ETHICS IN RESEARCH

PUBLICATIONS
Course notes
 Ethical issues?

https://rampages.us/mmason/tag/ethics/
https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?catref=bven1266
Science
 The intellectual and practical activity
encompassing the systematic study of the structure
and behavior of the physical and natural world
through observation and experiment

From the New Oxford dictionary

Ethics
 Moral principles that govern a person’s behavior, or
the conducting of an activity

 The branch of knowledge that deals with moral

principles.

From the New Oxford dictionary

Ethics

 People may disagree on ‘ethics’ because it is based on

people's personal value systems

 What one person considers to be good or right may be

considered bad or wrong by another person
Major approaches to ethics
Deontological Approach

 This approach states that we should identify and

use a Universal code when making ethical
decisions. An action is either ethical or not ethical,
without exception.
Major approaches to ethics
Ethical skepticism

 This is the relativist viewpoint, stating that ethical

standards are not universal but are relative to one's
particular culture and time.
Major approaches to ethics
 Utilitarianism

This is a very practical viewpoint, stating that

decisions about the ethics of a study should depend
on the balance of the consequences and benefits for
the research participants and the larger society.
Ethical issues in scientific research
Two main questions:

 How research should be conducted

 What research should be conducted

How research should be conducted
Two categories of scientific misconduct:

 Negligence
 Deviation from methodological norms

 Deliberate dishonesty
 Deviation from moral norms
How research should be conducted
Methodological Norms – The Scientific Method (Karl Popper 1902-1994)
 Characterization

 Hypothesis (hypothetical explanation)

 Prediction (logical deduction from hypothesis)

 Experiment (test of all of the above)

 Evaluation and iteration (peer review / reproducibility)

How research should be conducted
The Scientific Method in action - Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
 Characterisation Maxwell’s theory same for all observers

 Hypothesis (hypothetical explanation) speed of light same for all observers

 Prediction (logical deduction from hypothesis) E = mc2

 Experiment (test of all of the above) The Manhattan project

 Evaluation and iteration (peer review / reproducibility) 100 years of relativity

How research should be conducted
What do we learn from this?
 Good science sometimes just requires imaginative thinking (thought experiment)

 Good science builds on experience

 Good science makes testable predictions

 Good science can lead to bad applications (!?)

How research should be conducted

 What kind of science should we engage in?

 Who should decide?
 What ethical issues need to be considered and how?
 Should there be differences between the developed
and the developing world?
What research should be conducted
 Big Science
 Research that is expensive and involves large teams of
scientists

 Blue Sky Research

 Scientific research which is not yet practicable or profitable
What science should be conducted
Blue sky research
 CERN: Annual budget of ~ 1 billion Swiss Francs
Research and Science Editing
Unethical conduct in scientific research:

 fabrication, falsifying and plagiarism in the process of

proposing, conducting and publishing the results.
Research and Science Editing
Unethical conduct is directly related to the following factors:

 Increased academic expectations and a greater desire for

publishing papers
 Personal ambition, vanity and desire for fame
 Laziness
 Greed, which is directly linked to the financial gain
 Lack the moral capacity to distinguish right from wrong
Research and Science Editing
Research and Science Editing
Authorship
 author is any person who had significant intellectual contribution to a

particular study

Defines authorship follows: 

 Significant contribution to the concept, design, collection, analysis and

interpretation of the study

 Writing study template, or revision in terms of intellectual content

 Final approval of the version to publication.

Research and Science Editing
Ghost Authorship

 when an individual who has significantly contributed to and participated in

the development of specific scientific work, is not listed as an author
 a special form is a publication of the work of ghost author on the request
of industry or conflict of interest
Research and Science Editing
Duplicate publication

 defined as a publication of an article which is identical or largely overlaps

with the article already published with or without acknowledgment

 two articles share the same hypothesis, results and conclusions

 good practice in publishing an article requires that authors can submit

drafts of their work only to one journal at a given moment
Research and Science Editing
Duplicate publication

 authors are trying to reach the readers who may not be familiar with
already published article, especially if it is in another language

 is sometimes acceptable when the results are being reported to different

audiences in publications tailored to those particular audiences
Research and Science Editing
Fabrication / Falsifying Data

 It affects the integrity of other studies, also the author who is their creator,
but also other authors from the same field of science
 If such article is not disclosed on time, in vain will be other authors loss of
energy and time trying to take advantage of the presented results in their
studies
 It creates a negative image of science in general and affects the trust
Research and Science Editing
Conflict of interest
 The research and publication of scientific papers is vital for preservation
of objectivity in order to preserve the integrity of the research, the
reputation of the institution that conducts the study and journals that
published the study
 From the authors conducted a study is expected to objectively present the
results of the research, and from the reviewers to objectively evaluate
them
 Conflicts of interest may be individual or institutional.
Research and Science Editing
Conflict of interest
 Journals introduced a ban on authors writing review articles if they had a
financial interest in the company concerning the research

 But in recent years it is increasingly difficult to find authors who are

completely independent of the industry

 Financial interest means everything from salaries or other allowances,

interest in shares and intellectual property (patents, copyrights, etc.)
Research and Science Editing
Peer review process
Research and Science Editing
Peer review process
Preventive measures
 Make ethical standards very clear to all researchers

 Provide education and training for all researchers

 Clearly identify methods of sanctioning such behavior

 Introduce stricter control of sponsored research

What is publishable
Journals like to publish papers that are going to be widely read and useful to the
readers

 Papers that report “original and significant” findings that are likely to be of
interest to a broad spectrum of its readers
 Papers that are well organized and well written, with clear statements
regarding how the findings relate to and advance the
understanding/development of the subject
 Papers that are concise and yet complete in their presentation of the findings
What is not acceptable
 Papers that are routine extensions of previous reports and that do not
appreciably advance fundamental understanding or knowledge in
the area
 Incremental / fragmentary reports of research results
 Verbose, poorly organized, papers cluttered with unnecessary or
poor quality illustrations
 Violations of ethical guidelines, including plagiarism of any type or
degree (of others or of oneself) and questionable research practices
Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism
 Plagiarism: using the ideas or words of
another person without giving appropriate
credit (Nat. Acad. Press document)

 Self-Plagiarism: The verbatim copying or

reuse of one’s own research (IEEE Policy
statement)
Plagiarism
 Literally copy an entire paper
word for word and present it as
your own work

 Copy and paste passages from

articles and sites found on the
Internet
Plagiarism detection
 Check against journal databases and
internet documents

 https://www.assignmentproof.com
 http://www.ithenticate.com/
 http://www.plagiarism-detector.com/
Plagiarism detection
Publication visibility
 Author indexing
 Hirsch index

 Google Scholar
 ISI Web of Science
 Scopus
Publication visibility
Publication visibility
Ethical issues?

http://www.powtoon.com/youtube/
http://ori.dhhs.gov/education/products/RCRintro/c02/0c2.html
References
 Joan E. Sieber, Planning Ethically Responsible Research, Sage
 Vincent Hamner, Misconduct in Science, Essay, 1992
 Masic I, Kujundzic E, Science Editing in Biomedicine and Humanities, Avicena,
Sarajevo, 2013: 51-66
 Benos DJ, Ethics and scientific publication, Adv. Physiol. Educ. 2005; 29: 59-74
 Ngai S, Haunted manuscripts: Ghost authorship in the medical literature,
Accountability in Research. 2010; 12: 103-114
 Breen KJ, Misconduct in medical research: whose responsibility?, Internal
Medicine Journal, 2003; 33: 186-191
References
 Koppelman White E, Research misconduct and scientific process: Continuing
quality improvement, Accountability in Research, 2006; 13: 225–246
 http://web.csulb.edu/~arezaei/EDP520/powerpoint/4-Ethics_in_Research.ppt
 https://www.uky.edu/~kdbrad/EDP656/Notes/PowerPoint/Chapter3.ppt
 https://www3.nd.edu/~pkamat/pdf/ethics.pdf