non-citation-Based Bibliometrics While interest in the impact of journals and journal articles have historically driven advances in the field of bibliometrics, other forms of citable print-based scholarship, from books to conference proceedings to datasets, have gradually made their way into the makeup of the field, thus changing the approach of some toolmakers to indexing and bibliometric calculation and putting pressure on individual researchers to identify quantitative measures of impact and quality that go beyond simple article-to-article practices of citation. The difficulty of this, of course, is that bibliometrics is a field by definition reliant on both quantitative methods and the world of print. This means that any print-based item that defies quantitative analysis must occasionally be shoehorned into a bibliometric perspective with highly variable results. Many of these metrics are statistical translations of qualitative practices pulled directly from the publishing and library worlds hence why they are not typically recognized as actual bibliometrics yet they still can have tremendous value to researchers who work with a variety of printed outputs or are just seeking to tell a more robust story about their recent accomplishments within a field. Such metrics may also hold inspiration for researchers whose work extends into nonprinted outputs, such as performances, exhibitions, and conference presentations.

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The Categories of Bibliometrics Tools These tools may be considered as the best-known sources of bibliometrics. These are typically made available to researchers through institutional subscriptions, such as those managed by the library. Their impact calculations are based on data from within their article indexes, which are by necessity large and interdisciplinary. Categories of tools can be hard to define in bibliometrics, in part because of the natural desire on the part of toolmakers to create resources that address multiple levels of impact at once or in different portions of the same overall dashboard. Even tools that clearly address one purpose or level of impact today can easily change to address a different (or additional) level tomorrow a story of change we have seen played out many times as the market has expanded for new types of academic analysis.

Web of Science Web of Science is interdisciplinary and covers all scientific areas, but it only covers what it considers to best journals and concentrates on English language ones. Data about each article is entered into the database in a uniform structured way: author, title, date, journal name. This means we get accurate retrieval when searching for those things. Web of Science is the best-known proprietary bibliometrics tool for scholars in search of citation data and the most commonly available (at least in terms of priority subscriptions managed by academic libraries with sufficient populations of science researchers). The first step in our walk-through is to perform a search on Garfield’s name in the Web of Science database. Using the resource’s Author Index, we find that we can identify and compare citations affiliated with all the scholars listed under the abbreviated name “Garfield E” a nod to the prevalence of APA style, which truncates author’s first names to only display their initials. Eventually, we decide to select the index options of “Garfield E” and “Garfield Eugene” for a total of 1210 articles. Web of Science is more or less synonymous with the term bibliometrics; it was the first database to track the web of citations created when scholars cite other’s works, the method by which we can create bibliometrics. Though other tools now exist, Web of Science is still considered by many to be the premier source for bibliometrics, and it is certainly the most well-known. Web of Science is comprised of multiple indexes and complementary resources. The majority of Web of Science’s citations are drawn from the Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Today, these indices, along with additional resources with specialized citations, such as chemical reactions and conference proceedings, are combined to form the Web of Science Core Collection. Together these form the basis for Web of Science’s citation coverage. Thomson Reuters considers many factors when choosing journals for inclusion in Web of Science of the process and factors at Web of Science’s. In practice, Web of Science has the strongest coverage in STEM disciplines and favors journals with English language, peer review, and a longer publication history. At the center

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of Web of Science Core Collection are three flagship Citation Indexes, namely, the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) earlier known as SCI (Science Citation Index), the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). These Citation Indexes cover the world’s top tier international and regional journals whose evaluation and selection are governed by the Web of Science Core Collection Journal Selection Process; a well-established set of criteria that have been applied consistently for over 50 years. Emerging Sources Citation Index is a new edition in Web of Science Core Collection. ESCI is a multidisciplinary Citation Index covering all areas of the scholarly literature of the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities.

Journal Citation Reports Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is another product in the Thomson Reuters suite of tools. Since all of these products (including JCR and Web of Science) are built based on the same set of citations from the Web of Science Core Collection, they can all be considered to be databases that arise from the same set of citation data. But while Web of Science is primarily concerned with tracing the web of citations and times cited, JCR steps up one level from the individual article level (Level 1) to consider metrics at the journal level (Level 2). JCR contains a few journal-level metrics but is most well known as the only place to get journal impact factor. JCR was very recently revamped, so the screenshots may not look familiar to long time JCR users, but we like the changes; the revision is a more intuitive navigation experience, with the left-hand navigation bar taking the place of several drop-downs and removing the previous clunky welcome page.

Scopus Scopus is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It covers peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical, and social sciences. It is owned by Elsevier. Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world’s research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research. As research becomes increasingly global, interdisciplinary, and collaborative, you can make sure that critical research from around the world is not missed when we choose Scopus. In 2004, Elsevier announced the arrival of Scopus, the first competitor to Thomson Reuter’s monopoly on citation indexing. Scopus continues to serve an important role in diversifying options for those seeking metrics while giving Thomson Reuters healthy

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competition, which has ultimately resulted in better products competing for valuable library funds. On paper, Scopus and Web of Science have similar coverage; both tout journals in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. However, experience shows that Scopus has a stronger emphasis within the non-science disciplines. Scopus indexes citations and their bibliographies back through 1996 compared to 1900 in Web of Science. Both contain older citations from these bibliographies, but coverage is limited. One big philosophical difference between the two relates to the level of control that each maintains over its products. Scopus has a demonstrable history of working with outside partners to deliver metrics and information based on Scopus’s citation database while Web of Science develops the majority of its information in-house. The use of Scopus and GS [Google Scholar], in addition to WoS [Web of Science], helps reveal a more accurate and comprehensive picture of the scholarly impact of authors.

Google Scholar Citations, Profiles, and Rankings Google Scholar is not a human-curated database but a search engine of the whole internet which narrows the internet results based on machine automated criteria. Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, we can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other websites. Google Scholar helps us find relevant work across the world of scholarly research. Google Scholar entered into the metrics field with the addition of Google Scholar Citations in 2004. On the surface, Google Scholar operates similarly to Web of Science and Scopus, indexing journals and providing citation counts to scholarly literature. However, the scope of what is considered for indexing in Google Scholar is, in practice, much broader than either proprietary database, drawing on publicly available literature in institutional repositories, in online publications, and even from published webliographies. As a product of the ever-popular Google-verse, Google Scholar Citations has proven an invaluable resource for many researchers who are unable to find citation counts or journal rankings through other databases. Google Scholar also offers author-level (Level 3) metrics through its Scholar Profiles. Using this tool, researchers can self-identify their own publications and then see their respective h-index and i10-index scores based on these publications. i10-index is the number of publications with at least 10 citations. In July 2011, Google Scholar started a tool, which allows scholars to keep track of their own citations and also produces an h-index and an i10-index. These profiles underwent a slight redesign in August 2014, but continue to be a good way for scholars to enhance their online presence.

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Additional Bibliometric Tools There exist some more citation-based tools that scholars may have occasionally found useful in calculating their impact. The following is a list of some of those tools, which readers may choose to pursue at their own discretion and interest. • BibExcel: A data generating tool designed to assist a user in analyzing bibliographic data. https://bibliometrie.univie.ac.at/bibexcel/ • CiteSpace: A network analysis and visualization tool that allows users to answer questions about the structure and dynamics of acknowledge domain. http://cluster.cis. drexel.edu/~cchen/citespace/ • Leiden Institute’s list of institutional rankings: An online ranking resource that covers 750 universities worldwide based on factors and uses a sophisticated set of bibliometric indicators. http://www.leidenranking.com/ • Pajek: A Windows program that allows for the visualization and analysis of large networks and can be freely downloaded for non-commercial use. http://pajek.imfm.si/ doku.php?id=pajek • Science of Science (Sci2) Tool: A modular toolset for scientists that supports the temporal, geospatial, topical, and network analysis and visualization of scholarly datasets. https://sci2.cns.iu.edu/user/index.php • SITKIS: A free bibliometric tool that works on both Java and Microsoft Access. https:// sites.google.com/site/sitkisbibliometricanalysis/ • Scholarometer: Formerly Tenurometer, this browser extension that provides a smart interface for Google Scholar and allows for additional features like user filtering and social tagging. http://scholarometer.indiana.edu/

Altmetrics Altmetric (http://altmetric.com) is a London-based company founded in 2011 that has come to dominate the altmetrics product market due to its success in partnering with traditional publishing sources such as Nature and Wiley Journals. As a toolmaker, Altmetric offers a variety of products designed to account for both different metric levels and different academic audiences (and different audience price points). These products revolve its primary feature: the Altmetric “donut.” This colorful circle shows users at a glance the altmetrics activity surrounding a particular article. The donut colors show the type of metric (tweets, blogs, Mendeley, CiteULike, etc.) and relative activity (the larger the color within the circle, the greater the activity), while the number inside the circle gives you the Altmetric score—a Level-1 metric to show the overall altmetrics activity level for that article. The term altmetrics is the brainchild of Jason Priem, a graduate student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has since become one of its best-known public advocates. It first gained widespread attention within the impact community through

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the publication of the “Altmetrics: A Manifesto” on the website “altmetrics.org,” which Priem registered in September 2010. As a term, altmetrics is a portmanteau, formed from the combination of “alternative” and “metrics” (originally hyphenated as “alt-metrics”). On Altmetric.org, the definition of altmetrics is given as “the creation and study of new metrics based on the social web for analyzing and informing scholarship.” This definition reflects three distinctive characteristics for all metrics within this school of impact. First, altmetrics is inseparable from the Internet, and more specifically, from the social aspects and areas of the Internet known as the social web. Second, altmetrics is driven by the new, both in the sense of the necessary creation of new metrics and the availability of new data related to the social web. And third, altmetrics is always tied back in some way to scholarship. Following this mid-2000s change in the use and popularity of online networks waves of new discussion within the field of bibliometrics. As impact scholars began to look more closely at the flow of information on the Internet at large, they began to recognize innovative practices and tools for scholarly communication—practices such as the saving or bookmarking of on-line works for later reading and the availability of article-level metrics (ALMs) from prestigious online journals, such as PLOS ONE in 2009. This alternative set of metrics was discussed under many different names, including web-based bibliometrics, Scientometrics 2.0, and the aforementioned webometrics term. That altmetrics eventually prevailed as the name most favored by members of the impact community is more likely a reflection of the content and timing of the altmetrics manifesto than an endorsement of the term itself. In any case, the result was the sudden recognition of the field of altmetrics in 2010. Altmetrics Milestones Year by Year: • 1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web browser as part of the World Wide Web. • 1994: Social Science Research Network (SSRN) launches. • 1997: Tomas C. Almind and Peter Ingwersen coin the term webometrics in a published paper. • 1998: International DOI Foundation (IDF) is created to develop the digital object identifier (DOI) system. • 2003: Social bookmarking service Del.icio.us (now known simply as Delicious) is founded. • 2004: Online social networking service Facebook launches at Harvard University. • 2004: Richard Cameron begins developing academic social bookmarking site Cite U Like. • 2006: The first full version of Twitter becomes available to the public. • 2006: Open access peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE is established. • 2008: Academic networksAcademia.edu, Mendeley, and ResearchGate launch online. • 2008: The ResearcherID author identification system is introduced by Thomson Reuters. • 2010: The Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) nonprofit is founded. • 2010: Dario Taraborelli launches ReaderMeter.

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Research Gate (RG Scores)

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• 2010: Jason Priem coins the term altmetrics via Twitter. • 2010: Jason Priem, Dario Taraborelli, Paul Groth, and Cameron Neylon publish “AltMetrics: A Manifesto.” • 2011: Mark Hahnel launches the online digital repository Figshare. • 2011: Andrea Michalek and Mike Buschman start altmetrics-focused Plum Analytics. • 2011: Euan Adie founds Altmetric, an altmetrics aggregator site. • 2012: Jason Priem and Heather Piwowar launch Total-Impact (later renamed Impactstory). • 2012: Elsevier partners with Altmetric to add altmetrics data to Scopus. • 2013: Elsevier acquires Mendeley. • 2014: EBSCO Information Services acquires Plum Analytics. • 2014: Wiley officially partners with Altmetric to add altmetric data to its journals. • 2014: Impactstory announces a new individual subscription model.

Research Gate (RG Scores) ResearchGate (http://www.researchgate.net) is a more recent example of a free and popular academic peer network, this time aimed toward the science disciplines. Founded in 2008 by 2 physicians and a computer scientist, ResearchGate is designed, like Social Science Research Network (SSRN) (http://ssrn.com), to help researchers “connect, collaborate, and discover scientific publications, jobs, and conferences.” To use the site, researchers sign up for a free account that allows them to identify publications they have the authored, institutions they are affiliated with, disciplines and subdisciplines they work in, and areas of skill and expertise. Using this data, ResearchGate generates a researcher profile similar to Google Scholar Citations, in that users can get a quick sense not only of a researcher’s background but also his or her contributions to the field and an array in-network use statistic. RG Score is a metric unique to the academic social networking site ResearchGate, and it purports to measure “scientific reputation based on how all of our research is received by your peers.” RG Score is calculated based on an internal algorithm that combines the number of contributions authored by a researcher; who is interacting with each contribution on ResearchGate (i.e., the reputations of those interacting with contributions); and how these researchers are receiving and evaluating these contributions. For these reasons, if users with high RG scores are interacting with our research, our RG score will see an increase. This also means that users with high RG scores know that they can leverage this reputation to increase the reputations of fellow ResearchGate users with an interesting take on channels of impact that may more accurately reflect certain academic dynamics and yet may also less accurately capture influence for fields with less ResearchGate penetration. The first and most obvious challenge that must be addressed for altmetrics to penetrate the broader realm of higher education is the development of more sophisticated tools for aggregate-level altmetrics and comparative institutional analysis.

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Consequently, unlike SSRN, ResearchGate offers users the clear and focused opportunity to see subtle changes in their in-network influence and impact over time. Further, by adapting features from non-academic networks such as an internal inbox and a “Requests” alert system, ResearchGate can help academics start private, semiprivate, or public conversations with peers about their research interests and projects. These conversations can themselves become valuable qualitative pieces within a researcher’s portfolio and can lead to the discovery of audiences in unexpected subject areas. Like many social networks, ResearchGate suffers from the problem of limited data in that it cannot track information about the identities of non-ResearchGate users who stumble across user profiles (something that naturally occurs via Google searching). Also, researchers outside the sciences may find their fields less than accurately populated with research due to inevitable imbalances in the adoption of ReearchGate across the disciplines.

Mendeley Mendeley (http://mendeley.com) is a free peer network that combines the discoverability of peer networks with the organizational content of a citation management software program. Mendeley launched in 2008, initially funded by investors until its acquisition by Elsevier in early 2013. By registering for Mendeley, users can search for articles, upload articles, create article citations, browse articles by discipline, or follow group topics of interest and other researchers’ updates in Mendeley. Once logged in, a Mendeley user’s homepage is similar to that of a Facebook feed with individual items comprised of recent updates from groups and researchers that the individual follows. By downloading Mendeley’s desktop program, users can take advantage of the citation aspect of the network, which allows users to store, organize, and cite articles of interest within a personally created citation library. Still, from the perspective of altmetrics, the greatest value of using Mendeley is data that the tool produces and collects—namely, information about Mendeley’s readership, which is freely available and can be harvested by various altmetrics tools. According to the Mendeley website, readership is defined as “the total number of Mendeley users who have [a specific] reference in their Mendeley personal library.” Readership as a metric is further categorized based on basic reader demographic information: readers’ disciplines, academic statuses, and countries of affiliation. Despite the fact that readership data is only technically available for individual articles through the Mendeley platform, many altmetrics tools rework and aggregate this metric independently to provide readership metrics at the author, departmental or lab, and institutional levels.

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The Leiden Manifesto

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The Leiden Manifesto This document was published in Nature to lay down ten guiding principles intended to guide best practices for bibliometric-based research assessment. These principles are summarized below. Although they are well understood within the expert bibliometric community, they need to be adopted by others seeking to implement or understand bibliometric-based evaluation. • Metrics can provide additional dimensions to the assessment process, but should never be used in isolation from qualitative assessment (e.g., peer-review). Metrics-based evaluation can supplement and provide additional dimensions to qualitative assessment, but should never replace it. • Metrics used to evaluate research performance should reflect the research objectives of the institution, research groups, or individual researchers. Individual indicators often provide a one-dimensional view of research impact while intended research goals of the evaluated units or individuals may be multi-dimensional. For example, they may include advances of science or improvements of social outcomes and may be aimed at differing audiences from researcher, to industry, to policymakers. No single metric or evaluation model can apply in all contexts. • Measure locally relevant research using appropriate metrics, including those that build on journal collections in local languages or that cover certain geographic locations. Big international citation databases (used most frequently to derive data used for constructing indicators) still mostly focus on English language, western journals. • Metrics-based evaluation, to be trusted, should adhere to the standards of openness and transparency in data collection and analysis. What data are collected? How is it collected? How are citations captured? What are the exact methods and calculations used to develop indicators? Is the process open to scrutiny by experts and by the assessed? • Those who are evaluated should be able to verify data and the analyses used in the assessment process. Are all relevant outputs identified, captured, and analyzed? • Just as all metrics are not suitable for assessing all aspects of scholarship neither can they be applied equally across all disciplines. We know that disciplines vary in their publication and citation practices, and these need to be taken into consideration when selecting metrics to compare disciplines. For instance, a bibliometric profile of a researcher studying causes of lung disease will be rather different from that of a researcher studying the social effects of smoke cessation programs. • Do not rely on a single quantitative indicator when evaluating individual researchers. The h-index, currently the most popular author-level indicator, favors older researchers with longer publication lists. Moreover, it does not adjust for disciplinary differences and ignores the impact of highly cited papers. The signatories of the Leiden Manifesto state that: “Reading and judging a researcher’s work is much more appropriate than relying on one number.”

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• Sets of indicators can provide a more reliable and multi-dimensional view than a single indicator. The Manifesto authors give an example of a set of impact factors shown to three decimal places, creating a false impression that journals can be reliably ranked even if small differences in scores are observed. It is better to consider a range of indicators to identify differences. • Goodhart’s Law is evident in research evaluation; it states that, “any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” Every evaluation system creates incentives (intended or unintended) and these, in turn, drive behaviors. Use of a single indicator (like JIF) opens the evaluation system to such undesirable behaviors like gaming or goal displacement. To mitigate against these behaviors multiple indicators should be used. Furthermore, indicators should be reviewed and updated in line with changing goals of assessment, and new metrics should be considered as they become available.

How to Interpret Research Metrics It’s tempting to reach for simple numbers and extrapolate meaning, but be careful about reading too closely into metrics. The best strategy is to see metrics as generating questions, rather than answers. The basket of metrics simply tells us “what.” • What are the number of views of the work? • What are the number of downloads from the journal? • What are the number of citations? To interpret our metrics effectively, think less about “what” and use our metrics as a starting point to delve deeper into “who,” “how,” and “why”: • • • • • •

Who is reading the journal? Where are they based, what is their role, how are they accessing it? Who are the key authors in our subject area? Where are they publishing now? How are users responding to our content? Are they citing it in journals, mentioning it in policy documents, talking about it on Twitter? • How is our subject area developing? What are the hot topics, emerging fields, and key conversations? • Why was a specific article successful? • What made the media pick up on it, what prompted citations from other journals, who was talking about it?

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Altmetrics and Open Access

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It’s easy to damage the overall picture of our research metrics by focusing too much on one specific metric. If we wanted to boost our Impact Factor by publishing more highly cited articles, we might be disregarding low-cited articles used extensively by our readers. Therefore, if we chose to publish only highly cited content for a higher Impact Factor, we could lose the value of our journal for a particular segment of our readership. Generally, the content most used by practitioners, educators, or students (who don’t traditionally publish) is not going to improve our Impact Factor, but will probably add value in other ways to our community at large. It’s important to consider a range of research metrics when monitoring our journal’s performance. It can be tempting to concentrate on one metric like Impact Factor, which is so widely recognized as a hallmark of quality. But citations are not the be-all and end-all.

Altmetrics and Open Access The methods that researchers use to communicate with each other about their work has rapidly evolved, thanks largely to online technologies such as peer networks, blogs, repositories, and even media hosting sites. As a result, some people in higher education have questioned whether print-based, peer-reviewed publications (with their everincreasing costs and access restrictions) are still integral to the advancement of scholarly research. Is there a way to make more research freely available rather than force users to go through a paywall? Such questions closely mirror the development of altmetrics and open access, both demonstrating value in pursuing scholarship beyond traditional models of publication. As we have seen, one of the primary ways research impact is measured is at the scholarly journal level, which is often accessed only at a cost that must be paid by users or academic libraries. If open access advocates attempt to dissolve the monopoly of these subscription journals through online publication, how can we continue to judge the quality of the resulting scholarly works? This is where discussions of both article-level metrics and post-review practices come into play. For instance, while many open access journals do still offer peer-review as part of their publication model, networks such as Faculty of 1000, PubPeer, and Peerage of Science offer an alternative review service for those that do not, based on after-the-fact user ratings. Some of these services also offer a kind of altmetrics by providing users with an indication of internally judged article quality, similar to peer review. Although these options are largely offered by independent sites that aren’t integrated into altmetrics harvester tools, they will continue to impact scholarly publications and research metrics as open access options are refined. Another similarity between open access and altmetrics is the concern they both generate over the legitimacy of their results. In the case of open access, the concern is over the possible proliferation of open access scam journals—something that is an unfortunate reality and can give some researchers pause when considering whether to publish in an unfamiliar open access journal. The fear of illegitimate open access publications is not unlike the gaming concern that has been raised by some critics against altmetrics adoption. However, just as

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safeguards are now in place within the internal monitoring of altmetrics providers to catch and eliminate attempts at gaming, a number tools have been developed to combat the creation of sham open access journals, such as the Beall’s List, which identifies open access publishers and publications that seem to exist primarily to extract publication costs from authors rather than freely contribute to available scholarly knowledge. In a long run, open access and altmetrics have excellent chances of continuing to thrive, based on their reflection of the practical needs, desires, and interests of motivated researchers, librarians, and other passionate populations. Keeping up to speed on developments in both areas can give advocates in both spaces a much-needed boost. For this reason, we strongly recommend that readers continue to watch open access and consider its place in their libraries.

Indian Citation Index Indian Citation Index (ICI) database was developed with specific motives to promote knowledge contents, published in Indian journals and bridge the gap between the content sources and content users via World Wide Web. ICI database covers about 1000 Indian scholarly journals, encompassing all disciplines of knowledge including the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. ICI like other indexes enables user to move back in time to previously published papers, but uniquely one can also look forward in time to determine who has subsequently cited an earlier piece of research. This feature makes this database a specialized information product and highly useful for researchers, policymakers, decision takers, editors, librarians, etc. The ICI database also produces other useful by-products like Indian Science Citation Index (ISCI), Indian Social Science and Humanities Citation Index (ISSHCI), Indian Journals Citation Reports (IJCR), Indian Science and Technology Abstracts (ISTA), and Directory of Indian Journals (DOIJ). Citation indexes provide authoritative, timely and prospective as well as retrospective in-depth access to the literature. Citation indexes also provide various indicators to evaluate the author impact in a subject. Through citation analysis, citation index provides journal ranking by giving information about what articles, themes, and topics were being published, cited, or ignored and also offers unique insight into a particular journal and provide data on historical trends immediacy index, cited half-life of journals, etc. Citation analysis helps to know the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), Author Self-Citation (ASC) and Journal Self-Citation (JSC). Citation index also helps to determine the latest areas of research through bibliometric indicators. With citations used as the criterion for importance, utmost care should be taken as the authors may cite their own work, thus increasing its apparent academic importance. Secondly, significant articles may appear in obscure places (non-core journals) and be missed by the indexers.

Further Reading

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Review Questions 1. What do you understand by database? Explain any three types of database. 2. Analyze bibliometrics milestones year by year. 3. What is impact factor? How will you calculate it? What are disadvantages of impact factor? 4. Explain cited half-life, Eigen factor and article influence score. 5. What is Web of Science? How is it so influential than other tools? 6. How will you interpret research metrics? 7. Explain three categories of bibliometrics tools? 8. Explain the development of altmetrics year by year. 9. Why Indian citation index is different from the others? 10. Write short notes on the following: (a) Immediacy Index (b) H-Index H5-Index and H5-Median (c) Fuzzy Metrics (d) Scopus (e) Web of Science (f) Google Scholar (g) ResearchGate (h) Altmetrics (i) Mendeley

Further Reading Adriaanse LS, Rensleigh C (2013) Web of science, scopus and google scholar: a content comprehensiveness comparison. Electron Libr 31(6):727–744 Garfield E (2007) The evolution of the science citation index. Int Microbiol 10:65–69, http://garfield. library.upenn.edu/papers/barcelona2007a.pdf Nigam A, Nigam PK (2012) Citation index and impact factor. Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol 78(4):511–516 ResearcherID (n.d.) ResearcherID. http://www.researcherid.com/. Accessed 6 Jan 2015 Roemer RC, Borchardt R (2015) Meaningful metrics: a 21st century librarian’s guide to bibliometrics, altmetrics, and research impact. The Association of College & Research Libraries, Chicago Shaik F (n.d.) Importance of indexing in research publications—a review article. https://www. researchgate.net/publication/311963944 Siau K (2004) Advanced topics in database research. Idea Group Publishing, London Silberschatz A, Stonebraker M, Ullman J (n.d.) Database research: achievements and opportunities into the 21st century. Report of an NSF workshop on the future of database systems research, May 26-27, 1995

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Testa J (n.d.) The book selection process for the book citation index in web of science. http://wokinfo. com/media/pdf/BKCI-SelectionEssay_web.pdf. Accessed 6 Jan 2015 The Book Citation Index (n.d.) Web of Science. http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplin ary/bookcitationindex/. Accessed 6 Jan 2015 The Complete Citation Connection (n.d.) Web of Science. http://wokinfo.com/citationconnection/. Accessed 6 Jan 2015 van Ruler B, Vercic AT, Vercic D (2008) Public relations metrics research and evaluation. Taylor & Francis, New York

References

1. Johnson AG, Johnson PRV (2007) Making sense of medical ethics: a hands-on guide. Oxford University Press, New York 2. Kimmel AJ (1988) Ethics and values in applied social research. SAGE Publications, New York 3. Novikov AM, Novikov DA (2013) Research methodology: from philosophy of science to research design. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton 4. Rubenstein AH (2002) Integrity in scientific research. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC 5. Kothari CR (2004) Research methodology: methods and techniques. New Age International (P) Ltd, New Delhi 6. Higgins C (2011) The good life of teaching: an ethics of professional practice. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, West Sussex 7. Neville C (2010) The complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism. Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education, Berkshire 8. Koepsell D (2017) Scientific integrity and research ethics: an approach from the ethos of science. Springer International Publishing AG, Berlin 9. Bridges D (2017) Philosophy in educational research: epistemology, ethics, politics and quality. Springer International Publishing AG, Berlin 10. Chawla D, Sondhi N (2015) Research methodology: concepts and cases. Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, New Delhi 11. Macrina FL (2014) Scientific integrity: text and cases in responsible conduct of research. American Society for Microbiology Press, Washington, DC 12. Salzano FM, Hurtado AM (2004) Lost paradises and the ethics of research and publication. Oxford University Press, New York 13. Dutfield G, Suthersanen U (2008) Global intellectual property law. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, Massachusetts 14. Albanse JS (2010) Combating piracy: intellectual property theft and fraud. Transaction Publications, London 15. Sieber JE (1982) The ethics of social research fieldwork, regulation, and publication. SpringerVerlag, New York 16. D’Angelo J (2012) Ethics in science ethical misconduct in scientific research. CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton 17. Israel M, Hay I (2006) Research ethics for social scientists: between ethical conduct and regulatory compliance. SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi

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18. Mauthner M, Birch M, Jessop J, Miller T (2005) Ethics in qualitative research. SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi 19. Oliver P (2003) The student’s guide to research ethics. Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education, Philadelphia 20. Smeyers P, Depaepe M (2018) Educational research: ethics, social justice, and funding dynamics. Springer International Publishing AG, Berlin 21. Pruzan P (2016) Research methodology: the aims, practices and ethics of science. Springer International Publishing Switzerland, Cham 22. Kumar R (2011) Research methodology: a step-by-step guide for beginners. SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi 23. Pring R (2000) Philosophy of educational research. Continuum Press, New York 24. Burgess RG (2005) The ethics of educational research. The Falmer Press, New York 25. Brandenburg R, McDonough S (2019) Ethics, self-study research methodology and teacher education. Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, Singapore 26. Elliott SL, Fischer BA, Grinnell F, Zigmond MJ (2015) Perspectives on research integrity. American Society for Microbiology, Herndon 27. Loue S (2002) Textbook of research ethics: theory and practice. Kluwer Academic Publishers, New York 28. Jain S (2019) Research methodology in arts, science and humanities. Society Publishing Canada, Burlington 29. Rose SL (2015) Avoiding being penalized: research misconduct. Office for the Protection of Research Subjects, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 30. Roberts TS (2008) Student plagiarism in an online world: problems and solutions. Information Science Reference, New York 31. Bairagi V, Munot MV (2019) Research methodology: a practical and scientific approach. CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, New York 32. Zhang Y(H) (2016) Against plagiarism: a guide for editors and authors. Springer International Publishing, Cham

Index

A Academic dishonesty, 72, 88 Accreditation actions, 75 Administrative sanctions, 63 Adult learning, 65, 71, 76 Advertising, 116 Alderson, P., 37 Analytical research, 3 Appeal, 139, 207 Applied research, 2 ARESA, 123 Authorship, 44, 45, 84, 96, 110, 113, 131–133, 137 Authorship issues, 96–97, 135 Autonomy, 47, 51, 61 Auto-plagiarism, 90 Auxiliary theorems, 12

B Basic research, 2 Begley, 83 Benchmarking, 74, 78 Beneficence, 47, 52 Biomedical publications, 109, 110 Boastful language, 144 Bosman, 88

Comprehension, 47 Confidentiality, 25, 46, 85, 110, 114, 132, 134, 137, 145, 149 Conflict of interest, 42, 70, 82, 111, 114, 115, 117, 120, 122, 125, 127 COPE’s, 110, 112 Copyright, 49, 149–151, 153, 154, 156, 162, 164, 167, 172, 215, 220, 222 Cornfield, 83 Correlational research, 3 CSE, 120, 132, 139, 212, 213 Cultures and heritage, 137–138

D Data analysis, 113 Data collection, 6 Dell, 63 Deontology, 43 Dewey, J., 15 Diederik Stapel, 82 Dignity, 51 Duplicate publication, 96, 98–100, 132, 133, 135, 136, 140 Duties of editors, 115

E C Cassell and Jacobs, 23 Charles Babbage’s, 82 CIOMS, 122, 123 Clinical trial, 138 Collusion, 90, 209 Commodification, 34 Communalism, 43, 50 Competing interests, 102, 131, 133, 135

EASE, 126 Ecological system, 147 Editerra, 126 Editor’s decision, 111 Educational opportunities, 70 Elliott, C., 16 Elliott, J., 14 Empirical knowledge, 12 EMWA, 135

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254 Epistemology, 11, 14, 30 Ethical, 23–29, 31, 38, 72, 82, 83, 96, 98, 110, 112, 131, 132, 134, 137, 138, 141, 160, 219, 222 Ethical approval, 112 Ethical behavior, 72, 106 Ethical codes, 19 Ethical violations, 41 Ethics committee, 53, 54, 56 Ethos, 25, 55 Experimental design, 61, 139 Experimental reporting, 138

Index International copyright law, 98, 153 Interpersonal interactions, 68 Investigating misconduct, 116

J Jealousy, 132

K Kant, I., 43 Kent, 61 Knowledge falsification, 104

F Fabrication, 82, 84, 110, 113 Falsification, 81, 110 Federal mandates, 63 Federal research agencies, 65 Feminist research, 37, 38 FERCAP, 123 Forsyth, 28 Fraud, 104, 105 Fraudulent conclusions, 131 Fraudulent data, 133

G Generalizable knowledge, 32, 124 Genuine research, 81 Ghost Authors, 85, 97 Gift Authors, 97 Globalization, 147 Goal-implementation, 10 Guest Authors, 97 Guiding principles, 70, 167, 245 Gyorgyi, A.S., 1

L Leading publisher, 144 Less serious misconduct, 117 Literature survey, 5

M MacLure, 15 Malfeasance, 61 Manuscripts, 89, 91, 92, 99–101, 109–111, 128, 140–143 Media relations, 115 Metatheory, 12 Modernization, 36, 156 MOOSE, 134 Moral education, 17 Moral judgments, 10 Moral justification, 81 Multi-center trials, 97

N H

Non-maleficence, 52 Nuremberg code, 48

Human behavior, 3, 10 Human rights, 145, 160–162, 168 Hypothesis testing, 6

O Open-systems model, 71, 72 Opinion leaders, 85

I IAB, 121, 123 ICMJE, 125, 132, 134, 135 IFPMA, 138 Improperly processed data, 131, 133 Individualization, 36 Institutional leaders, 69 Intellectual honesty, 27, 59, 60, 96, 112 Interdisciplinary research, 17, 21

P Paraphrasing, 90 Paternalism, 51 Patronage, 35 Paul Benacerraf, 60 Peer review, 45, 67, 78, 119, 121, 123 Peer reviewers, 46, 65, 99, 127, 134, 139, 140, 177

Index Performance assessment, 32, 68 Performance-based model, 74 Philosophy of research, 14, 21 Plagiarism, 8, 90–92, 110, 115, 140, 141, 207–211, 218, 220–222, 225, 226 Plagiarism issue, 136 Pluralism, 31 Potential promotion, 102 Pragmatic, 18 Pragmatic theory, 18 Predatory publisher, 143 Preference falsification, 104 Principal investigator, 86, 113 Private knowledge, 104 Professional standards, 26, 59, 75 Proprietorship, 34 Psychical self-regulation, 10 Public accountability, 124 Publication ethics, 93, 109, 112, 116, 124, 131, 132, 140, 141, 219 Public knowledge, 104 PubPeer, 84, 91, 247 Pursuit of truth, 22

Q Qualitative research, 3, 30 Quantitative research, 3

255 Research ethics committees, 125 Research integrity, 226 Research leaders, 69 Research misconduct, 45, 69, 70, 82–84, 91, 105, 132, 140 Research proposal, 5 Research protocols, 68, 112 Research report writing, 7 Reviewer’s comment, 138 Robert Merton, 41

S Salami slicing, 95 Scientific evidence, 140 Scientific integrity, 109 Scientific interactions, 67 Scientific misconduct, 41, 46, 63, 81, 82, 85, 86, 104, 110 Selection of domain, 4 Self-plagiarism, 44, 106 Self-regulation, 10, 61, 119 Self-serving stake, 102 Serious misconduct, 116, 117 Singapore Statement, 83, 133, 218 Skepticism, 50 Socialization, 71 Social justice, 30 Software applications, 141 Stakeholders, 44, 50, 54, 123, 166, 183–185, 199

R Redundancy, 95, 98–100 Redundant publication, 96, 99, 114, 117 Regulatory approach, 73 Repetitive publications, 95 Replication, 90, 209 Republication, 90, 220 Research enterprise, 69 Research environment, 35, 62, 64–66, 71–73, 75, 180

V Verbatim, 90 Voluntariness, 47

W Woody, C., 1