RPE AS PER VTU - MODULE 3

Research : Research allows you to pursue your interests, to learn something new, to hone your
problem-solving skills and to challenge yourself in new ways.

Why should we write manuscripts and publish?

Teaching (the learning environment): 30%

•Reputation survey
•Staff-to-student ratio
•Doctorate-to-bachelor's ratio
•Doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio
•Institutional income

Research (volume, income and reputation): 30%

•Reputation survey
•Research income
•Research productivity

Citations (research influence): 30%

International outlook (staff, students, research): 7.5%

• International-to-domestic-student ratio
• International-to-domestic-staff ratio
• International collaboration

Industry income (knowledge transfer): 2.5%

Why Publications?
• Publication is the final affirmation of scholarly accomplishment.
• Scientific community can assess, correct & further develop only if the scientific results are
published.
• Today, authors are eager to publish, their main purposes being to advance science and, they hope,
mankind.
• The author receives acclaim and finds publication of his or her work satisfying. Academic
advancement, “publish or perish,” as well as prestige, are other important driving forces.
• There are many financial benefits (direct and indirect) in publishing such as promotion and
further research funding.

Publish or Perish:
• Publish or perish’ (POP) is a phrase that describes the pressure put on academics to publish in
scholarly journals rapidly and continually as a condition for employment (finding a job),
promotion, and even maintaining one’s job.
• POP may be advocated on the grounds that a good track record in publications brings attention to
the authors and their institutions, which can facilitate continued funding and the progress of the
authors themselves.
• The POP culture has led to a relentless quest for publications – the sole objective being CV
building rather than the advancement of human knowledge.

Page 1 of 37
• One perceived benefit of the POP model is that some pressure to produce research is necessary to
motivate academics early in their careers to focus on research advancement and learn to balance
research activity with other responsibilities.

What is Authorship?
• Authorship is a privilege and not a right.
• Responsible and ethical authorship requires that the work be trustworthy, truthful and fair.
• Truthfulness means that false claims are not present, including the claim of authorship.
• False claims must be distinguished from errors or inaccuracies, which occur in up to 20% of
manuscripts.
• Trustworthy means that the authors have attempted to eliminate bias in analyzing the truthful
information presented to the readers.
• Fairness is the public disclosure of the affiliations of those who participated in the study and its
preparation.
• It is important that all authors agree on the truthfulness, trustworthiness and fairness of the
manuscript before submission for publication.
• Authors should be ethical, accountable and independent

Ethics:
• Ethics, derived from the Greek word ‘ethikos’ are a set of principles for right conduct in a
particular field.
• They carry a greater significance in the field of medical research and publication as these are
directly related to the suffering humanity.
• In recent times, there has been a gradual neglect towards the ethical principles guiding a scientific
research paper writing, and its publication.
• The misconduct in behavior may be intentional or may arise due to ignorance.
• It not only affects other authors, reviewers, and editors, but also the common man.
• As a research author, it’s absolutely essential to abreast oneself with these ethical principles and
avoid any scientific misconduct.

Why publication ethics?

• Significant evolution of scholarly landscape
• Advances in publishing technology
• Development of open science
• Increasing predatory publishing
• Globalization of academic activity
• Increasing use of research assessment & replication crisis.

Debate:
Roles and responsibilities of authors, editors, publishers, societies, and funders in maintaining trust
and increasing transparency

What are the questions asked by the Journal Editors?

• Does the Manuscript fall within the scope of the journal?
• If the Case Report has Ethics Approval?
• Whether the Study is noble whether its methodology is better than the existing literature?
• Is the paper carefully prepared and formatted?
• Is the paper unique and represents cutting-edge research in the area?
Page 2 of 37
• If the paper contributes to a thriving science sector?
• Is the paper meticulously prepared and formatted and contains all of the required sections?
• If the paper uses vocabulary that is descriptive and succinct? Whether the language used is clear
for the readers?
• If the paper maintains high ethical standards of the Research Process?
• Does your cover letter provide a persuasive explanation of why the journal should publish your
paper?

Editor roles & responsibilities:

Editing & proEditing of reading Approving special issues Checking facts
Publication ethics Ensuring timely publication Handling manuscripts
Promoting the journal Set publication standards Using search engines & social
media
Acquisitions editing Arrange for copyright permissions Assign projects & monitor deadlines
Check content for accuracy Conference presentations Contributes new ideas
Contributing editorials & Creating contents briefs Creating editorial calendars
relevant articles

Roles of Editors:
• They are responsible for the editorial content of the journal
• For establishing the policies for authorship & submission of manuscripts to the journal
• 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
• They have to work to improve the quality of submitted manuscripts & be prepared to deal with
errors & scientific dishonesty and misuse of publication process
• They are responsible for the editorial policies of the journal & stand behind all decisions made
by the members of editorial board
• They should balance the interests of readers, authors, editorial board members, advertisers,
media, etc.
• They are responsible for technical perfection & ethical standards in all phases of publication
process.

PEER REVIEW:
• The main goals of a good peer review are to provide expert advise to the authors regarding the
scientific validity of the data & methods and help the editors in their decision about the suitability
of the paper for publication.
• Editors must establish a system for deciding on the fate of the manuscript
• Editors should not make decisions on the manuscripts about which they have conflict of interest.

Organizations providing the guidelines:

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
These guidelines are intended to be advisory rather than prescriptive, and to evolve over time.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) :

• It is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting integrity in research and its publication.
Page 3 of 37
 • It is a non-statutory body which provides practical publication ethics guidance for editors and
publishers working in all research disciplines.
• Founded by journal editors in 1997 (UK) as a response to growing concerns about the integrity
of submissions to medical journals, COPE now has over 12,500 members from over 100
countries and all academic fields.

Resources available for COPE members:

• Forum
• Flowcharts
• Cases (600)
• Webinars
• Journal checklist
• eLearning Modules(10)
• Sample Letters

Study design and ethical approval:

• 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 collection of 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 anonymised 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.
• 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 analysed, but inappropriate analysis does not necessarily amount to
misconduct. Fabrication and falsification of data do constitute misconduct
• All sources and methods used to obtain and analyse data, including any electronic pre-processing,
should be fully disclosed; detailed explanations should be provided for any exclusions.
Page 4 of 37
• 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 disputes:
• Disputes over authorship sometimes arise. Such disputes can delay research, hinder publication
and damage relationships between collaborators.
• Disputes can be avoided with appropriate communication and by obtaining agreements about
authorship early in the research process and regularly reviewing those agreements.

AUTHOR:
An author is a person who has made a substantial contribution and fulfills the following three
criteria:
• Substantial contribution to design
• Data acquisition, analysis and interpretation
• Drafting document or providing critical review of intellectual content
• Final approval of publication

Authorship:
• There is no universally agreed definition of authorship. As a minimum, authors should take
responsibility for a particular section of the study.
• 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.
• Authorship signifies that an individual has made a significant contribution to the work and is
accountable for it.
• It also carries significant value for a researcher. It is therefore important that authorship is
attributed accurately and responsibly.
• Ensure that authors of research outputs are all those, and only those, who have made a significant
intellectual or scholarly contribution to the research and its output, and that they agree to be listed
as an author
• Acknowledge those who have contributed to the research Courtesy: University of Queensland

Author responsibilities :
• All authors have responsibility for the validity, originality and integrity of the work.
• Adhering to author eligibility criteria
• Ensuring accuracy of reporting and in assigning credit for work contributed
• Reaching agreement on authorship in writing prior to submission of a work for review
• Acknowledging the contributions of others, including funding agencies
• Declaring conflicts of interest

Page 5 of 37
Author eligibility :
• Authorship must be based on a substantive contribution to the work.
• Researchers should discuss authorship at an early stage in a research project to establish:Who will
be listed as an author on potential research outputs? The order in which the authors will be listed?
The responsibilities of each author
• Written records of authorship agreements should be kept and reviewed periodically, such as when
a researcher leaves/joins
• Authorship is not tied to position or profession and will not be offered to those who do not meet
the requirements; gift, ghost or honorary authorship is unacceptable.
• 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.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:
• A conflict of interest in research can be defined as a situation in which an individual has “interests
in the outcome of the research that may lead to a personal advantage.
• A conflict of interest in research can be defined as a situation in which an individual has “interests
in the outcome of the research that may lead to a personal advantage and that might therefore, in
actuality or appearance, compromise the integrity of the research” (US National Academies of
Science, Integrity in Scientific Research, 2002, p. 38).
• More problematic forms of conflict of interest happen when researchers participate in the
selection of a procurement contract with a company where they or their relatives have a financial
interest.
• Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the
judgment of author, reviewers, and editors.
• They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader
feel misled or deceived.
• They may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial.
• “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership,
payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and company support for staff.
• Yet, in some other cases, the mere disclosure of the conflict of interest is not sufficient, and the
individual has to completely abstain from being involved in that activity.

What is conflict of interest?

• A conflict of interest arises whenever there is any potential bias that could affect a researcher’s
work.
• Conflicts of interest can include both financial and non-financial gains. For example consider a
peer reviewer who is evaluating a study that decreases the importance o reviewer's own research.
This could lead the reviewer to recommend rejection of the study even if the study itself is
original and robust.
• Conflict of interest due to financial gain is the most common one that authors face a must
disclose. It includes sources of funding, ownership of stocks in companies that gain financially
from the research, and acceptance of consulting fees or salary from company that may benefit
from the research, among others.

Page 6 of 37
• For example, a review publication of research findings revealed that research sponsorship
contributes to publication bias because the sponsors often own the data, making the data
susceptible to manipulation and suppression."

How to determine conflict of interest?

The Integrity Coordinating Group has outlined an excellent list-known as the six Ps-that researchers
can use to determine whether a conflict of interest exists:
Public duty versus private interest: Do I or the research sponsor have personal or financial
interests that may conflict or be perceived to conflict with the interests and welfare of the general
public?
Potentialities: Could there be financial or other intellectual benefits for me, my organization, or
research sponsor that could cast doubts on my research and data?
Promises: Have I, my organization, or research sponsor made any promises or commitment in
relation to conducting or publishing the research? Do I stand to gain or lose from the promised
action/decision?

The Six PS:

Perception: How will my or my research sponsor's involvement in study conception,
study supervision, study design, research conduct, and manuscript writing be perceived by others?
Would any bias in research design, sample selection, data reporting, data modification, and
manuscript preparation be perceived as a conflict of interest associated with me, my organization, or
research sponsor? Are there any risks associated with me, my organization, or research sponsor?
Proportionality: Does my or my research sponsor's involvement in all decisions regarding the
research appear to be fair and reasonable?
Presence of mind: What consequences will I face if I ignore or do not disclose a conflict of
interest? Can I give a reasonable answer if editors, reviewers, or readers question my or my research
sponsor's involvement?

Why authors must disclose conflicts of interest ?

• Almost all scientific and non-technical journals require authors to disclose potential or actual
conflicts of interest related to their study. Some journals, like Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA), require authors to submit signed financial disclosure statements. Other
journals, like BMC Cancer, insist in their guidelines that a separate section on conflict of interest
be included in the manuscript and that any details be provided in the covering letter.
• When declaring conflicts of interest, researchers are expected to provide detailed information
about relevant financial interests; grants, financial support, and funding received from industry,
and other intellectual benefits like filed or pending patents that represent future financial gains.
Researchers are also required to specify the role of the funding organization or sponsor in the
study design and conduct; data collection, analysis, and interpretation; and manuscript drafting,
review, and final approval.
• It is very important to inform journals about conflicts of interest. Journals may not always
publicly disclose conflicts of interest at the time of publishing the paper. However, it any one
questions the study or raises doubt that a conflict of interest exists, the journal will publish the
authors' conflict of interest disclosure and mention that the authors had already informed the
journal; this makes the authors' conduct seem less suspicious.
• However, if the authors had not informed the journal and it is discovered that conflicts of interest
did indeed exist, the consequences can be serious, including retraction of the paper and
investigation by the authors affiliated institutes.
Page 7 of 37
• Journals do not usually police conflicts of interest issues themselves. Rather, it is the authors'
affiliation (university or research institute) that creates, implements, and monitors conflicts of
interest policies for their faculty.
• Thus, authors are usually able to avoid conflict of interest scenarios before their research is
complete and their paper is submitted for publication. When in doubt, researchers are advised to
consult their institution before approaching the journal.
• When the potential for bias is disclosed, readers are aware of the situation and will judge the
research on its merits. On the other hand, failure to disclose relevant financial/intellectual
interests violates the public's trust, and if such information is revealed subsequently, the
credibility of the researchers and the journal that publishes the work may be seriously damaged.

Peer review :
• 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.
• It is ethically important that all listed authors qualify for authorship and that all authors who do
qualify be listed. Equally important is that people who do not qualify should not be listed as
authors.
• The securing of funding, data collection, enrolling patients, general group supervision or
leadership of a department does not alone qualify one for authorship.
• An alternative to authorship is acknowledgment of contributors. Some journals will only allow up
to six authors with the remaining listed as contributors.
• This is commonly seen in multi-center randomized controlled studies that have been recently
published.
• Research groups can be listed as an author or coauthor with specific recognition of the individuals
done in an acknowledgement

Action:
• 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.
• 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 reviewers’ 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 authors’ 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 time

Page 8 of 37
REDUNDANT PUBLICATION:
Redundant publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross reference, share the
same hypothesis, data, discussion points, or conclusions.

Action:
• 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.
• Re-publication 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.

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 print and electronic versions.

Action:
All sources should be disclosed, and if large amounts of other people’s written or illustrative
material is to be used, permission must be sought.

Examples of plagiarism Why is it wrong?

Copying parts of a text word for word,
without quotation marks
Paraphrasing a text by changing a few words
or altering the sentence structure, without
citing the source
Giving incorrect information about a source
Quoting so much from a source that it makes
up the majority of your text
Reusing work you’ve submitted for a
previous assignment, without citing yourself
Submitting a text written entirely by someone Not doing the work yourself is academically
else (e.g., a paper you bought from a
ghostwriter)
It makes it seem like these are your own words.
It makes it seem like you came up with the idea
when in fact you just rephrased someone else’s
idea.
If readers can’t find the cited source, they can’t
check the information themselves.
Even with proper citations, you’re not making an
original contribution if you rely so much on
someone else’s words.
Even though it’s your own work, the reader should
be informed that it’s not completely new but comes
from previous research.
dishonest, undermines your learning, and is unfair
to other students.

TYPES OF PLAGIARISM:
• Global plagiarism means passing off an entire text by someone else as your own work.
• Verbatim plagiarism means directly copying someone else’s words.
• Paraphrasing plagiarism means rephrasing someone else’s ideas to present them as your own.
• Patchwork plagiarism means stitching together parts of different sources to create your text.

Page 9 of 37
• Self-plagiarism means recycling your own past work.

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 authors, staff, owners, editorial board members,
advertisers and the media

ACTIONS OF EDITOR:
• 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 merit 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.

ACTION:
• 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 organisers if journalists are to attend scientific meetings.
• Authors to be advised of any media policies operated by the journal in which their work is to be
published

ADVERTISING:
Many scientific journals and meetings derive significant income from advertising. Reprints may
also be lucrative.

ACTION:
• Editorial decisions must not be influenced by advertising revenue or reprint potential: editorial
and advertising administration must be clearly separated.
Page 10 of 37
• 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?

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 (as per COPE):

• 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).
• 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.

Page 11 of 37
• 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 outlined below.

Sanctions:
Sanctions may be applied separately or combined. The following are ranked in approximate order
of severity:
(1) A letter of explanation (and education) to the authors, where there appears to be a genuine
misunderstanding of principles.
(2) A letter of reprimand and warning as to future conduct.
(3) A formal letter to the relevant head of institution or funding body.
(4) Publication of a notice of redundant publication or plagiarism.
(5) An editorial giving full details of the misconduct.
(6) Refusal to accept future submissions from the individual, unit, or institution responsible for the
misconduct, for a stated period.
(7) Formal withdrawal or retraction of the paper from the scientific literature, informing other
editors and the indexing authorities.
(8) Reporting the case to the General Medical Council, or other such authority or organisation
which can investigate and act with due process.

COPE – In a nutshell:
• COPE provides advice to editors and on all aspects of publication ethics and, in particular, how to
handle cases of research and publication misconduct.
• It also provides a forum for its members to discuss individual cases.
• COPE does not investigate individual cases but encourages editors to ensure that cases are
investigated by the appropriate authorities (usually a research institution or employer).
• All COPE members are expected to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the
core practices.

WORLD ASSOCIATION OF MEDICAL EDITORS:

• WAME was launched on March 16, 1995 in Bellagio, Lombardy, Italy after a 3 days conference.
• WAME is a non-profit voluntary association of editors of peer-reviewed medical journals from
countries around the world who seek to nurture international cooperation among and education of
medical journal editors. WAME has more than 1915 members representing 1000 and above
journals from around 92 countries.
• WAME goals are to facilitate worldwide collaboration among editors of peer- reviewed medical
journals, to improve editorial standards and promote professionalism in medical editing through
learning, self-criticism and self- regulation. It encourages research on the principles and practice
of medical editing

Page 12 of 37
• 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?
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 peer-reviewed medical journals to enhance the exchange of
educational information; to improve:
1. Conflict of Interest in Peer-Reviewed Medical Journals
2. Study Design and Ethics
3. Authorship
4. Peer Review
5. Editorial Decisions
6. Originality, Prior Publication, and Media Relations
7. Plagiarism
8. Advertising
9. Responding to Allegations of Possible Misconduct
10. Relation of the Journal to the Sponsoring Society (if applicable)

Study Design and Ethics:

• Good research should be well justified, well planned, and appropriately designed, so that it can
properly address the research question. Statistical issues, including power calculations, should be
considered early in study design, to avoid futile studies that produce subject risk without
enrollment sufficient to answer the research question. Outcomes should be specified at the start of
the study. Research should be conducted to high standards of quality control and data analysis.
Data and records must be retained and produced for review upon request. Fabrication,
falsification, concealment, deceptive reporting, or misrepresentation of data constitute scientific
misconduct.
• Documented review and approval from a formally constituted review board (Institutional Review
Board or Ethics committee) should be required for all studies involving people, medical records,
and human tissues.
• For those investigators who do not have access to formal ethics review committees, the principles
outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed. If the study is judged exempt from
review, a statement from the committee should be required.
Page 13 of 37
• Informed consent by participants should always be sought. If not possible, an institutional review
board must decide if this is ethically acceptable.
• Journals should have explicit policies as to whether these review board approvals must be
documented by the authors, or simply attested to in their cover letter, and how they should be
described in the manuscript itself.
• Animal experiments should require full compliance with local, national, ethical, and regulatory
principles, and local licensing arrangements.
• Journal recommendations for preferred presentation and analysis of data should be described in
the Information for Contributors or Authors.
• Wherever possible, recommendations should be based on evidence about methods of data
presentation that are readable and most likely to be interpreted correctly by readers.
• Editors should keep themselves informed of this research and adapt their recommendations as it
evolves.

Authorship:
• Journals should publish guidance about what constitutes authorship. While there is no universally
agreed definition of authorship, contributors should be made aware of the guidelines developed
by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
• Authorship implies a significant intellectual contribution to the work, some role in writing the
manuscript and reviewing the final draft of the manuscript, but authorship roles can vary. Who
will be an author, and in what sequence, should be determined by the participants early in the
research process, to avoid disputes and misunderstandings which can delay or prevent publication
of a paper.
• For all manuscripts, the corresponding author should be required to provide information on the
specific contributions each author has made to the article. (Alternatively, since authors may differ
on the nature and magnitude of contributions, each author may be asked to describe their own.)
• All authors are responsible for the quality, accuracy, and ethics of the work, but one author must
be identified who will reply if questions arise or more information is needed and who will take
responsibility for the work as a whole. This description of author contributions should be printed
with the article.
• The authors are responsible for creating all components of the manuscript. If writers are provided
by the sponsoring or funding institution or corporation to draft or revise the article, the name of
the writer and their sponsoring organization must be provided.
• Their names and contributions will be provided with the acknowledgments. Journals should
discourage "honorary" authorship and should also try to ensure that all those who qualify as
authors are listed
• All authors must take responsibility in writing for the accuracy of the manuscript, and one author
must be the guarantor and take responsibility for the work as a whole.
• A growing trend among journals is to also require that for reports containing original data, at least
one author (eg, the principal investigator) should indicate that she or he had full access to all the
data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data
analysis.
• This helps assure that authors, and not funding sources, have final say over the analysis and
reporting of their results.

Page 14 of 37
Peer Review:
• Peer review is fundamental to the scientific publication process and the dissemination of sound
science.
• Peer reviewers are experts chosen by editors to provide written assessment of the strengths and
weaknesses of written research, with the aim of improving the reporting of research and
identifying the most appropriate and highest quality material for the journal.
• Regular reviewers selected for the journal should be required to meet minimum standards (as
determined and promulgated by each journal) regarding their background in original research,
publication of articles, formal training, and previous critical appraisal of manuscripts.
• Peer reviewers should be experts in the scientific topic addressed in the articles they review, and
should be selected for their objectivity and scientific knowledge.
• Individuals who do not have such expertise should not be reviewers, and there is no role for
review of articles by individuals who have a major competing interest in the subject of the article
(e.g. those working for a company whose product was tested, its competitors, those with special
political or ideological agendas, etc.).
• Reviews will be expected to be professional, honest, courteous, prompt, and constructive. The
desired major elements of a high-quality review should be as follows:
• The reviewer should have identified and commented on major strengths and weaknesses of
study design and methodology
• The reviewer should comment accurately and constructively upon the quality of the author's
interpretation of the data, including acknowledgment of its limitations.
• The reviewer should comment on major strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript as a
written communication, independent of the design, methodology, results, and interpretation
of the study.
• The reviewer should comment on any ethical concerns raised by the study, or any possible
evidence of low standards of scientific conduct.
• The reviewer should provide the author with useful suggestions for improvement of the
manuscript.
• The reviewer's comments to the author should be constructive and professional
• The review should provide the editor the proper context and perspective to make a decision
on acceptance (and/or revision) of the manuscript.

Journals should publish annual audits of acceptance rates, publication intervals, percentage of
submissions sent out for external peer review, and other performance data.

Editorial Decisions:
• Decisions about a manuscript should be based only on its importance, originality, clarity, and
relevance to the journal's scope and content. Studies with negative results despite adequate
power, or those challenging previously published work, should receive equal consideration.
• There should be an explicit written policy on the procedure that will be followed if an author
appeals a decision.
• If a published paper is subsequently found to have errors or major flaws, the Editor should take
responsibility for promptly correcting the written record in the journal.
• The specific content of the correction may address whether the errors originated with the author
or the journal. The correction should be listed in the table of contents to ensure that it is linked
to the article to which it pertains in public databases such as PubMed.
• Ratings of review quality and other performance characteristics of editors should be
periodically assessed to assure optimal journal performance, and must contribute to decisions
Page 15 of 37
 on reappointment. Individual performance data must be confidential. These performance
measures should also be used to assess changes in process that might improve journal
performance.

Originality, Prior Publication, and Media Relations:

• Journals should state their policies on what type of content they accept for publication. Journals
should generally seek original work that has not been previously published. Web and other
electronic publication should be considered the same as print publication for this purpose.
• Redundant publication occurs when multiple papers, without full cross reference in the text,
share the same data, or results.
• Republication of a paper in another language, or simultaneously in multiple journals with
different audiences, may be acceptable, provided that there is full and prominent disclosure of
its original source at the time of submission of the manuscript.
• At the time of submission, authors should disclose details of related papers they have authored,
even if in a different language, similar papers in press, and any closely related papers
previously published or currently under review at another journal.
• Because medical research findings are of increasing interest to the lay media, journalists attend
scientific meetings at which preliminary research findings are presented, which can lead to
their premature publication in the mass media.
• Publication of details not included in the abstract or meeting presentation is not advised until
the article has appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, as this means that enough detailed evidence
has been provided to satisfy peer reviewers and editors.
• Where this is not possible, authors should help journalist to produce accurate reports, but
refrain from supplying additional data, if they wish their material to be of sufficient original
interest to warrant publication in peer-reviewed journals.
• Authors should be discouraged from holding press conferences to publicize their abstract
results, as these results are preliminary and generally the complete report has not yet undergone
peer review. Journals should address these concerns in their formal policies on originality of
submitted materials.
• Previous publication of an abstract during the proceedings of meetings (in print or
electronically) does not preclude subsequent submission for publication, but full disclosure
should be made at the time of submission.
• The journal's embargo policy (on release of information to the press about upcoming contents)
should be made available.

Plagiarism:
• Plagiarism is the use of others' published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual
property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than
derived from an existing source.
• The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the
plagiarizer. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant
applications, Institutional Review Board applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in
any publication format (print or electronic).
• Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and should be addressed as such (see prior section).
• Self-plagiarism refers to the practice of an author using portions of their previous writings on the
same topic in another of their publications, without specifically citing it formally in quotes.
• This practice is widespread and sometimes unintentional, as there are only so many ways to say
the same thing on many occasions, particularly when writing the Methods section of an article.
Page 16 of 37
• Although this usually violates the copyright that has been assigned to the publisher, there is no
consensus as to whether this is a form of scientific misconduct, or how many of one's own words
one can use before it is truly "plagiarism." Probably for this reason self-plagiarism is not regarded
in the same light as plagiarism of the ideas and words of other individuals.
• If journals have developed a policy on this matter, it should be clearly stated for authors.

Advertising:
• Many scientific journals derive a substantial income from advertising or reprints, creating a
potential conflict of interest. Editorial decisions should not be influenced by advertising
revenue or reprint potential. Editorial and advertising functions at the journal should be
independent. Advertisers and donors should have no control over editorial material under any
circumstances.
• Products or services being advertised should be germane to (a) the practice of medicine, (b)
medical education, or (c) health care delivery.
• Advertisements may not be deceptive or misleading. Exaggerated or extravagantly worded
copy should not be allowed. Advertisements should not be accepted if they appear to be
indecent or offensive in either text or artwork, or contain negative content of a personal, racial,
ethnic, sexual orientation, or religious character.

Responding to Allegations of Possible Misconduct:

• Journals should have a clear policy on handling concerns or allegations about misconduct,
which can arise regarding authors, reviewers, editors, and others. Journals do not have the
resources or authority to conduct a formal judicial inquiry or arrive at a formal conclusion
regarding misconduct.
• That process is the role of the individual's employer, university, granting agency, or regulatory
body. However, journals do have a responsibility to help protect the integrity of the public
scientific record by sharing reasonable concerns with authorities who can conduct such an
investigation.

What can be done about conflict of interest in medical journals?

• Conflicts of interest cannot be eliminated altogether but it can be managed so that it has the
smallest possible effects on journal content and credibility.
• The backbone of managing conflicts of interest is full written disclosure; without it, nothing else
is possible.
• Currently, authors may not reveal all of their competing interests and even if they do, journals too
often do not publish them so there is plenty of room for improvement.
• Even so, disclosure alone is an imperfect remedy; editors still must determine whether a conflict
has sufficient potential to impair an individual’s objectivity such that the article should not be
published.
• Even more work may be needed on reviewers’ and editors competing interests, given their critical
role as gatekeepers for the medical literature.
• No statement will solve the conflict of interest problem, nor will it ever be solved altogether.
• As understanding of the problem and its management evolves, journals should be given latitude
to establish their own standards, matching their policies to the best standards of their discipline
and culture.
• WAME believes journals should make these policies readily accessible to everyone. All of us --
editors, authors, reviewers, and readers -- should be paying more attention to conflict of interest.

Page 17 of 37
WAME`s modus operandi:
• To develop a global electronic communications network
• To develop an easily accessible library of key resources for health sciences editors
• To create a global directory of medical journals and their editors
• To obtain funding to initiate the organization
• To 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
• To cooperate with the organizers of the International Congresses on Peer Review.

WAME in a nutshell:
• WAME is a global nonprofit voluntary association of editors of peer-reviewed medical journals
who seek to foster cooperation and communication among editors; improve editorial standards;
promote professionalism in medical editing through education, self-criticism, and self-regulation;
and encourage research on the principles and practice of medical editing.
• WAME develops policies and recommendations of best practices for medical journal editors and
has a syllabus for editors that members are encouraged to follow.

Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA):

• The international community for open access publishing
• Representing a diverse community of organisations engaged in open scholarship, OASPA
works to encourage and enable open access as the predominant model of communication for
scholarly outputs.
• OASPA mission of developing and disseminating solutions that advance open access and
ensure a diverse, vibrant, and healthy open access community.
• OASPA applies rigorous criteria and in-depth review to all members who must then continue to
exemplify high standards to remain part of OASPA.

OASPA:
Develop and disseminate solutions that advance open access and ensure a diverse, vibrant, and
healthy open access community, through:
Leadership and Development –create awareness of the benefits of OA publishing and highlight
policies that enhance and support OA publications.
Collaboration and Convening –convene community stakeholders to share experiences, discuss
problems and identify opportunities in the advancement of open access.
Setting Standards –promote best practice and ethical standards in open access, applying rigorous
criteria and in-depth review to membership and actively collaborating on important standard-raising
scholarly communication initiatives.
Promoting Innovation –contribute to the development and dissemination of the innovative
approaches to scholarly publishing and the related opportunities that OA content allows.
Supporting the OA Ecosystem –promote the development of diverse systems, business models
and policies that support OA publishing and encourage a vibrant and competitive mark for pure OA
publishing in the longer term.

Publication ethics and related editorial policies:

• Journal’s policies on authorship and contributorship.
• How the journal will handle complaints and appeals.
Page 18 of 37
• How the journal will handle allegations of research misconduct.
• Journal’s policies on conflicts of interest.
• Journal’s policies on data sharing and reproducibility.
• Journal’s policy on ethical oversight.
• Journal’s policy on intellectual property.
• Journal’s options for post-publication discussions.
• Journal’s policies on corrections and retractions.

OASPA in a nutshell:
• OASPA is a diverse community of organizations engaged in open scholarship.
• As an organization, it works to encourage and enable open access as the predominant model of
communication for scholarly outputs.
• It is committed to its mission of developing and disseminating solutions that advance open access
and ensure a diverse, vibrant, and healthy open access community.
• Its membership includes scholar-led and professional publishers of books and journals across
varied geographies and disciplines, as well as infrastructure and other services.
• It applies rigorous criteria and in-depth review to all members, who must continue to exemplify
high standards to remain part of OASPA.

INDIAN NATIONAL SCIENCE ACADEMY:

The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and Nobel Laureate
C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 27 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it
began with 65 founding fellows.
• Publish scientific proceedings, journals, memoirs, books and other publications to inform the
public and policies based on evidences as and when, found desirable.
• To promote and liaise between Science, Social Science, Industry and Humanities.

INSA`s Policy of ethical conduct:

Teaching and research
• The selection and training of students should involve a just and fair procedure. During tests and
interviews there can always be subjective judgements, however they must avoid any
considerations unrelated to the student's academic ability.
• During teaching, the dignity of the classroom/laboratory should always be maintained. Cheating
in tests and exams is never acceptable.
• Through their own actions, mentors must communicate positive ethical values and
professionalism to their students. In research projects, the Principal Investigator should monitor
the procedures and, if relevant, write down policies for recording data and compiling results.
These policies should be made known to all collaborators.
• Every institution must have fair procedures for proper use and sharing of equipment an facilities.

Purity of Data:
• Wherever any kind of experimental or data-driven work is involved, it is essential to present the
results correctly and honestly. One must carefully avoid all unacceptable forms of data
manipulation, for example adding or subtracting data points at will, editing images to produce a
false result, creating images artificially and presenting them as data or using the same figure or
table to describe different experiments. The conclusions claimed in a research paper must follow
honestly from the data collected.

Page 19 of 37
• It is understood that data often has to be processed. Details of acceptable/unacceptable processing
can be quite complex and will vary from subject to subject. The relevant norms in the given area
should be applied in each case.
• Data fraud should be considered as a very serious offence as it harms the image of the entire
community and country. Deliberate falsification of data should attract stringent punishment.

Publications:
• The list of authors in research papers, reviews, books, monographs or policy documents should
not be manipulated to give undue credit to those who have not contributed (``honorary
authorship’’), or deny credit to those who have contributed sufficiently.
• In recent years there has been a rise in so-called ``predatory journals’’ which publish papers with
minimal or no review, typically for a fee. It is unethical to publish in journals of this nature.
However, it is essential to distinguish predatory journals from legitimate open-access journals
which may also charge a publication fee.
• When plagiarism is detected, it must be corrected by immediately publishing a retraction or
revision. Deliberate and/or serious forms of plagiarism should entail strict punishment.

Safety and Environment:

• Academic work must not pose a risk or danger to people or the environment.
• Guidelines and regulations concerning safety must be formulated and carefully followed. This is
especially important for handling, storing and disposing of radioactive, toxic or dangerous
materials. Clearances and permits/licenses, if required, must be obtained.
• Wherever relevant, due attention must be given to industrial safety, sustainable development,
sharing of intellectual property rights, environmental loading and related issues.

Bias and discrimination:

• There must be no direct or indirect bias or discrimination against any individual based on the
ethnicities, genders, religions, castes, tribes, socioeconomic strata, affiliations, backgrounds and
sexual orientations
• The nation should aim for the full and equal participation of women in all academic activities. It
is everyone’s responsibility to support a genderneutral and supportive environment to achieve this
goal.
• Gender sensitivity should form an essential part of direct ethical training.
• Sexual misconduct and/or gender-based harassment in the workplace are totally unacceptable.
Legal structures and rules regarding how to deal with sexual misconduct must be rigorously
followed.
• Sexual misconduct and/or gender-based harassment in the workplace are totally unacceptable.
Legal structures and rules regarding how to deal with sexual misconduct must be rigorously
followed.
• There also exist many forms of behavior which may not amount to harassment in the legal sense
but constitute gender-based discrimination. Institutions should strive to ensure that their members
do not engage in such actions and should pro-actively sensitize their community on these issues.
• Bullying in the workplace is a form of harassment that usually targets the most vulnerable
members. This can include abusive language, frequent use of insults, threatening letters, sabotage
of others’ work, exploiting juniors to carry out personal errands etc. Such actions are highly
unethical and are not acceptable.

Page 20 of 37
Public interaction and outreach:
• It is a duty, particularly for publicly funded academics, to communicate the results of their work
to the society on a regular basis to educate the public of the fruits of their research and to
stimulate the aspirations of young students in schools and colleges.
• While interacting with the press and members of the public, it is essential for academics to avoid
making exaggerated or false claims. Statements made in public should be balanced and
professional. As practitioners of rational thinking and scientific temper, academics are encouraged
to voice their professional opinions openly and without fear.

Science administration:
• High standards of professionalism and objectivity should be shown by leaders and officials of
institutions, departments and governmental agencies.
• Officials must do their best to ensure that a culture of professionalism permeates the organization.
Misuse of power is unethical and must be avoided. When committees are constituted, they must
involve members known for their fairness and balance rather than personal loyalties or
willingness to be influenced. Committees should be constituted keeping diversity in mind and
should have appropriate gender representation.
• Where policy opinions and decisions are involved, officials must stay clear of commercial, social
and political pressures. Conflicts of interest have to be avoided. When potential conflicts are
liable to occur, the official must make this known to the concerned colleagues.
• Infringement of the right to privacy by an academic institution is not ethical. Not only the legal
requirements but also more general professional standards for maintaining privacy should apply

Role of whistleblowers:
• Individuals who complain about unethical practices may find themselves in a difficult or sensitive
position. A negative impact on their career is one among many possible risks following their
actions. It is important to safeguard the interests of the whistleblower against any retaliatory
repercussions.
• On the other hand, deliberately making false accusations is itself highly unethical and must be
dealt with.

Regulatory Norms:
Implementation:
• It is essential to prevent unethical practices in the first place by suitable ethical training,
promoting a culture of professionalism and a clear statement that unethical behavior is not
tolerated in the institution. To this end, institutions must create or adopt suitable ethics documents
and impart direct ethical training to its staff through lectures and interactive workshops on a
regular basis, so that the community is fully aware of these issues.
• The detailed ethical guidelines for each institution must be made available to all employees and
should clearly spell out procedures for grievance redressal at that institution.
• Despite all this, if ethical violations are found then they must necessarily be addressed on an
urgent basis and for this purpose, it is recommended that the institutions should set up a standing
committee which ensures timely and impartial redressal of all grievances alleged to arise out of
policy violations.

Handling policy violations:

• Institutions should employ formal mechanisms and procedures for dealing with allegations of
research misconduct
Page 21 of 37
• If a publication is found to contain plagiarism or manipulated data, the institution must ensure that
a correction or retraction is published in the same place as the original paper

Institutions should endorse the following principles when implementing disciplinary procedures:
• The responsibilities of those dealing with the allegation should be clear and understood by all
concerned parties.
• Measures should be in place to ensure an impartial and independent investigation.
• The organization should safeguard the rights to confidentiality of th concerned parties.
• All concerned parties should be informed of the allegation at an appropriate stage in the
proceedings.
• Anyone accused of misconduct should have the right to respond. A policy should be in place to
ensure that no employee who makes an allegation in good faith against another employee shall
suffer a detriment, but equally that disciplinary procedures are in place to deal with malicious
allegations.
• The allegation should be dealt with in a fair and timely manner.
• Proper records of the proceedings should be kept.
• The outcome should be made known as quickly as possible to all concerned parties.
• Anyone found guilty of misconduct should have the right to an appeal.
• Appropriate sanctions and disciplinary procedures should be in place for cases when the
allegation is upheld.
• If appropriate, efforts should be made to restore the reputation of the accused party if the
allegation is dismissed.

University Grants Commission (UGC), in its constant endeavour to ensure quality and excellence
in higher education, has taken the initiative of “Quality Mandate” to continuously improve the
quality in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in India. Moving ahead in this direction, the
“Quality Mandate” of UGC, which emphasizes the importance of promoting high-quality research
and creating new knowledge by faculty members, established a Consortium for Academic Research
and Ethics (CARE) with the main task of improving the quality of research in Indian universities
and to promote academic and research integrity as well as publication ethics.

Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR):

• CSIR known for its cutting edge R&D knowledge base in diverse S&T areas, is a contemporary
R&D organization.
• CSIR has a dynamic network of 37 national laboratories, 39 outreach centres, 1 Innovation
Complex, and three units with a pan-India presence.
• CSIR covers a wide spectrum CSIR covers a wide spectrum of science and technology – from
oceanography, geophysics, chemicals, drugs, genomics, biotechnology and nanotechnology to
mining, aeronautics, instrumentation, environmental engineering and information technology

CSIR Guidelines: In a Nutshell:

Categories of Scientific Good Scientific Practices Levels of misconduct and suggested

Misconduct advice on action to be taken
Embezzlement of ideas Laboratory Records Category I: Simple Error/ Minor
Transgression
Plagiarism Authorship Category II: Moderate Transgression

Page 22 of 37
Fabrication Safe Laboratory Practices Category IV: Severe Transgression
Fraud Research involving humans and
human biological material
Redundant /Salami Use of Animals in Research
Publications
Non-compliance of Regulatory Journals
Guidelines Consultancy work
Inappropriate Authorship / Collaborative work
Authorship
Withholding data for validation
Wrong versus Fraudulent paper

Suggested SOP for dealing Misconduct:

• Complaint received from identified individual
• SIB is set up by director (for lab)/ DG(for HQ)
• SIB investigates the matter and submits reports
• Report approved by Director (for Lab)/ DG, CSIR (for Has)
• Implement the penalty as per guidelines

Scientific Investigation Board (SIB):

• Complaint from 'identified' individual received. Anonymous complaints not to be entertained
• Director (for individual laboratory) / DG-CSIR (for SIR Hqs) refer matter to SIB
• SIB investigates the matter and suggests punitive action commensurate with the offence done
• Minor, moderate and major penalties (excepting those below): Be imposed on the accused
directly by the
Director for the laboratory and DG, SIR for the Hqs
• Major and severe transgressions involving penalties such as Deferred promotion/ Deferred
increments/ Reduction to lower stage/ Compulsory retirement / Removal from Service: Be
dealt as per extant SIR rules and regulations, by SIR administration with the approval of
Competent Authority

Publication Ethics:
General guidelines for handling allegations ELSEVIER:
• Authorship complaints
• Plagiarism complaints
• Multiple, duplicate, concurrent publication/simultaneous submission
• Research results misappropriation
• Allegations of research errors, falsification & fabrication
• Allegations of image duplication or manipulation
• Research standards violations
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest
• Reviewer bias or competitive harmful acts by reviewers

Page 23 of 37
Elsevier’s AI author policy states that authors are allowed to use generative AI and AI-assisted
technologies in the writing process before submission, but only to improve the language and
readability of their paper and with the appropriate disclosure

IEEE:
IEEE Xplore is the flagship digital platform for discovery and access to scientific and technical
content published by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and its publishing
partners.
Publishing Ethics - Authorship and Contributorship:
IEEE considers individuals who meet all of the following criteria to be authors:
• Made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or
experimental design, prototype development, and/or the analysis and interpretation of data
associated with the work contained in the article.
• Contributed to drafting the article or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content.
• Approved the final version of the article as accepted for publication, including references.

Plagiarism and Redundant Publication:

When submitting your article for publication to IEEE, it should:
• Contain original research that has not been published before.
• Not be submitted to any other publication while you await a peer review decision.

Complaints and Appeals:

• Allegations of misconduct are handled as described in the Publication Services and Products
Board (PSPB) Manual, section 8.2.4.
• During the handling of the complaint, the identity of the persons involved and the scope of the
inquiry are kept confidential to the extent practicable.

Human and Animal Research Disclosure :

Authors of articles reporting on research involving human subjects or animals must advise the
Editor upon article submission whether or not an approval was obtained from a relevant Review
Board (or equivalent local/regional review). If such an approval was obtained, the original source
and reference must be provided to the Editor at submission and appear in the article itself.

Conflicts of Interest:
Authors who submit to this publication are required to disclose any potential sources of conflict of
interest in their submission. Conflict resolution procedures are outlined in the PSPB Manual
Data Sharing and Reproducibility:
The IEEE promotes the sharing of data and code to help with scientific reproducibility. To make it
convenient to share data and code of an article, IEEE offers author tools such as IEEE Data Port and
Code Ocean.

Ethical Oversight :
See the IEEE Principles of Ethical Publishing section in the Introduction of the PSPB Manual to
find the journal policies on ethical oversight.

Copyright and Licensing - IEEE Copyright Form:

A completed IEEE Copyright Form is required in order to publish an article in this publication.
Signing the IEEE Copyright Form transfers ownership of the article to IEEE.
Page 24 of 37
Publication Misconduct:
Few authors invent or manipulate data to reach fraudulent conclusions

Different types of publication misconduct by authors:

• Deliberately provide incomplete or improperly processed data
• Do not declare competing interests
• Do not follow ethical procedures
• Duplicate submission
• Breach of patient confidentiality
• Do not obtain informed consent
• Plagiarism
• Denial of authorship

Publishers, Reviewers, Editors may also act wrongly

Categories of scientific and publication misconduct reported to the Committee on Publication

Ethics (COPE):
• 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
• 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 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 and to
make sure their journal is readable and profitable
• 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,
etc

Page 25 of 37
• 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
• 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.

COPE Flowcharts:
COPE flowcharts offer a step by step process, for practical use on handling different aspects of
publication ethics issues.

Page 26 of 37
• 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 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.

Common Types of Publication Misconduct:

• Submission of Fraudulent Data
• Incomplete or Improperly Processed Data
• Breaches of Confidentiality and Patient/Subject Consent
• Authorship Issues Raised
• Competing Interests
• Redundant and Duplicate Publication
• Plagiarism Issue

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.
• The extent of fraudulent research data is not known, although many experienced editors believe
that undiscovered fraud is much more common
• It is not easy to detect. Fraudulent papers may corrupt future research by others as they continue
to be cited.
• Publication of fraudulent research 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:

• It is commonplace that inconvenient data are sometimes excluded from a study.
• 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 responsibility of editors as it is that of authors.

Page 27 of 37
• One systematic review of studies comparing methodological quality and outcome according to
the source of funding showed that research sponsored by companies is less likely to be published
than that funded otherwise
• Generally, company sponsored research is not of lower quality and that findings are more likely
to be favorable to the product investigated.
• 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.

STROBE - Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology :

Observational research comprises several study designs and many topic areas. We aimed to
establish a checklist of items that should be included in articles reporting such research – the
STROBE Statement. We considered it reasonable to initially restrict the recommendations to the
three main analytical designs that are used in observational research: cohort, case-control, and
cross-sectional studies. We want to provide guidance on how to report observational research well.
Our recommendations are not prescriptions for designing or conducting studies. Also, the checklist
is not an instrument to evaluate the quality of observational research.

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. Identifying details
should be omitted if not required. 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.

Page 28 of 37
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.
Page 29 of 37
• Where a subject has been thoroughly and convincingly elucidated, some find it questionable
whether resources and, more importantly, the 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 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.

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.
• The best policy is authors to 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.
Page 30 of 37
• 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 copy-right 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, 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.

Guidelines 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.
• 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 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.
Page 31 of 37
• 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:
• 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 (3R)
• 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 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.
Page 32 of 37
• 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.

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 infor- mation 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 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.
Page 33 of 37
 • 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.
• 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.
• The authors when they come 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 give 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.
• The stated reasons for plagiarism 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 & 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.

Page 34 of 37
 • 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 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.
• 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.
• Within quantitative empirical research, such as randomized controlled trials, spin is defined as
the “use of specific reporting strategies, from whatever motive, to highlight that the
experimental treatment is beneficial, despite a statistically nonsignificant difference for the
primary outcome [ie, inappropriate use of causal language], or to distract the reader from
statistically nonsignificant results [ie, to focus on a statistically significant secondary result]”.
• Spin can distort the production of knowledge and mislead readers and misguide decision and
policy makers.
• 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 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 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 peer-review
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.
Page 35 of 37
• 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.

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.
• 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?
Page 36 of 37
• 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)?

1. The new unique tool “Compass to Publish” for identifying the predatory and fake journals.
2. The tool is developed by the ULiege Library, Belgium. Now, it has been released online as beta
version.
3. It helps you determine the authenticity of open access journals requiring or hiding Article
Processing Charges (APC).
4. Beyond that, the ground-breaking online tool allows you to identify the possible predatory
journals.
5. The tool aims to help researchers to examine the degree of authenticity of open access journals
and to better understand pseudo journals and publishers as well.

How Does Compass to Publish (Beta Version) Tool Works?

• You can determine the degree of authenticity of a journal by answering the questions of the online
test.
• It is worth mentioning that the web app only evaluates the fraudulent nature of an open access
journals.
• But the tool does not evaluate the quality of a journals.
• As per your answers, the web app generates different shade of color to check the degree of
authenticity of your journal.
• The greener area in shade of color means you can trust the journal. In contrast, a red zone
indicates a journal is risky.

Page 37 of 37