Ethics in Research

V. Krishna Murthy
Ethics in Research

Responsible conduct in the

research is a shared
responsibility.
Ethics
‘Bunch of principles governing right and
wrong’

Study of standards of right and wrong; that

part of the philosophy addressing moral
conduct, duty and judgement

A guiding philosophy, value-set

Characteristics of Professionalism

Theoritical
→ Hearing & Perception to be true
→ Critical thinkers: critic who inquests and says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ run by logic and
rationale – contributes to knowledge
→ Believes and appreciates R&D

Commitment
→ Does SWOT Analysis, on continual basis
→ Looks before leaping
→ Not bound by time (Time beyond call duty)
→ Not bothered by praise of criticism
→ Identifies with profession
Characteristics of Professionalism
Intellectual
→ Believes in knowledge of current value
→ Bothers always about what he/she is going to learn- self imporvement
→ Current interests (interests are dynamic)
→ Develops and performs and evaluates performance

Altruism
→ Selfless
→ Positive Mental Attitude
→ Respects others

Responsible
→ Promises & Delivers
→ Saying ‘no’ without guilt - Assertive
→ Thinkg & act; timely delivery
1. Tenets of Ethics –4 Principles

 Respect
 Beneficence

 Justice

 Autonomy
Respect
This principle has 2 separate moral requirements:

 Respect individuals’ autonomy

 In the case of diminished autonomy, consult
their legally authorized representative.
Beneficence
Two general rules apply here:
1. Do not harm!
2. Maximize possible benefits, &
minimize possible harms.
Justice
“Who should receive the benefits of research and bear its burdens?”

 To each person an equal share.

 To each person according to individual need.
 To each person according to individual effort.
 To each person according to societal
contribution.
 To each person according to merit.
...and good scientific &
engineering practice
2. What is Research Ethics?
Ethics of topics and findings
“morality” : effects on society and humanity

Ethics of methods and process Basic Values:

“Integrity” : credibility of results, trust
among scientists
• Honesty
• Skepticism
• Fairness
• Collegiality
• Openness
7. Misconduct in research
Questionable/unacceptable research practices

False statements made knowingly

The fabrication of data

• e.g.
- through undisclosed selective reporting and rejection of
unwanted results
- through the manipulation of a representation or illustration
7. Misconduct in research
Questionable/unacceptable research practices

Infringement of intellectual property:

 with respect to a copyright work of another person or the significant scientific
findings, hypotheses, theories or research methods of others:

• The unauthorized exploitation involving usurpation of authorship (plagiarism)

• The misappropriation, particularly in an expert opinion, of research methods
and ideas (theft of ideas)
• The usurpation of scientific authorship or co-authorship, or unjustified
acceptance thereof
• The falsification of the contents or
• The unauthorized publishing or making accessible to third persons of work,
findings, hypothesis
7. Misconduct in research
Questionable/unacceptable research practices

→ the assertion of (co-)authorship of another person without his or her consent

Impairment of the research work of others

→ the sabotage of research work (including damaging, destroying or

manipulating experimental arrangements, equipment, documentation,
hardware, software, chemicals or other items required by another person
for carrying out an experiment)
7. Misconduct in research
Questionable/unacceptable research practices

􀂃 Misuse of one´s position for personal gain

􀂃 Exaggerating one´s claims (“puffery”)
􀂃 Failing to give credit to the work of other scientists
􀂃 Exploiting discretionary information for one´s own work
􀂃 Failing to retain significant research data for a reasonable
period
􀂃 Maintaining inadequate research records for published work
􀂃 Refusing to give peers reasonable access to unique research
material or data that support published papers
􀂃 Using inappropriate statistical or other methods of
measurement to enhance the significance of research findings
 Terminology: Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of stealing someone else's work

and attempting to "pass it off" as your own. This can
apply to anything, from term papers to
photographs to songs, even ideas!
 Plagiarism

Latin plagium - means "kidnapping"

It is intellectual theft
It is a serious scientific misconduct
 Scientific Misconduct
“Scientific misconduct means fabrication,
falsification, plagiarism, or other practices that
seriously deviate from those that are commonly
accepted within the scientific community for
proposing, conducting or reporting research”
Cyber plagiarism
Copying ideas, text, material from
the web without proper
accreditation
Digital plagiarism is a term used to
describe copying using computers
 What is self-plagiarism?

 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 at times unintentional
 Violates the copyright that has been assigned to the
publisher
 No consensus whether this is scientific misconduct

Gitanjali 21
Writecon 2007
Types of plagiarism
 Word for word (Direct, Text)
 Mosaic
 Thesaurus (Paraphrase)
 Ideas
 Authorship
 Secondary sources
 Self
 Why do people plagiarize?

 Ignorance
 Lack of knowledge on the ethics of scholarly
writing / poor writing skills
 Ambition, fierce competition
 Pressure from seniors
 Publish or perish system
 Faster
 Chances of getting caught or action being
taken is slim Gitanjali 23
Writecon 2007
 Original paper:
Original Paper
Ultra-large-scale syntheses of monodisperse
Oriented Assembly of Fe3O4 Nanoparticles into
Monodisperse Hollow Single-Crystal Microspheres Yu nanocrystals, Park et al. Nature Materials, 2004, 3,
et al, J. Phys. Chem. B 2006, 110, 21667-21671 (Figure 891 (Figure 3C)
3)

Plagiarized paper:
Fabrication of Monodisperse Magnetic
Fe3O4-SiO2 Nanocomposites with
Core-Shell Structures Hua Fang,*
Chun-yang Ma, Tai-li Wan, Mei Zhang,
and Wei-hai Shi J. Phys. Chem C
2007, 111, 1065-1070
 Copyright
Copyright is "a form of protection provided by the laws
of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors
of 'original works of authorship,' including literary,
dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other
intellectual works. This protection is available to both
published and unpublished works." (U.S. Copyright
Office)
 Fair Use

Fair Use is a statute under copyright law that allows

for the use of limited portions of a work that has
copyright without having to have permission from
the original author. It was created for the purposes
of education and research. It’s a little harder to pin
down than plagiarism or copyright. I mean, what
qualifies as a "limited portion"?
 Proper Citations

In order to properly cite your sources, you

should also consult the style manual that
would be appropriate for the research. The
following examples are formatted in MLA,
APA, and Chicago (Turabian is similar to
Chicago) formats. The citation is related to
the passage we saw earlier from Zimbardo.
 How to avoid plagiarism?
 For short quotes, use quotation marks in the sentence.
 For longer quotes indent the entire passage
 If you have used a table, chart, diagram etc., cite the source
directly below with a statement that permission has been
obtained.
 “All sources should be disclosed and, if large amounts of other
people's written or illustrative material are to be used,
permission must be sought.” COPE, 1999.
Even if you change a few words here and
there it is considered plagiarism
Gitanjali 29
Writecon 2007
 l Infringement

“Infringement” of a patent occurs when a

competitor makes, uses, sells, offers to sell
or imports an embodiment of the invention
without the permission of the patent
owner.
 Patent Infringement

lPatents only cover those products or

processes described by the claims
lAn infringing product or process must have

each element of the claim

lThe accused product or process may have

more than required by the claim

Infringement of Patent

Remedies

Injunction/ temporary injunction

Damages/Account of Profits
Seizure
Destruction/Delivery up
Thank You
How to read a journal article

“We are drowning in information but

starved for knowledge.”
John Naisbitt
Common reasons for reading journal articles
Types of articles published in a journal
 Decision-making flowchart :
Whether to read the chosen article or not
Most scientific articles are organized as follows:
Title : Topic and information about the authors.
Abstract : Brief overview of the article.
Introduction : Background information and statement of the
research hypothesis.
Methods : Details of how the study was conducted,
procedures followed, instruments used
and variables measured.
Results : All the data of the study along with figures, tables
and/or graphs.
Discussion : The interpretation of the results and implications
of the study.
References/: Citations of sources from where the
Bibliography information was obtained.
TITLE
“Microwave processing – A blessing for pathologists”

•Gives a general idea about the article.

• No indication whether it is a review article on microwave
processing or an original research.

“Comparison of Microwave with Conventional Tissue

Processing on quality of histological sections”
A better understanding of the content of the paper
Abstract:
Structured abstract
Introduction (background or hypothesis),
Methods, results and
Conclusions/Inferences

Makes it easy for a reader to:

Identify important parts of the study quickly &
Gives concise form of information.
INTRODUCTION
Structured abstract
•To provide rationale for conducting the study
•Starts with existing knowledge and previous research
•Concludes with identification of gaps in the literature
and how these gaps stimulated the researcher to design a
new study.

• The aims and objectives are usually mentioned at the

end of the introduction.
• The reader should also determine whether a research
hypothesis (study hypothesis) was stated
MATERIALS & METHODS:
• Grade, Qty, Mfg, details, Catalog no., detailed steps of
making solution, strength of soln. & std. used etc.;
• Gives the technical details of how the experiments
• Sample: Number of subjects included in the study
• Sampling methods, the inclusion and exclusion criteria
• The variables chosen
• Procedures and equipment used for data collection

• As detailed so that reader could repeat experiment

• Method chosen, modifications if any to conventional
method.
RESULTS
• Details about the data collected, either in the form of
figures, tables and/or graphs
• Results are reliable (same results over time) and valid
• Results :Statistically significant and results that were
not, must be identified
• Correct statistical test was employed for analysis
(hypothesis testing)

• No interpretations in results section.

DISCUSSION
• most important section of the article where the research
questions are answered
• study results are compared with other studies, explaining
in what aspects they were different or similar - explanations
• Strengths and limitations/shortcomings of the study,
providing suggestions about areas that need additional
research (Scope)
• No information from other sections should be
repeated.
• Authors’ interpretations and opinions and not
necessarily facts derived from results
CONCLUSIONS
• Sometimes, the study conclusions are included in
the discussion section
• Summarized results; interpretations; theory;
usefulness;
• Specific points not omitting negative results;
• Brevity is the rule.