Research and

Publication Ethics
Elizabeth Thomas
Research Scholar
Pavanatma College Murickassery
 Topics to be discussed?
• Violation of publication ethics, Authorship and contributorship
• Identification of publication misconduct
• Predatory publishers and journals
 Publication
• To publish is to make content available to the society.
• Publication means dissemination (provision) of findings of the study to
the scientific community.
• It must be generally available.
 Ethics
• Ethics means branch of philosophy that addresses questions of morality.
• Refers to well based standard of right and wrong that prescribes what
human ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations benefit to the
society , fairness or specific virtues.
• “Knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is
right to do”
 Publication Ethics
• Publication + Ethics = Publication Ethics
• Ethics to be followed in a publication.
• Can be defined as “ rules of conduct generally agreed upon when
publishing results of scientific research or other scholarly work”.
• A standard that protect the intellectual property right and forbids the
republication of another’s work without proper credit.
 Publication Misconduct
• Includes plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate authorship,
duplicate submission/ multiple submission, overlapping publication and
salami publication.
 Violation of Publication Ethics
• Global issue
• Includes duplicate submission, multiple submission,, plagiarism, gift
authorship, fake affiliation, ghost authorship, pressured authorship, salami
publication and fraud ( fabrication and falsification)but excludes the
honest errors committed by the authors.
 1. Duplicate Submission
• Practice of submitting the same study to two journals or publishing more
or less the same study in two journals.
• Can be nearly simultaneous or years later.
 2. Censorship
• The suppression of any text, argumentation, supporting materials (audio or
visual), data, facts, reporting, citations, or any other materials for reasons
of potential personal, professional, institutional, or governmental reprisals
and not for reasons of merit or intellectual rigor. Self-censorship is widely
recognized by the academic community as a form of censorship.
• Intentionally, (deliberately) .not accidently.
 4. Discriminatory and Harassing Research
Practices and Language
• Differential treatment of and conduct toward an individual or group of
people based on their race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including
pregnancy and gender identity), age, marital and parental status, disability,
sexual orientation, or genetic information.
 5. Fabrication
• Manufacture of information (to include but not limited to data, citations,
quotations, transcripts, archival documents, and audio and visual
supporting materials) intended to deceptively promote or diminish or
otherwise mislead.

• Making up data or results. Nepalese researchers humorously refer to this

as “Chautari data collection,” where the data collectors / enumerators sit
under a big banyan / peepal tree - the chautari, and just fill the proforma
without collecting any information.
 6. Failure to Acknowledge Sources
• Includes all forms of plagiarism . Also includes intentionally or
unintentionally omitting to cite irreproducible sources
 7.Failure to Meet Legal and Professional
Obligations
• Failure to adhere to the standards and limitations imposed by relevant
professional bodies and research funders or Research Ethics Committees .
 8. Falsification
• Alteration through addition, omission, or distortion of information (to
include but not limited to data, citations, quotations, transcripts, archival
documents, and audio and visual supporting materials) intended to
deceptively promote or diminish or otherwise mislead.
• Manipulating research materials / equipment / processes or changing /
omitting data or results to get expected sample size or result.
 16. Salami publication
• Publication of two or more articles from a single research. This however
can be acceptable under certain circumstances
 17.Imalas Publication
• It is “salami” spelled backwards. When one publishes another article after
extending the study duration or the period of investigation. Here, the
samples or data from previous publication are also included in the new
submission
9. Misrepresentation of Qualifications and/ or
Experience
• Deliberately providing false information regarding the nature or duration
of one’s educational and professional background, experience, activities,
affiliations, memberships, associations, degrees, or certifications
 10. Multiple Manuscript Submission
• Submitting the same manuscript to more than one publisher, or even to
more than one publication at the same publisher, without full disclosure.
 11.Segmented Publication
• Also known as “salami publication” or “salami slicing”, the practice of
dividing the data from one research project among multiple publications,
often with redundancies in hypotheses, methodologies, and conclusions,
as a strategy to inflate the number of one’s publications.
 12. Undisclosed Errors in Published
Work
• Failure to report errors discovered after publication to the publisher and/or
editor. It will likely be necessary to issue an erratum or corrigendum,
according to the nature of the case.
 13. Undisclosed Research Misconduct and/or
Publication Ethics Violations in Published Work
• Failure to report instances of research misconduct and/or publication
ethics violations discovered after publication to the publisher and/or
editor. It will likely be necessary to issue a retraction.
 14. Pseudonyms
• The use of a false name for the purposes of concealment of one’s identity.
 15. Plagiarism
• Appropriation of another person’s words, ideas, methods, results, or
artwork as one’s own (i.e., without appropriate citation).
 16.Gift Authorship
• Means co- authorship awarded to a person who has not contributed
significantly to the study.
• Eg: Junior researchers often feel pressured to accept or assign authorship
to their senior co- workers who have substantial powers over their future
career.
 17.Fake Affiliation
• Real , existing author is falsely included on a paper, without telling him or
her.
• Eg: An author at a well known institution might be added to a paper to
make it look better.
 18.Ghost Authorship
• Ghost author is a person who has made a substantial contribution to the
research but is not named as author.
• Those who make small contributions that would not qualify them as an
author should be listed in the acknowledgments with the extent of their
contribution clearly stated.
 19.Pressured Authorship
• Is when a person uses their position of authority to obtain authorship.
 Other violations
• Incorporating / including figures from the internet without mentioning the
source.
• • Submitting a paper for publication without consent or knowledge of co-authors.
• • Not stating “conflict of interest”.
• • Reviewers rejecting proposal or manuscript and later submitting their own
work along similar line.
• • Usage of abusive or rude language by reviewers.
• • Causing delay in publication or ethical approval due to conflict of
interest.
• • Fear of being critical to senior author further affecting the review
process.
• • Authors not being concerned about the quality of their work and rather
wanting immediate publication
 Authorship
• Who is an author ?
According to ICMJE’ s guidelines , an author should have :
a. Contributed substantially to conception and design, acquisition of data,
or analysis and interpretation of data.
b. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual
content.
c. Provided final approval of the version to be published.
 Who is not an author ?
• According to ICMJE’s following are disqualified as an author:
a. Acquisition of funds
b. Supervision of work
c. Minor laboratory support
d. Administartive support
 Unethical authorship practices
• Gift authorship
• Guest authorship
• Ghost authorship
 Preventing Authorship problems
• Identify and assign study tasks that are key for authorship and those
warranting only acknowledgment.
• Link authorship to quality and completion of work not to an individual’s
role or title.
 Contributorship/ Guarantorship
• Means ,contributionship statement states , who has contributed what to the
planning, conduct and reporting of the work described in the article and
should identify one or occasionally more contributor(s) as responsible for
the overall content as guarantor.
 Publication Misconduct
• Can be defined as data fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in
proposing , performing or reviewing research , or in reporting research
results.
- U S Office of Research Integrity
 Types of publication misconduct
• Plagiarism
• Salami slicing
• Gift authorship
• Ghost authorship
• Duplicate publication
• Selective reporting
• Fabrication
• Falsification
 Predatory Journals ?
• Author fees
• No quality check
• No ISSN or DOI( Digital Object Identifier)
• No peer review
• No ethical approvals
• Lack transparency
• Poor websites
• Rapid publication
• Prominent language errors
• Predatory journals accept articles for publication along with author’s
fees , without any genuine review, plagiarism check etc.
• “A recent analysis states that most authors in predatory journals are from
developing countries”.
• THANK YOU