Unit - I

PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS 1. Introduction to philosophy: definition, nature and scope,

concept, branches

Introduction to Philosophy

According to Oxford Dictionary “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge,

reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline”.

Philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational,

abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental
dimensions of human existence and experience. Philosophical inquiry is a central
element in the intellectual history of many civilizations.

Nature and Scope

Philosophy is the criticism of life. It enquires into the nature, meaning, purpose, origin,
and destiny of human life. It is the interpretation of life, its value, and meaning.

It is an enquiry into its source and destiny. It investigates the nature of the supreme
norms, ideals, or values of life. It investigates the relation of values to reality. In this
sense, philosophy is the interpretation of life.
1
Life and philosophy react upon each other. A superficial life of mere pursuit of sensual
pleasures and material comforts yields a superficial philosophy of materialism. A deeper
life of sense restraint, control of emotions and passions, and pursuit of human good,
truth, beauty, and the Holy yields a deeper philosophy of idealism.

Life is never complete, perfect, and harmonious. So philosophy also, which is a

reflection upon life, can never be complete and all-embracing.

Philosophy consists of three parts:

(1) Epistemology;

(2) Ontology and Metaphysics, and

(3) Axiology.

Epistemology is the theory of Knowledge. Ontology or Metaphysics is the theory of

Being or Reality. Axiology is the theory of Values. Modern philosophy is not dogmatic. It
does not plunge into metaphysical investigation of the nature of reality without a prior
criticism of the organ of knowledge. It is based on epistemology. Epistemology enquires
into the nature, origin, validity and extent of knowledge.
Ontology investigates the nature of reality. It discusses the theories of monism, dualism,
and pluralism. Monism recognizes one type of reality. It assumes the form of
materialism or idealism. Materialism regards matter as the ultimate reality, and reduces
mind to matter. It investigates the nature and origin of the universe, its creation or
evolution, and mechanical or teleological character of its evolution. Thus cosmology is
included in ontology.

Axiology is the theory of values or ideals. Values are the supreme norms of life. Logic
investigates the nature of Truth. Ethics investigates the nature of Good. Aesthetics
investigates the nature of Beauty. Theology investigates the nature of the Holy. Axiology
enquires into the nature of intellectual, moral, esthetic, and religious values. It
investigates the relation of values to reality. It enquires into their subjectivity or
objectivity. It is a very important branch of contemporary philosophy. Tile problem of
values is in the forefront of recent philosophy.

2
 Origin of Knowledge

According of oxford dictionary, “facts, information, and skills acquired through

experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject”.

Definitions of Knowledge

Sources of Knowledge

Types of Knowldege

4 Types of Knowledge
● Factual Knowledge. You can define factual knowledge simply as the terminologies,
specific details, and basic elements within any domain. ... This is the information that
can and must be learned through exposure, repetition, and commitment to memory.
● Conceptual Knowledge. can be understood as knowing the interrelationships and/or
functions among the details and elements that make up a larger structure. This
definition includes (1) knowing information classification and categorization, (2) 
knowing principles and generalizations, and (3) knowing theories, models, and
structures.
● Procedural Knowledge. This knowledge type is critical for success in goal attainment
because it puts the “what” into action through the “how” process.  Procedural knowledge
can be understood as knowledge of (1) subject-specific skills and algorithms, (2)
subject-specific techniques and methods, and (3) criteria for deciding when to use the
right procedures. 
● Metacognitive Knowledge. can be understood as (1) strategic knowledge, (2)
knowledge about cognitive tasks (i.e. contextual, conditional), and (3) self-knowledge. 
Because people are complex, and groups of people only add to the dynamic of
complexity within a system, having a good measure of metacognitive knowledge (that
is, engaging in this type of thinking) is critical to your performance, well-being, and
success. 

Methods of Knowledge

The methods of acquiring knowledge can be broken down into five categories each with

its own strengths and weaknesses.
● Intuition. The first method of knowing is intuition.  When we use our intuition, we are
relying on our guts, our emotions, and/or our instincts to guide us. Rather than
examining facts or using rational thought, intuition involves believing what feels true.
● Authority This method involves accepting new ideas because some authority figure 4
states that they are true. These authorities include parents, the media, doctors, Priests
and other religious authorities, the government, and professors.authority. ...
● Rationalism. Rationalism involves using logic and reasoning to acquire new knowledge.
Using this method premises are stated and logical rules are followed to arrive at sound
conclusions.
● Empiricism. Empiricism involves acquiring knowledge through observation and
experience.
● The Scientific Method. The scientific method is a process of systematically collecting
and evaluating evidence to test ideas and answer questions. While scientists may use
intuition, authority, rationalism, and empiricism to generate new ideas they don’t stop
there.

2. Ethics: definition, moral philosophy, nature of moral judgments and reactions

What is Ethics in Research & Why is it Important? When most people think of ethics (or
morals), they think of rules for distinguishing between right and wrong. This is the most
common way of defining "ethics": norms for conduct that distinguish between
acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Most people learn ethical norms at home, at
school, in church, or in other social settings. Although most people acquire their sense
of right and wrong during childhood, moral development occurs throughout life and
human beings pass through different stages of growth as they mature. Ethical norms
are so omnipresent that one might be tempted to regard them as simple commonsense.
On the other hand, if morality were nothing more than commonsense, then why are
there so many ethical disputes and issues in our society? One plausible explanation of
these disagreements is that all people recognize some common ethical norms but
interpret, apply, and balance them in different ways in light of their own values and life
experiences. For example, two people could agree that murder is wrong but disagree
about the morality of abortion because they have different understandings of what it
means to be a human being. Most societies also have legal rules that govern behavior,
but ethical norms tend to be broader and more informal than laws. Although most
societies use laws to enforce widely accepted moral standards and ethical and legal
rules use similar concepts, ethics and law are not the same. An action may be legal but
unethical or illegal but ethical. We can also use ethical concepts and principles to
criticize, evaluate, propose, or interpret laws. Peaceful civil disobedience is an ethical
way of protesting laws or expressing political viewpoints. Another way of defining 'ethics'
focuses on the disciplines that study standards of conduct, such as philosophy,
theology, law, psychology, or sociology. For example, a "medical ethicist" is someone
who studies ethical standards in medicine. One may also define ethics as a method,
procedure, or perspective for deciding how to act and for analyzing complex problems
and issues. For instance, in considering a complex issue like global warming, one may
take an economic, ecological, political, or ethical perspective on the problem. While an
economist might examine the cost and benefits of various policies related to global
warming, an environmental ethicist could examine the ethical values and principles at
stake. Many different disciplines, institutions, and professions have standards for
behavior that suit their particular aims and goals. These standards also help members
of the discipline to coordinate their actions or activities and to establish the public's trust
of the discipline. For instance, ethical standards govern conduct in medicine, law,
engineering, and business. Ethical norms also serve the aims or goals of research and 5
apply to people who conduct scientific research or other scholarly or creative activities.
There is even a specialized discipline, research ethics, which studies these norms.
There are several reasons why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research.
- First, norms promote the aims of research, such as knowledge, truth, and
avoidance of error. For example, prohibitions against fabricating, falsifying, or
misrepresenting research data promote the truth and minimize error.
- Second, since research often involves a great deal of cooperation and
coordination among many different people in different disciplines and
institutions, ethical standards promote the values that are essential to
collaborative work, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness.
For example, many ethical norms in research, such as guidelines for
authorship, copyright and patenting policies, data sharing policies, and
confidentiality rules in peer review, are designed to protect intellectual
property interests while encouraging collaboration. Most researchers want to
receive credit for their contributions and do not want to have their ideas stolen
or disclosed prematurely.
- Third, many of the ethical norms help to ensure that researchers can be held
accountable to the public. For instance, federal policies on research
misconduct, conflicts of interest, the human subjects protections, and animal
care and use are necessary in order to make sure that researchers who are
funded by public money can be held accountable to the public.
- Fourth, ethical norms in research also help to build public support for
research. People are more likely to fund a research project if they can trust
the quality and integrity of research.
- Finally, many of the norms of research promote a variety of other important
moral and social values, such as social responsibility, human rights, animal
welfare, compliance with the law, and public health and safety. Ethical lapses
in research can significantly harm human and animal subjects, students, and
the public. For example, a researcher who fabricates data in a clinical trial
 may harm or even kill patients, and a researcher who fails to abide by
regulations and guidelines relating to radiation or biological safety may
jeopardize his health and safety or the health and safety of staff and students.
Codes and Policies for Research Ethics Given the importance of ethics for the conduct
of research, it should come as no surprise that many different professional associations,
government agencies, and universities have adopted specific codes, rules, and policies
relating to research ethics. The following is a rough and general summary of some
ethical principals that various codes address*: Honesty Strive for honesty in all scientific
communications. Honestly report data, results, methods and procedures, and
publication status. Do not fabricate, falsify, or misrepresent data. Do not deceive
colleagues, research sponsors, or the public. Objectivity Strive to avoid bias in
experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation, peer review, personnel
decisions, grant writing, expert testimony, and other aspects of research where
objectivity is expected or required. Avoid or minimize bias or self-deception. Disclose
personal or financial interests that may affect research. Integrity Keep your promises
and agreements; act with sincerity; strive for consistency of thought and action.
Carefulness Avoid careless errors and negligence; carefully and critically examine your
own work and the work of your peers. Keep good records of research activities, such as
data collection, research design, and correspondence with agencies or journals.
Openness Share data, results, ideas, tools, resources. Be open to criticism and new
ideas. Respect for Intellectual Property Honor patents, copyrights, and other forms of
intellectual property. Do not use unpublished data, methods, or results without
permission. Give proper acknowledgement or credit for all contributions to research.
Never plagiarize. Confidentiality Protect confidential communications, such as papers or
grants submitted for publication, personnel records, trade or military secrets, and patient
records. Responsible Publication Publish in order to advance research and scholarship,
not to advance just your own career. Avoid wasteful and duplicative publication.
Responsible Mentoring Help to educate, mentor, and advise students. Promote their 6
welfare and allow them to make their own decisions. Respect for colleagues Respect
your colleagues and treat them fairly. Social Responsibility Strive to promote social
good and prevent or mitigate social harms through research, public education, and
advocacy. Non-Discrimination Avoid discrimination against colleagues or students on
the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or other factors not related to scientific competence and
integrity. Competence Maintain and improve your own professional competence and
expertise through lifelong education and learning; take steps to promote competence in
science as a whole. Legality Know and obey relevant laws and institutional and
governmental policies. Animal Care Show proper respect and care for animals when
using them in research. Do not conduct unnecessary or poorly designed animal
experiments. Human Subjects Protection When conducting research on human
subjects, minimize harms and risks and maximize benefits; respect human dignity,
privacy, and autonomy; take special precautions with vulnerable populations; and strive
to distribute the benefits and burdens of research fairly.
Ethical Decision Making in Research Although codes, policies, and principals are very
important and useful, like any set of rules, they do not cover every situation, they often
conflict, and they require considerable interpretation. It is therefore important for
researchers to learn how to interpret, assess, and apply various research rules and how
to make decisions and to act ethically in various situations. The vast majority of
decisions involve the straightforward application of ethical rules. Actions that nearly all
researchers classify as unethical are viewed as misconduct. It is important to
remember, however, that misconduct occurs only when researchers intend to deceive:
honest errors related to sloppiness, poor record keeping, miscalculations, bias, self-
deception, and even negligence do not constitute misconduct. Also, reasonable
disagreements about research methods, procedures, and interpretations do not
constitute research misconduct. There are many other activities that the government
does not define as "misconduct" but which are still regarded by most researchers as
unethical. These are sometimes referred to as "other deviations" from acceptable
research practices and include: ∙ Publishing the same paper in two different journals
without telling the editors ∙ Submitting the same paper to different journals without telling
the editors ∙ Not informing a collaborator of your intent to file a patent in order to make
sure that you are the sole inventor ∙ Including a colleague as an author on a paper in
return for a favor even though the colleague did not make a serious contribution to the
paper ∙ Discussing with your colleagues confidential data from a paper that you are
reviewing for a journal ∙ Using data, ideas, or methods you learn about while reviewing a
grant or a papers without permission ∙ Trimming outliers from a data set without
discussing your reasons in paper ∙ Using an inappropriate statistical technique in order
to enhance the significance of your research ∙ Bypassing the peer review process and
announcing your results through a press conference without giving peers adequate
information to review your work ∙ Conducting a review of the literature that fails to
acknowledge the contributions of other people in the field or relevant prior work ∙
Stretching the truth on a grant application in order to convince reviewers that your
project will make a significant contribution to the field ∙ Stretching the truth on a job
application or curriculum vita ∙ Giving the same research project to two graduate
students in order to see who can do it the fastest ∙ Overworking, neglecting, or
exploiting graduate or post-doctoral students ∙ Failing to keep good research records ∙
Failing to maintain research data for a reasonable period of time ∙ Making derogatory
comments and personal attacks in your review of author's submission ∙ Promising a
student a better grade for sexual favors ∙ Using a racist epithet in the laboratory ∙
Making significant deviations from the research protocol approved by your institution's
Animal Care and Use Committee or Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects
Research without telling the committee or the board ∙ Not reporting an adverse event in
a human research experiment ∙ Wasting animals in research ∙ Exposing students and
staff to biological risks in violation of your institution's biosafety rules ∙ Sabotaging
someone's work ∙ Stealing supplies, books, or data ∙ Rigging an experiment so you
know how it will turn out ∙ Making unauthorized copies of data, papers, or computer
programs ∙ Owning over $10,000 in stock in a company that sponsors your research 7
and not disclosing this financial interest ∙ Deliberately overestimating the clinical
significance of a new drug in order to obtain economic benefits
These actions would be regarded as unethical by most scientists and some might even
be illegal in some cases. Most of these would also violate different professional ethics
codes or institutional policies. However, they do not fall into the narrow category of
actions that the government classifies as research misconduct. Indeed, there has been
considerable debate about the definition of "research misconduct" and many
researchers and policy makers are not satisfied with the government's narrow definition
that focuses on FFP. However, given the huge list of potential offenses that might fall
into the category "other serious deviations," and the practical problems with defining
and policing these other deviations, it is understandable why government officials have
chosen to limit their focus.
Finally, situations frequently arise in research in which different people disagree about
the proper course of action and there is no broad consensus about what should be
done. In these situations, there may be good arguments on both sides of the issue and
different ethical principles may conflict. These situations create difficult decisions for
research known as ethical or moral dilemmas.
However, at some point he or she will have to make a decision and then take action.
Ideally, a person who makes a decision in an ethical dilemma should be able to justify
his or her decision to himself or herself, as well as colleagues, administrators, and other
people who might be affected by the decision. He or she should be able to articulate
reasons for his or her conduct and should consider the following questions in order to
explain how he or she arrived at his or her decision: . ∙ Which choice will probably have
the best overall consequences for science and society? ∙ Which choice could stand up
to further publicity and scrutiny? ∙ Which choice could you not live with? ∙ Think of the
wisest person you know. What would he or she do in this situation? ∙ Which choice
would be the most just, fair, or responsible? After considering all of these questions, one
still might find it difficult to decide what to do. If this is the case, then it may be
appropriate to consider others ways of making the decision, such as going with a gut
feeling or intuition, seeking guidance through prayer or meditation, or even flipping a
coin. Endorsing these methods in this context need not imply that ethical decisions are
irrational, however. The main point is that human reasoning plays a pivotal role in
ethical decision-making but there are limits to its ability to solve all ethical dilemmas in a
finite amount of time.

Ethics definition, moral philosopy

Ethics is defined as a moral philosophy or code of morals practiced by a person or
group of people. the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty
and obligation
The word Ethics is derived from the Greek word ‘ethos’ which means character or
conduct. Ethics is also called as moral philosophy or philosophical thinking about
morality. This morality has been further elaborated as action and behaviour which is
concerned with ‘good’ or ‘evil’, of particular traditions, groups or individual. The term
‘moral’ and ‘ethical’ is often used as equivalent to right or good as opposed to ‘immoral’
and ‘unethical’. It doesn’t mean morally right or morally good but it definitely pertains to
morality
Ethics, also called moral philosophy, the discipline concerned with what is morally good
and bad and morally right and wrong. The term is also applied to any system or theory
of moral values or principles Ethics are moral guidelines that a human can follow in
order to lead a life that is up to the moral standards while philosophy is a study of the
fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as
an academic discipline.
8

Nature of moral judgments and reactions

Moral judgment is active in nature. Because moral judgment is given upon voluntary

and habitual acts of persons and not upon their passive experiences. Moral judgment is
social in character. Because, as we know, voluntary acts of a person are right or wrong,
because they more or less affect the of interest of others.

Moral judgement is not of the nature of logical judgement on the one hand, and of the
nature of aesthetical judgement on the other hand. Logical judgement refers to the ideal
of truth; aesthetical judgement refers to the ideal of beauty. But moral judgement refers
to the ideal of supreme good. Moreover, moral judgement is not like a logical
judgement, that it is not merely a judgement about, but a judgement upon an action.
Moral judgement is a judgement of value which evaluates the rightness or wrongness of
our actions. It has objective validity. It is critical and appreciative judgement and it is
inferential in character.
9
SCIENTIFIC CONDUCT 1. Ethics with respect to science and research 2. Intellectual
honesty and research integrity 3. Scientific misconducts: Falsification, Fabrication, and
Plagiarism (FFP) 4. Redundant publications: duplicate and overlapping publications,
salami slicing 5. Selective reporting and misrepresentation of data

Scientific Conduct

 Behaving a particular way acceptable to all

 Abiding by the set of norms

 According to the norms set by International agencies, UGC or own university

 Respect to the hard work and concept of reward to genuine research

Intellectual honesty and research integrity

 Intellect increases and honesty needs to be maintained

 Honesty at the intellectual level furthers the research output

 Integrity cannot be challenged in future 10

 Integrity teaches us to behave in rational way

 Integrity is cultivated while obeying the standard principles,

norms, regulations and guidelines.

Intellectual honesty in proposing, performing, and reporting research refers to honesty

with respect to the meaning of one's research.
Intellectual honesty is honesty in the acquisition, analysis, and transmission of ideas. A
person is being intellectually honest when he or she, knowing the truth, states that
truth. 
Intellectual honesty pertains to any communication intended to inform or persuade. 
Intellectual Honesty combines good faith with a primary motivation toward seeking true beliefs.
It is expected that researchers present proposals and data honestly and communicate
their best understanding of the work in writing and verbally. Researchers must be
advocates for their research conclusions in the face of collegial skepticism and must
acknowledge errors.
Intellectual honesty is an applied method of problem solving, characterized by an
unbiased, honest attitude, which can be demonstrated in a number of different ways
including:
  Ensuring support for chosen ideologies does not interfere with the pursuit of
truth;

 Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such
things may contradict one's hypothesis;

 Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading
impressions or to support one view over another;

 References, or earlier work, are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is

avoided.

Research integrity

 Research integrity means conducting research according to the highest

professional and ethical standards, so that the results are trustworthy. It concerns the
behavior of researchers at all stages of the research life-cycle, including:

 Data collection and data management

 Using appropriate methodology
 Drawing conclusions from results
 Writing up research findings 11

Scientific misconducts: Falsification, Fabrication and Plagiarism

 Known as the three “cardinal sins” of research conduct, falsification, fabrication,

and plagiarism (FFP) are the primary concerns in avoiding research misconduct. Any
divergence from these norms undermines the integrity of research for that individual,
lab, university/corporation, and the field as a whole.

 Scientific misconducts are traced to cases when irrational activity not adhered to
the norms and guidelines set by authority. Authority may international agencies, national
agencies (UGC) or local (MDU)

 Scientific misconducts are classified in three major ways

 Falsification , Fabrication , Plagiarism (will be discussed separately)

Falsification, Fabrication and Plagiarism

 Fabrication is “making up data or results.” and recording or reporting them.

  Falsification is “manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes,
or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately
represented in the research record”.

 Plagiarism is “the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes,

results, or words without giving appropriate credit.”

Plagiarism definition

 when passing off and claiming someone’s recorded ideas or expression

(language) as own.

As an Unethical Act

 Plagiarism is an unethical act as with no labour, hard work some gets credit
over other’s labour.

 One should be rewarded for own hard work

 Creativity is discouraged 12

 Encouragement would be there if rewarded

 Considered as social menace, uncivilized attitude will be promoted

Prevention

 There are many ways for prevention

 Abide by the ethical values

 Follow guidelines

 Style manuals should be followed

 Increase language capacity

 Improve vocabulary

 Little grammar and mechanics may be of greater help

Software reading

 Detecting plagiarism is basically a human act

  Only human intelligence can detect the possibility of plagiarism

 For some reasons which is not possible by considering the large scale PhD
works produced and time constraint

 Machine reading or reading the ‘text’ through software is a solution though not
exactly plagiarism rather similarity and matching

 Apparently similarity is understood to be plagiarism.

Concept of matching and Similarity

 Plagiarism/similarity is checked through machine or softwares (turnitin,

Iauthenticate,Urkund etc)

 Matching with consecutively excluding Notes, Bibliography and Citation or

quotations.

 Matching number of words consecutively depends upon the authority to fix as

somewhere 14 words together that may be reduced and increased.

 These similarity/matching is considered as fitness for acceptance of research 13

work or PhD thesis. On the basis of prior report the researcher may modify the
areas or the portion for correction before final submission.

Redundant Publication, duplicate and Overlapping publication

Duplicate publication, multiple publication, or redundant publication refers

to publishing the same intellectual material more than once, by the author or publisher.
These submissions/publications can be nearly simultaneous or years later. It does not
refer to the unauthorized republication by someone else, which constitutes plagiarism,
copyright violation, or both.

Redundant publication can bias the results of systematic reviews using meta-analysis.

Second, multiple publication wastes resources. Third, since academic credit is based on
the number of publications, redundant publication may give an unfair advantage to the
authors.

Salami Slicing

Salami slicing refers to the practice of partitioning a large study that could have been

reported in a single research article into smaller published articles. A set of papers are
referred to as salami publications when more than one paper covers the same
population, methods, and research question

Salami publication or segmented publication is a distinct form of redundant publication

which is usually characterized by similarity of hypothesis, methodology or results but not
text similarity. These aspects of publications are not objectively detected by software
applications and therefore present a serious threat to publication ethics.

There is no software application or algorithm for detection of salami publication.

Identifying this type of publication misconduct is complex because salami publications
do not often include text plagiarism so that manuscripts can easily evade strict software
checking. Only under the rare circumstances of encountering both the original and the
salami manuscript can some editors or reviewers suspect salami publication. Even
though there are no objective ways to detect this sort of redundant publication,
manuscripts suspected of being salami publications often report on identical or similar
sample size, hypothesis, research methodology and results, and very often have the
same authors.

Authors do it to increase their publication count and to get more recognition, achieve
faster career progression may be to receive more funding by duping the funding
authority.

Unethical about Salami Slicing 14

 Ethically speaking you are not supposed to break up (slice) a study into
parts and present them as separate studies. Salami slicing is harmful to science
and entire academic research.

 Readers may have the impression that each slice, which looks
independent. It increases the quantity of scientific literature instead of quality.

 May increase the author’s citation count.

 Considered an unethical means of achieving career progression

Publish ethically (even slicing) Tips to publish ethically

 When your study is very large and addresses many distinct with related
questions, you may slice your research findings if by breaking the distinct nature
of research is retained

 Example: Social behaviour of People of Delhi ( a study with different

parameters: traffic, weekend, entertainment). All these parameters can be sliced
so readers’ orientation is not disturbed. Each slice will look as distinct as a single
study. You may need to repair each slice or part for proper orientation.
Selective reporting and misrepresentation of data

 Selective reporting bias is when results from scientific research are deliberately
not fully or accurately reported, in order to suppress negative or undesirable findings.
The end result is that the findings are not reproducible, because they have been
skewed by bias during the analysis or writing stages.

Selective reporting is wasteful, leads to bias in the published record and harms the
credibility of science.

 Examples of SAR include selective reporting of data on subgroups, presentation of

adjusted rather than unadjusted analyses, selection of as-treated rather than intention-
to-treat analyses, selective approaches to the handling of missing data, choosing to
analyze continuously measured variables categorically (outcomes or predictors in
adjusted models), and choice of cut-point values to define categorical variables.

Ethics with respect to Science and Research 15

 Scientific research begets development

 Ethics allows individual space for each researcher

 Good conduct encourages and misconduct discourages

 Scientific temperament will increase if ethical approach is maintained

What is Ethics in Research & Why is it Important?

When most people think of ethics (or morals), they think of rules for distinguishing
between right and wrong. This is the most common way of defining "ethics": norms for
conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Most people
learn ethical norms at home, at school, in church, or in other social settings. Although
most people acquire their sense of right and wrong during childhood, moral
development occurs throughout life and human beings pass through different stages of
growth as they mature. Ethical norms are so omnipresent that one might be tempted to
regard them as simple commonsense. On the other hand, if morality were nothing more
than commonsense, then why are there so many ethical disputes and issues in our
society? One plausible explanation of these disagreements is that all people recognize
some common ethical norms but interpret, apply, and balance them in different ways in
light of their own values and life experiences. For example, two people could agree that
murder is wrong but disagree about the morality of abortion because they have different
understandings of what it means to be a human being. Most societies also have legal
rules that govern behavior, but ethical norms tend to be broader and more informal than
laws. Although most societies use laws to enforce widely accepted moral standards and
ethical and legal rules use similar concepts, ethics and law are not the same. An action
may be legal but unethical or illegal but ethical. One may also define ethics as a
method, procedure, or perspective for deciding how to act and for analyzing complex
problems and issues. Ethical norms also serve the aims or goals of research and apply
to people who conduct scientific research or other scholarly or creative activities. There
is even a specialized discipline, research ethics, which studies these norms. There are
several reasons why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research.

- First, norms promote the aims of research, such as knowledge, truth,

and avoidance of error. For example, prohibitions against fabricating,
falsifying, or misrepresenting research data promote the truth and minimize
error.

- Second, since research often involves a great deal of cooperation and

coordination among many different people in different disciplines and 16
institutions, ethical standards promote the values that are essential to
collaborative work, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and
fairness. For example, many ethical norms in research, such as guidelines
for authorship, copyright and patenting policies, data sharing policies, and
confidentiality rules in peer review, are designed to protect intellectual
property interests while encouraging collaboration. Most researchers want to
receive credit for their contributions and do not want to have their ideas stolen
or disclosed prematurely.

- Third, many of the ethical norms help to ensure that researchers can be
held accountable to the public. For instance, federal policies on research
misconduct, conflicts of interest, the human subjects protections, and animal
care and use are necessary in order to make sure that researchers who are
funded by public money can be held accountable to the public.

- Fourth, ethical norms in research also help to build public support for
research. People are more likely to fund a research project if they can trust
the quality and integrity of research.

- Finally, many of the norms of research promote a variety of other important

moral and social values, such as social responsibility, human rights, animal
 welfare, compliance with the law, and public health and safety. Ethical lapses
in research can significantly harm human and animal subjects, students,
and the public. For example, a researcher who fabricates data in a clinical
trial may harm or even kill patients, and a researcher who fails to abide by
regulations and guidelines relating to radiation or biological safety may
jeopardize his health and safety or the health and safety of staff and students.

17

Codes and Policies for Research Ethics Given the importance of ethics for the
conduct of research, it should come as no surprise that many different professional
associations, government agencies, and universities have adopted specific codes,
rules, and policies relating to research ethics. The following is a rough and general
summary of some ethical principals that various codes address*: Honesty Strive for
honesty in all scientific communications. Honestly report data, results, methods and
procedures, and publication status. Do not fabricate, falsify, or misrepresent data. Do
not deceive colleagues, research sponsors, or the public. Objectivity Strive to avoid bias
in experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation, peer review, personnel
decisions, grant writing, expert testimony, and other aspects of research where
objectivity is expected or required. Avoid or minimize bias or self-deception. Disclose
personal or financial interests that may affect research. Integrity Keep your promises
and agreements; act with sincerity; strive for consistency of thought and action.
Carefulness Avoid careless errors and negligence; carefully and critically examine your
own work and the work of your peers. Keep good records of research activities, such as
data collection, research design, and correspondence with agencies or journals.
Openness Share data, results, ideas, tools, resources. Be open to criticism and new
ideas. Respect for Intellectual Property Honor patents, copyrights, and other forms of
intellectual property. Do not use unpublished data, methods, or results without
permission. Give proper acknowledgement or credit for all contributions to research.
Never plagiarize. Confidentiality Protect confidential communications, such as papers or
grants submitted for publication, personnel records, trade or military secrets, and patient
records. Responsible Publication Publish in order to advance research and scholarship,
not to advance just your own career. Avoid wasteful and duplicative publication.
Responsible Mentoring Help to educate, mentor, and advise students. Promote their
welfare and allow them to make their own decisions. Respect for colleagues Respect
your colleagues and treat them fairly. Social Responsibility Strive to promote social
good and prevent or mitigate social harms through research, public education, and
advocacy. Non-Discrimination Avoid discrimination against colleagues or students on
the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or other factors not related to scientific competence and
integrity. Competence Maintain and improve your own professional competence and
expertise through lifelong education and learning; take steps to promote competence in
science as a whole. Legality Know and obey relevant laws and institutional and
governmental policies. Animal Care Show proper respect and care for animals when
using them in research. Do not conduct unnecessary or poorly designed animal
experiments. Human Subjects Protection When conducting research on human
subjects, minimize harms and risks and maximize benefits; respect human dignity,
privacy, and autonomy; take special precautions with vulnerable populations; and strive
to distribute the benefits and burdens of research fairly.
18

Ethical Decision Making in Research Although codes, policies, and principals are
very important and useful, like any set of rules, they do not cover every situation, they
often conflict, and they require considerable interpretation. It is therefore important for
researchers to learn how to interpret, assess, and apply various research rules and how
to make decisions and to act ethically in various situations. The vast majority of
decisions involve the straightforward application of ethical rules. Actions that nearly all
researchers classify as unethical are viewed as misconduct. It is important to
remember, however, that misconduct occurs only when researchers intend to deceive:
honest errors related to sloppiness, poor record keeping, miscalculations, bias, self-
deception, and even negligence do not constitute misconduct. Also, reasonable
disagreements about research methods, procedures, and interpretations do not
constitute research misconduct.

There are many other activities that the government does not define as "misconduct"
but which are still regarded by most researchers as unethical. These are sometimes
referred to as "other deviations" from acceptable research practices and include: ∙
Publishing the same paper in two different journals without telling the editors ∙
Submitting the same paper to different journals without telling the editors ∙ Not informing
a collaborator of your intent to file a patent in order to make sure that you are the sole
inventor ∙ Including a colleague as an author on a paper in return for a favor even
though the colleague did not make a serious contribution to the paper ∙ Discussing with
your colleagues confidential data from a paper that you are reviewing for a journal ∙
Using data, ideas, or methods you learn about while reviewing a grant or a papers
without permission ∙ Trimming outliers from a data set without discussing your reasons
in paper ∙ Using an inappropriate statistical technique in order to enhance the
significance of your research ∙ Bypassing the peer review process and announcing your
results through a press conference without giving peers adequate information to review
your work ∙ Conducting a review of the literature that fails to acknowledge the
contributions of other people in the field or relevant prior work ∙ Stretching the truth on a
grant application in order to convince reviewers that your project will make a significant
contribution to the field ∙ Stretching the truth on a job application or curriculum vita ∙
Giving the same research project to two graduate students in order to see who can do it
the fastest ∙ Overworking, neglecting, or exploiting graduate or post-doctoral students ∙
Failing to keep good research records ∙ Failing to maintain research data for a
reasonable period of time ∙ Making derogatory comments and personal attacks in your
review of author's submission ∙ Promising a student a better grade for sexual favors ∙
Using a racist epithet in the laboratory ∙ Making significant deviations from the research
protocol approved by your institution's Animal Care and Use Committee or Institutional
Review Board for Human Subjects Research without telling the committee or the board ∙
19
Not reporting an adverse event in a human research experiment ∙ Wasting animals in
research ∙ Exposing students and staff to biological risks in violation of your institution's
biosafety rules ∙ Sabotaging someone's work ∙ Stealing supplies, books, or data ∙
Rigging an experiment so you know how it will turn out ∙ Making unauthorized copies of
data, papers, or computer programs ∙ Owning over $10,000 in stock in a company that
sponsors your research and not disclosing this financial interest ∙ Deliberately
overestimating the clinical significance of a new drug in order to obtain economic
benefits

These actions would be regarded as unethical by most scientists and some might even
be illegal in some cases. Most of these would also violate different professional ethics
codes or institutional policies. However, they do not fall into the narrow category of
actions that the government classifies as research misconduct. Indeed, there has been
considerable debate about the definition of "research misconduct" and many
researchers and policy makers are not satisfied with the government's narrow definition
that focuses on FFP. However, given the huge list of potential offenses that might fall
into the category "other serious deviations," and the practical problems with defining
and policing these other deviations, it is understandable why government officials have
chosen to limit their focus.
Finally, situations frequently arise in research in which different people disagree about
the proper course of action and there is no broad consensus about what should be
done. In these situations, there may be good arguments on both sides of the issue and
different ethical principles may conflict. These situations create difficult decisions for
research known as ethical or moral dilemmas.

However, at some point he or she will have to make a decision and then take action.
Ideally, a person who makes a decision in an ethical dilemma should be able to justify
his or her decision to himself or herself, as well as colleagues, administrators, and other
people who might be affected by the decision. He or she should be able to articulate
reasons for his or her conduct and should consider the following questions in order to
explain how he or she arrived at his or her decision: . ∙ Which choice will probably have
the best overall consequences for science and society? ∙ Which choice could stand up
to further publicity and scrutiny? ∙ Which choice could you not live with? ∙ Think of the
wisest person you know. What would he or she do in this situation? ∙ Which choice
would be the most just, fair, or responsible? After considering all of these questions, one
still might find it difficult to decide what to do. If this is the case, then it may be
appropriate to consider others ways of making the decision, such as going with a gut
feeling or intuition, seeking guidance through prayer or meditation, or even flipping a
coin. Endorsing these methods in this context need not imply that ethical decisions are
irrational, however. The main point is that human reasoning plays a pivotal role in 20
ethical decision-making but there are limits to its ability to solve all ethical dilemmas in a
finite amount of time.

Ethics with respect to science and research

Research ethics provides guidelines for the responsible conduct of research. In

addition, it educates and monitors scientists conducting research to ensure a high
ethical standard. The following is a general summary of some ethical principles:
Honesty:Honestly report data, results, methods and procedures, and publication status.
Do not fabricate, falsify, or misrepresent data.
Objectivity:Strive to avoid bias in experimental design, data analysis, data
interpretation, peer review, personnel decisions, grant writing, expert testimony, and
other aspects of research.
Integrity:Keep your promises and agreements; act with sincerity; strive for consistency
of thought and action.
Carefulness:Avoid careless errors and negligence; carefully and critically examine your
own work and the work of your peers. Keep good records of research activities.
Openness:Share data, results, ideas, tools, resources. Be open to criticism and new
ideas.
Respect for Intellectual Property:Honor patents, copyrights, and other forms of
intellectual property. Do not use unpublished data, methods, or results without
permission. Give credit where credit is due. Never plagiarize.
Confidentiality:Protect confidential communications, such as papers or grants
submitted for publication, personnel records, trade or military secrets, and patient
records.
Responsible Publication: Publish in order to advance research and scholarship, not to
advance just your own career. Avoid wasteful and duplicative publication.
Responsible Mentoring:Help to educate, mentor, and advise students. Promote their
welfare and allow them to make their own decisions.
21
Respect for Colleagues:Respect your colleagues and treat them fairly.
Social Responsibility:Strive to promote social good and prevent or mitigate social
harms through research, public education, and advocacy.
Non-Discrimination: Avoid discrimination against colleagues or students on the basis
of sex, race, ethnicity, or other factors that are not related to their scientific competence
and integrity.
Competence: Maintain and improve your own professional competence and expertise
through lifelong education and learning; take steps to promote competence in science
as a whole.
Legality: Know and obey relevant laws and institutional and governmental policies.
Animal Care: Show proper respect and care for animals when using them in research.
Do not conduct unnecessary or poorly designed animal experiments.
Human Subjects Protection:
When conducting research on human subjects, minimize harms and risks and maximize
benefits; respect human dignity, privacy, and autonomy.
Unit - II PUBLICATION ETHICS 1. Publication ethics: definition, introduction and
importance 2. Best practices / standards setting initiatives and guidelines: COPE,
WAME, etc. 3. Conflicts of interest 4. Publication misconduct: definition, concept,
problems that lead to unethical behavior and vice versa, types 5. Violation of publication
ethics, authorship and contributorship 6. Identification of publication misconduct,
complaints and appeals 7. Predatory publishers and journals

Publication Ethics: Definition, introduction, and importance

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is an international forum for editors and

publishers of peer-reviewed journals that provide the “code of conduct” and “best
practice guidelines” that define publication ethics and advises editors on how to
handle cases of research and publication misconduct.

Publication ethics are rules of conduct generally agreed upon

when publishing results of scientific research or other scholarly work. Generally it is a
standard that protects intellectual property and forbids the re-publication of another's
work without proper credit.

● The avoidance of the risk of plagiarism and respect for intellectual property;

● Respect for the rights of human subjects in research; 22

● The identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct;

● The identification of and dealing with manipulations of citations;

● The disclosure of any conflicts of interest;

● Multiple submissions.

● Data fabrication and falsification. Data fabrication means the researcher did not
actually do the study, but made up data. ...

● Redundant publications (or 'salami' publications) ...

Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications,

public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their work and ideas.

Best Practices/Standard Settings initiative guidelines : COPE, WAME etc.

WAME has collaborated with the Committee on Publication Ethics, the Directory of
Open Access Journals, and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association to
develop the following Principles. The Principles are available on the Web sites of all the
participating organizations.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access

Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and
the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) are scholarly organizations.

Principles of Transparency (WNPOGECAPPPARRAD)

1. Website: A journal’s website, including the text that it contains, shall demonstrate
that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards. It must not
contain information that might mislead readers or authors, including any attempt to
mimic another journal/publisher’s site.  

An ‘Aims & Scope’ statement should be included on the website and the readership
clearly defined. There should be a statement on what a journal will consider for
publication including authorship criteria (e.g., not considering multiple submissions,
redundant publications) to be included. ISSNs should be clearly displayed (separate for
print and electronic).

2. Name of journal: The Journal name shall be unique and not be one that is easily 23
confused with another journal or that might mislead potential authors and readers about
the Journal’s origin or association with other journals.

3. Peer review process: Journal content must be clearly marked as whether peer
reviewed or not. Peer review is defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts
from reviewers expert in the field who are not part of the journal’s editorial staff. This
process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, shall be
clearly described on the journal website, including the method of peer review used.
Journal websites should not guarantee manuscript acceptance or very short peer review
times.

4. Ownership and management: Information about the ownership and/or management

of a journal shall be clearly indicated on the journal’s website. Publishers shall not use
organizational or journal names that would mislead potential authors and editors about
the nature of the journal’s owner.

5. Governing body: Journals shall have editorial boards or other governing bodies
whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the
journal’s scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editorial board or other
governing body shall be provided on the journal’s website.  
6. Editorial team/contact information: Journals shall provide the full names and
affiliations of the journal’s editors on the journal website as well as contact information
for the editorial office, including a full address.

7. Copyright and Licensing: The policy for copyright shall be clearly stated in the
author guidelines and the copyright holder named on all published articles.  Likewise,
licensing information shall be clearly described in guidelines on the website, and
licensing terms shall be indicated on all published articles, both HTML and PDFs.  If
authors are allowed to publish under a Creative Commons license then any specific
license requirements shall be noted.  Any policies on posting of final accepted versions
or published articles on third party repositories shall be clearly stated.

8. Author fees: Any fees or charges that are required for manuscript processing and/or
publishing materials in the journal shall be clearly stated in a place that is easy for
potential authors to find prior to submitting their manuscripts for review or explained to
authors before they begin preparing their manuscript for submission.  If no such fees
are charged that should also be clearly stated.

9. Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research

misconduct: Publishers and editors shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent
the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including
24
plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. In no
case shall a journal or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such
misconduct to take place. In the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made
aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their
journal, the publisher or editor shall follow COPE’s guidelines (or equivalent) in dealing
with allegations.

10. Publication Ethics: A journal shall also have policies on publishing ethics. These
should be clearly visible on its website, and should refer to: i) Journal policies on
authorship and contributorship; ii) How the journal will handle complaints and appeals;
iii) Journal policies on conflicts of interest / competing interests; iv) Journal policies on
data sharing and reproducibility; v) Journal’s policy on ethical oversight; vi) Journal’s
policy on intellectual property; and vii) Journal’s options for post-publication discussions
and corrections.

11. Publishing schedule: The periodicity at which a journal publishes shall be clearly

indicated.

12. Access: The way(s) in which the journal and individual articles are available to
readers and whether there are associated subscription or pay per view fees shall be
stated.
13. Archiving: A journal’s plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to the
journal content (for example, access to main articles via CLOCKSS or PubMedCentral)
in the event a journal is no longer published shall be clearly indicated.

14. Revenue sources: Business models or revenue sources (e.g., author fees,
subscriptions, advertising, reprints, institutional support, and organizational support)
shall be clearly stated or otherwise evident on the journal’s website. Publishing fees or
waiver status should not influence editorial decision making.

15. Advertising: Journals shall state their advertising policy if relevant, including what
types of adverts will be considered, who makes decisions regarding accepting adverts
and whether they are linked to content or reader behavior (online only) or are displayed
at random. Advertisements should not be related in any way to editorial decision making
and shall be kept separate from the published content.

16. Direct marketing: Any direct marketing activities, including solicitation of

manuscripts that are conducted on behalf of the journal, shall be appropriate, well
targeted, and unobtrusive.  Information provided about the publisher or journal is
expected to be truthful and not misleading for readers or authors.

25
Conflicts of interests

A conflict of interest in research exists where an individual may preference, or be

perceived to preference, their own interests or obligations over their duties and
responsibilities as a researcher. Conflicts of interest may be actual, potential or
perceived and involve financial and non-financial benefits.

Conflicts of interest may affect, or be perceived to affect, a researcher's impartiality and

judgement, which can erode confidence in the research.

Conflicts of interest in research occur when university members are in a position to

influence research and their extramural activities are such that they or their family may
receive a financial benefit or improper advantage from the research.

Examples include a conflict between financial gain and meticulous completion and
reporting of a research study or between responsibilities as an investigator and as a
treating physician for the same trial participant.

Institutional examples include the unbalancing of the institutional mission by acceding to

the space requests of a large donor for an idiosyncratic program.

Other definitions include:

Illustrative examples of conflicts of interest

● An academic holds a position (for example as a consultant, director or advisor) in

an enterprise that may also have an interest in influencing government or other
policy

● An academic who has a senior editorial position with a commercial journal is also
on a University library committee that recommends journal subscriptions

● A researcher has a financial interest in the licensee (or proposed licensee) of

University intellectual property

● A researcher holds a position (for example as a director) in an enterprise that

may wish to restrict or otherwise manage adverse research findings for
commercial reasons

● A member of staff chairs a University committee which is to consider the

allocation of funds to be shared between a number of colleges, including their
own

26
●

27
28
●

29
30
31
32
Publication misconduct: definition, concept, problems that leads to unethical
behaviour

 Publication misconduct includes plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate

authorship, duplicate submission/multiple submissions, overlapping publication, and
salami publication.

1. Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's thoughts, ideas, data,

figures, research methods, or words without giving appropriate credit, or the over-
citation of another person's published work.

2. Fabrication: Fabrication is the practice of making up data or results without having

performed relevant research.

3. Falsification: Falsification is the practice of changing data or results intentionally

such that misleading conclusion is drawn.
33
4. Inappropriate authorship: Authorship is not appropriately assigned based on the
author's contributions.

5. Duplicate submission/multiple submissions: Duplicate submission/multiple

submissions refers to practice of submitting the same manuscript or several
manuscripts with minor differences (e.g., differences only in title, keywords, abstract,
author order, author affiliations, or a small amount of text) to two or more journals at the
same time, or submitting to another journal within an agreed or stipulated period.

6. Overlapping publication: Overlapping publication refers to the practice of publishing

a paper overlaps substantially with one already published.

7. Salami publication: Salami publication refers to the practice of slicing data from a

large study,could have been reported in a single paper, into different pieces and
publishing them in two or more articles, all of which cover the same population,
methods, and question.

8. Inappropriate authorship: Authorship is not appropriately assigned based on the

author's contributions.

Problems that leads to unethical behavior

No Code of Ethics Employees are more likely to do wrong if they don’t know what’s
right. Without a code of ethics, they may be unscrupulous. A code of ethics is a
proactive approach to addressing unethical behavior. It establishes an organization’s
values and sets boundaries for adhering to those values. Everyone is accountable.

Fear of Reprisal When explaining why they don’t report ethical misconduct that they
witness, people often say it is because they worry about the ramifications. They don’t
want to damage their career or incur the wrath of the offender. Or, sometimes, they let
the infraction go because they don’t know how to report it or they feel that their report
may be ignored.

Impact of Peer Influence If everyone is doing it, it must be right. Or is it? What’s to
stop someone from padding their expense report when their co-workers do it but don’t
get caught? Too often people lapse into the bad behavior of others. People behave
unethically because they tend to perceive questionable behaviors exhibited by people
who are similar to them — like their co-workers — to be more acceptable than those
exhibited by people who they perceive as dissimilar, researchers say.

Going Down a Slippery Slope Misconduct starts small, such as the exaggeration of a
mileage report. But the longer it goes unchecked, the worse the offenses become. The
few extra dollars that came from the mileage report may eventually be dwarfed by larger
34
falsified expenses or perhaps even outright embezzlement. People who are faced with
growing opportunities to behave unethically are more likely to rationalize their
misconduct because unethical behavior becomes habit.

Setting a Bad Example Ethical behavior starts at the top. Employees emulate their
leaders, and the most significant factor in ethical leadership is personal character.
Corporate leaders who employees view as demonstrating personal character are more
likely to be perceived as setting a strong tone, researchers say. If employees see the
boss knocking off early every day, they may do likewise.

Ignoring the small stuff will not necessarily lead to the type of scandals that make the
news. But ethical misconduct could prove costly if it is not stopped. Identifying these
causes of unethical behavior in the workplace could prevent problems and minimize
damages.

Violation of publication ethics, authorship and contributorship

Violation of publication ethics is a global problem which includes duplicate submission,

multiple submissions, 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.
An individual having a role in the research is eligible to be a contributor
Contributorship includes authorship as well as those contributions, which do not qualify
as authorship. The definition of authorship is not uniformly accepted and varies among
fields with different conventions.

● Authorship should be considered if one has made substantial contributions to the

conception, acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data, drafted or revised the
work, approved the final manuscript, and willingness to take responsibility
(ICMJE criteria).

● Authorship is attractive as it helps in professional growth and leads to respect

from the peers. It also makes people susceptible to potential malpractices to get
authorship.

● Authorship comes with important responsibilities like honesty, transparency, and

ensuring originality of work.

● The sequence of authors is decided by quantum and importance of their

contributions.

● An individual having a role in the research is eligible to be considered as a

contributor. The role of all contributors must be mentioned in the publication. 35
● People helping only in data collection, performing statistics, technical
contributions, and data entry, or those who have obtained grants or head of the
department should be all acknowledged but cannot be considered as authors
unless they fulfill the ICMJE criteria.

● Gift authorship or honorary authorship is to bestow authorship upon an individual

when that individual does not fulfill the criteria for authorship.

● Ghost authorship is the absence of the name of an individual as an author,

despite making a substantial contribution to the article and fulfilling ICMJE
criteria. It is especially prevalent in industry-initiated or industry-sponsored trials.

● Plagiarism is an act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving

credit to that person and is common in medical literature. Anti-plagiarism
software are now available to check this menace at least partially.

Predatory publishers and journals practice

Predatory publishing (also write-only publishing or deceptive publishing) is an

exploitative academic publishing business model that involves charging publication
fees to authors without checking articles for quality and legitimacy, and without
providing editorial and publishing services that legitimate academic journals provide,
whether open access or not. Predatory publishers are so regarded because scholars
are tricked into publishing with them, although some authors may be aware that the
journal is poor quality or even fraudulent. New scholars from developing countries are
said to be especially at risk of being misled by predatory publishers.

6 Ways to Spot a Predatory Journal

1. Always check the website thoroughly. ...

2. Check if the journal is a member of DOAJ, COPE, OASPA or STM. ...

3. Check the journal's contact information. ...

4. Research the editorial board. ...

5. Take a look at their peer review process and publication timelines. ...

6. Read through past issues of the journal.

Predatory Journals take advantage of authors by asking them to publish for a fee 36

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.

How can you spot a predatory journal?

1. Do you or your colleagues know the journal? Do you recognize the editorial board?

2. Can you easily contact the publisher?

3. Is the journal clear about their peer review process?

4. Is it clear what fees will be charged?

The consensus definition reached was: “Predatory journals and publishers are entities

that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false
or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack
of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and  indiscriminate solicitation practices.”
Unit - III DATABASES AND RESEARCH METRICS

(A) Databases 1. Indexing databases 2. Citation databases: Web of Science, Scopus,

etc.

Online Database

• A database is an organized collection of data, generally stored and accessed

electronically from a computer system.

• Online databases are collections of computerized information or data such as articles,

books, graphics and multimedia that can be searched to find information. Databases
can be general or subject based in form of abstracts and or full text”.

• Databases provide access to a wealth of useful research materials from academic

journals, newspapers, and magazines.

• Some databases also include e-books, relevant Web resources, and various
multimedia.

• The information found in databases is either originally created or comes from different,
reliable sources.
37
Types of Databases

• On the Basis of Information Incorporated – Full-text Online Databases – Reference

Databases – Numeric Databases – Multimedia Databases

• On the Basis of Scope of Data – General interest Databases – Discipline Specific

Databases – Subject Specific Databases

• On the Basis of Contents – Article Database – Theses/Dissertation Database –

Citation Database – Audio / video Database – Indexing &Abstracting Databases –
Directory Databases

Accessing Databases

• Electronic databases can be accessed anywhere from remote location and users do
not need to go to the library to get information.

• Online databases involve searching of remotely located information through interactive

computer and communications networks irrespective of any physical or geographical
location

Why Databases?
 - Databases provide fast results. They quickly scan through thousands of
sources including periodicals to find a match for your search item
- Do not need to flip page by page through journals and magazines looking for
something on your topic
- On the internet you may spend hours searching for an article from a real and
credible journal that is also on target with your topic.

Online Database vs Web

• The information provided by online databases is scholarly in nature.

• Databases are compilations of journal articles, magazines, books and other

authoritative sources while on Internet we get anything that anyone has posted with no
regulation or standard.

• The information in databases is both accurate and reliable.

• Users may possibly need to pay an amount of money to subscribe it

Each database varies from the other in terms of their

– features and functionality,

38
– types of documents (books, journal articles, theses, etc.) included,

– coverage of contents,

– language and date of contents,

– searching capabilities and

– interfaces.

Some of the well known online databases are (not exhaustive): – JSTOR, Lexus-
Nexus, Medline, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, Compendex, ERIC, Cambridge University
Press, Project Muse, Project Euclid, SIAM, MLA (English), WorldCat and so forth.

These are the excellent sources for those who are looking for authentic and credible
sources of information.

Searching and Browsing Databases

• Search – Simple search – Advance search

• Browse – Through various available approaches

Indexing and Abstracting Databases

• An indexing service is a service that assigns descriptors and other kinds of access
points to documents.

• An abstracting service is a service that provides abstracts of publications, often on a

subject or group of related subjects, usually on a subscription basis.

• An indexing and abstracting service is a service that

– provides shortening or summarizing of documents and

– assigning of descriptors for referencing documents

• Indexing by discovery services is important

• Numerous indexing options:

– General search engines

– Scholarly search engines

– General and discipline-specific scholarly indexing databases

39
• The prestige of any journal is considered by how many abstracting and indexing
services cover that journal.

• It has been observed in last few years that authors have started searching for indexed
journals to publish their articles.

• Indexed journals are considered to be of higher scientific quality as compared to non-

indexed journals.

• This is because journals have to go through a vetting process to be included, or

indexed, in reputable bibliographic databases

What is a Citation Database?

• A citation database is a form of bibliographic index which provides a record of citations

between publications, enabling a user to see which publications have cited which other
publications.  Such a database will show which authors have cited a publication and
how many times an author has been cited.

Citation databases have been developed as a means of evaluating publications,

allowing a user to establish citation counts and to check, for example, which
publications and authors are the most cited. 
Citation analysis and bibliometric indicators have been made possible by such
databases.  However, citation count in itself should not be taken as a guarantee of
quality and there can be many reasons for a particular citation (e.g. negative citations,
self-citation). 

Citation databases tend to focus on journal articles but may cover other material such
as books, conference papers, dissertations or reports.  No citation database covers all
publications.  Note also that some disciplines (e.g. the sciences) are more heavily
covered than others (e.g. the arts).  Citation databases do not tend to provide a user
with full-text access to the publications which have been indexed.

Citation databases compile the citations in the reference lists (bibliographies) of

scholarly publications.

• Citation database records also include bibliographic content that identify a publication:
article title, journal name, author, abstract, etc.

• Citation databases are databases that have been developed for evaluating
publications.

• The citation databases enable you to count citations and check, for example, which 40
articles or journals are the most cited ones.

It is a form of bibliographic index which provides a record of citations between

publications, enabling a user to see which publications have cited which other
publications. ♣ Citation databases are collections of referenced papers / articles / books
and other material entered into an online system (database) in a structured and
consistent way. ♣ A citation database allows us to access published, peer-reviewed,
high-quality material such as journal articles, research reports, systematic reviews,
conference proceedings, editorials, and related works.

♣ All the information relating to a single document (author, title, publication details,
abstract, and perhaps the full text) make up the ‘record’ for that document.

♣ Commonly reported metrics are intended to reflect:

⎫ Article Impact: The number of times an article has been cited is often used to
measure that article's impact. citation databases such as Web of Science can
provide this data.

⎫ Journal Impact: Although controversial, the Journal Impact Factor, derived from
Web of Science citation data, remains a standard measure of a journal's
influence.
 ⎫ Author Impact: Total number of publications authored, total citations to an
author's body of work and metrics such as the h-index can be obtained from Web
of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar.

Purpose One can use a citation database to:

⎫ distinguish between authors with the same name, or an author's name that has
been presented in different ways

⎫ analyse search results to show the number of documents broken down by

various criteria, including year, author, source, affiliation, or subject categories

⎫ search within results by adding additional terms to the initial search

⎫ identify highly cited works related to a particular topic

⎫ find related works that share references or authors

⎫ create search alerts to keep up to date with developments in your discipline

⎫ set up citation alerts to notify you when a document or author is cited

elsewhere
41
⎫ set up alerts to notify you about new documents by an author

⎫ generate a profile that presents an analysis and citation summary of works

published by an institution or author(s), including h-index

⎫ compare the performance of journals in a particular subject area.

Why use a Citation Database?

• Citation databases enable you to find newer papers that reference a paper or author
you already know about.

• You might want to do this in order to:

– find more papers on a topic

– trace how an idea has been confirmed, applied, extended or corrected in later
publications

– see which other researchers are citing your work or the work of your lab mates
 – find citation numbers and metrics to report on job or grant applications,
evaluations, etc.

Summary

• Online databases provides a wealth of information.

• Some important databases (not exhaustive):

– Full text databases: Science Direct, Emerald

– Abstracting and indexing databases: Medline

– Citation databases: Scopus, Web of Science

– Theses databases: NDLTD, Shodhganga

Web of Science

• Previously known as Web of Knowledge

• Provides subscription-based access to multiple databases that provide comprehensive

citation data for many different academic disciplines.
42
• Originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)

• Currently maintained by Clarivate Analytics (previously of Thomson Reuters).

• It is a curated collection of – over 21,000 peer-reviewed, high-quality scholarly journals

published worldwide (including Open Access journals) – in over 250 science, social
sciences, and humanities disciplines. – Conference proceedings and book data are also
available.

Why Citation Index?

• A citation index is built on the fact that citations in science serve as linkages between
similar research items, and lead to matching or related scientific literature, such as
journal articles, conference proceedings, abstracts, etc.

• In addition, literature which shows the greatest impact in a particular field, or more
than one discipline, can be easily located through a citation index.

• For example, a paper's influence can be determined by linking to all the papers that
have cited it. In this way, current trends, patterns, and emerging fields of research can
be assessed.

Coverage
• Web of Science Core Collection have > 21,349 journals + books and conference
proceedings • Over 78 million records • More than 116,000 books • Over 220,000
conferences covered• Time period covered – Sciences: 1900-present – Social
Sciences: 1900-present – Arts & Humanities: 1975-present – Proceedings: 1990-
present – Books: 2005-present – Emerging Source Citation Index: 2005-present

Citation Databases • The Web of Science Core Collection consists of six online
databases: – Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) – Social Sciences Citation Index
(SSCI) – Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) – Emerging Sources Citation Index
(ESCI) – Book Citation Index (BKCI) – Conference Proceedings Citation Index (CPCI)

Types of Literature • The following types of literature are indexed: – scholarly books, –
peer reviewed journals, – original research articles, – reviews, – editorials, –
chronologies, – abstracts, – as well as other items.

Subject Coverage • Major disciplines covered are: – Life sciences, – biomedical

sciences, – engineering, – social sciences, – arts & humanities. • It has strongest
coverage of natural sciences, health sciences, engineering, computer science, materials
sciences.

Search Options • Topic Search • Advanced search • Use of Boolean operators •

Refining the search results 43

Features of WOS

• All the journals that are selected for inclusion in the collection are indexed cover-to-
cover.

• For each paper it captures: – all the authors – all author affiliations – the abstract and
keywords (if provided by the author) – funding acknowledgements, including agency
and grant numbers (if provided) – all the cited references

• When possible also add the following metadata for the indexed papers: – ORCID
identifiers – Additional funding data from Medline and researchfish – Unified institution
names – Organization name variants--the different ways authors refer to their
organization--have been unified to a preferred org name.

Other Features • Updated daily (Monday through Friday) • Ability to analyze search
results by author, affiliation, country, journal/book title, and broad subject categories.

Summary

• Web of Science™ is the world’s most trusted publisher-independent global citation

database.
• Over 9,000 leading academic, corporate and government institutions and millions of
researchers trust Web of Science to produce high-quality research, gain insights and
make more-informed decisions that guide the future of their institution and research
strategy

SCOPUS

Scopus – an overview Scopus launched in November 2004. Scopus is a source-

neutral abstract and citation database curated by independent subject matter experts.
With over 25,100 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers, Scopus delivers
the most comprehensive overview of the world’s research output in the fields of science,
technology, medicine, social science, and arts and humanities.

Abstracts Over 56 million records in Scopus contain an abstract in order to provide

users with as much information as possible about the research presented in the
database. Where available from the publisher, some records go back as far as 1788.
The increased availability of abstracts in Scopus helps to ensure that users find all
relevant results for their search across title, abstract and keywords.

• Scopus traces citations and impact factors of articles in peer reviewed journals in all
subjects, and is especially strong in the sciences.
44
• The Scopus page allows us to browse a list of all journals, book series, trade
publications, and conference proceedings available on Scopus or other external web
sites by using Scopus.

• It covers three types of sources: book series, journals, and trade journals. • A great
way to locate important articles when you are building a research bibliography

• Producer -Elsevier (Netherland) • 40 Languages • Subscription • Disciplines like ⎫ Life

sciences ⎫ Social sciences ⎫ Physical sciences ⎫ Health sciences • It including citation
tracking, citation counts, and author h-index calculations.

• All journals covered in the Scopus database, regardless of who they are published
under, are reviewed each year to ensure high quality standards are maintained.

• Searches in Scopus also incorporate searches of patent databases.

• Scopus gives four types of quality measure for each title; those are h-Index, CiteScore,
SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) and SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper).

• The coverage is Worldwide, consist of 69 million records

Abstracting Service

 Due to tremendous growth in literature, an average scholar is usually unable to keep

himself up-to-date with or some times even to keep track of documents or information in
his fields,

hence, abstracting services can play a very important role in keeping him well informed.
 An abstracting service is a service that provides abstracts of publications, often on a
subject or group of related subjects, usually on a subscription basis.  Abstracting
services are important link in the chain of communication between the originator of
information and the user.

 Abstracts are very important reference tools in research especially in the field of
science and Technology  An abstract is useful for the current and retrospective
literature search on a chosen field, it may appear in current journals, as articles, papers,
reports, conference papers and proceedings etc.  Abstract help in bringing information
to the notice of those who need it rather quickly and are extremely useful tools.

In Simple words an abstract is a summary of document along with adequate

bibliographical details so that one can trace the documents.

45

What is a Citation Database?

https://libguides.mssm.edu/c.php?g=168555&p=1107526

Citation databases compile the citations in the reference lists (bibliographies) of

scholarly publications. Citation database records also include bibliographic content that
identify a publication: article title, journal name, author, abstract, etc.
Why use a citation database?
Citation databases enable you to find newer papers that reference a paper or author
you already know about. You might want to do this in order to:

● find more papers on a topic

 ● trace how an idea has been confirmed, applied, extended or corrected in later
publications
● see which other researchers are citing your work or the work of your labmates
● find citation numbers and metrics to report on job or grant applications,
evaluations, etc.

Three major databases allow interdisciplinary citation searching: Web of Science

(WoS), SciVerse Scopus, and Google Scholar.
Some other databases, such as SciFinder Scholar (chemistry), PsycInfo and PubMed,
allow citation searching of smaller sets of journals and/or journals focused on specific
disciplines.
Scope and Coverage of Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar

What's the Difference?

Significant differences exist between Google Scholar and the other two major citation
databases in search functionality; there is less to distinguish WoS from Scopus. WoS
offers a Cited Reference Search that facilitates identification of citations to a work even
when there are citation errors in the source paper. But that must be balanced against
the larger number of journals and articles in Scopus, and the additional citing articles
from these. 
Are you looking for "everything" published on a topic, or the most important papers?  All 46
three databases have a large overlap in their coverage, and each covers material that
the others do not. If you can only search one, consider the differences in their selection
criteria. 

● WoS covers many fewer journal than Scopus, but it selects only "top tier"
journals: those most likely to publish major scholarly papers.
● Scopus covers more journals and more international journals than does WoS. 
● Google Scholar only includes papers if they have online abstracts or full-text. No
one knows how much of the scholarly literature they cover. With Google Scholar,
you can't know what you are missing.

Do you need to identify core articles published before the dawn of the Internet? WoS
has full citation data for every paper it indexes back to 1900; Scopus has that data back
to 1996. We don't know how far Google Scholar goes back.
Do you need accurate citations for your paper's reference list or a bibliography? It's
better to use Web of Science or Scopus. Citation errors occur in all databases, but
Google Scholar's bibliographic information is extracted by robots performing an
automated Web search. As Google points out, this system may lead to incorrect
identification of bibliographic information, especially if metadata on publisher Web sites
is irregular. You may notice citation errors and/or duplicate citations when you search
Google Scholar.
How do you think the information you need will have been published?  Google Scholar
covers many more types of documents than WoS and Scopus, e.g., dissertations,
books, technical reports and more. Google Scholar is great when you are looking for
more than journal articles.
Are you looking to identify the most important references in a paper's bibliography?
Trace the development of an idea backward in time? Both WoS and Scopus allow you
to see the references in an article without downloading the full-text. They both also
show how often each reference in the bibliography has been cited, making it easier to
identify core papers. Google Scholar does not provide "backward" citation searching.
Do you need to do a precise, targeted search? Google Scholar's main strength and
weakness is the simplicity of its user interface. Although some advanced search and
sorting options are available, there are many fewer than those in WoS and Scopus.
Are you looking for a topic that may have been mentioned in the full-text of an article,
but not in the citation or abstract?  Google Scholar searches some full-text. As a result,
Google Scholar can sometimes retrieve papers that mention brand names, reagents,
abbreviations, etc. that cannot be found by searching with those terms in PubMed, WoS
or Scopus.
For a concise summary of similarities and differences, please see the table below which
compares the search features of Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar.

47
Indexing and abstracting periodicals are called secondary publications. They are the
access tools to already published primary documents such as, articles/papers in
newspapers and periodicals, research papers, reports, patents, conference proceedings
and so on. They are also referred to as indexing and abstracting services as they are
used to provide information, services. As a consequence of growing increase in the
volume of literature, published specially in periodicals, the indexing and abstracting
periodicals have proliferated. Consequently, the need to have bibliographical control
and easy access to the evergrowing world of information and knowledge is also
increasing. As broader subject areas may result in covering a rather unmanageable
volume of literature output, indexing and abstracting periodicals are now brought out.
Indexing and Abstracting in more narrow specialised subject fields. Not only is the
number of indexing and abstracting periodicals continuously on the increase; but also
the number of articles and the documents covered by these periodicals. Periodicals In
order to bring out the indexing and abstracting periodicals, a large volume of literature is
collected, processed, organised and stored in a machine-readable form. Such stored
information is now days familiarly known as databases, which are used for search and
retrieval of information.

48

DEFINITION, FUNCTIONS AND NEED Indexing and abstracting periodicals are

categorised as secondary publications. These secondary publications present the
contents of the primary documents in a systematic condensed form. They together list
and arrange the relevant items from the primary documents for easy and quick access.
Indexing and abstracting periodicals, though report current literature, are useful for
retrospective search also and they have a permanent use.

Definition The word `index' is derived from the Latin word `indicare' meaning `to point
out' or `to show'. An indexing periodical is an access tool to a systematically arranged
list of periodical literature providing complete bibliographical references of already
published individual items of primary documents, which a republished in regular interval.
It is organised in a convenient manner to search the location of entries. An Index can be
alphabetical, classified, chronological, geographical or numerical. They are access tools
to identify and locate the required information which appeared in a particular periodical,

An abstracting periodical, in addition to having the abovementioned features of an

indexing periodical, gives the information content of the primary documents in a
condensed form. Quite often it functions as the surrogate of the original primary
publication, as in the Chemical Abstracts. In short, the major difference between
indexing and abstracting services lies in the form and content. Indexing periodicals
provide lists of articles with bibliographical details arranged in user-friendly order to
enable a user to trace the needed information easily and quickly. Abstracting periodicals
not only list the bibliographical details but also provide abstracts of documents in a
specific field or a group of subject fields helping the reader for his choice of an article or
a paper.

Functions The primary functions of indexing and abstracting periodicals are:

i) to keep scholars and information users abreast of current literature in their

fields of interest. They can be benefited from scanning the issues of
indexing and abstracting periodicals. This can be termed as current use
function;
ii) to find information on the literature of the subject fields as and when need
arises. The indexing and abstracting periodicals are key tools to librarians
and information workers for day to day reference and bibliographical work,
though research scholars also use them extensively. This can be termed
as retrospective search function;
iii) to provide bibliographical control of literature output either by country or by
subject or by kind of materials, if the aim of the indexing and abstracting
services is exhaustive coverage. This can be termed as comprehensive
use function. 49

Study of Reference Sources The secondary functions are:

i) to help users get over language bather, particularly in the case of

abstracting periodicals;
ii) to obtain correct and complete bibliographical details of particular items of
literature, when there is any doubt; to look up for information on a topic,
which may not have been well covered by books, encyclopaedias, etc.;
iii) to make known the work of individual scientists or scholars;
iv) to serve as a source for carrying out statistical, bibliometric and
sociological studies on the growth and pattern of literature, indicative of
research and development efforts taking place; and
v) to help users to get information which is otherwise scattered in other
sources.

Needs At present the number of research journals published in the world is or 130,000
according to Ulrich's International Periodicals' Directory. The number of articles
published in these journals may amount to millions of items. Thus, the volume of
primary literature, published specially in periodicals is growing at a fast speed and rate.
It is, therefore, impossible for scholars to know about the documents in which they may
be interested. Due to problems of scatter and seepage of information, the scholars are
unaware of literature in a particular subject appearing in totally alien sources published
in various countries. The scholars cannot remain self-satisfied with available literature, if
they have to keep pace with changing dimension of knowledge. In such a complex
situation, scholars require some help to save their time and effort in locating and having
access to information from a huge stockpile of information sources. The I & A
periodicals are convenient tools to provide scholars a bird's eye view of literature of their
specific interest easily and quickly. They cover information from vast volume of primary
literature scattered in a numerous sources in fewer pages. The abstracting periodicals
help users in further reducing the effort of scanning by giving an idea of the information
content of documents and its relevance to the purpose. The I & A periodicals also fulfil
the requirements of scholar who needs to scan information from the earlier literature on
the subject for a problem undertaken for study or research. The I & A periodicals are
tools of reference and constantly consulted in libraries and information centres. A
representative collection of I & A periodicals in various disciplines are sub-scribed to by
the library to fulfil the demand of users. These periodicals m iced for identifying
documents which contain specific information needed to answer numerous enquiries of
users and for developing a state-of-art review or compiling a bibliography on a specific
topic. Libraries and information centres generate many information services and
products based on the materials contained in the I & A periodicals.

Qualities Coverage: In order to fulfil the functions, the I & A periodicals should, as far 50
as possible, be comprehensive in reporting the literature so that they can be relied upon
as an exhaustive source of information. It is necessary, at least, to specify and maintain
consistency in the scope and criteria of coverage so as to ensure the user as to what to
expect.

Time lag: The indexing and abstracting periodicals should report literature with as little
time lag as possible after publication of the original so that the most recent and current
information is made available to the users.

Indexes: The indexing and abstracting periodicals should have high retrieval efficiency
through provision of quality indexes. The search should yield optimum recall and
relevance of desired information.

The Bibliographic description: The citation should be accurate and according to

established standard practices. The abstract should be of a high quality in scientific and
textual presentation. Indexing and Abstracting

Ease in consultation: The indexing and abstracting periodicals should be easy,

convenient and quick to consult. Due attention should be paid to the presentation and
arrangement of entries as well as their physical production
SCOPE AND PRESENTATION I & A periodicals point out only to the existence of
source of information and do not carry actual information. Indexing periodicals give bare
bibliographical description of primary documents. They are not, therefore, substitutes for
the original documents. If fully expressive titles of the documents are not given, the
bibliographical information carried by the indexing periodicals may tend to be
misleading. On the other hand, abstracting of documents helps the users to have an
idea of the thought content of the documents and its relevance to their research interest.
Many times they substitute the original documents.

Scope I & A periodicals attempt to cover current literature with as little time lag as
possible. Because of time and effort involved in production, speed of reporting literature
is not a foremost consideration as in the case of current awareness type publications. I
& A periodicals may be exhaustive or selective in coverage of literature depending upon
the purpose. Indexing periodicals, because of comparative ease in production, may aim
at an exhaustive coverage of literature. Abstracting periodicals have to be necessarily
selective in coverage, as all documents may not be suitable for abstracting from the
point of view of their content. Thus, abstracting periodicals may, in some cases, include
documents with bibliographical description giving indicative abstract only. I & A
periodicals may cover all kinds of primary documents such as books, journal articles,
pamphlets and bulletins, reports, patents and standard specifications. In some cases,
the cover-age may be limited to a particular kind of documents. There are also I&A 51
periodicals devoted to unpublished literature and sources such as research reports,
university theses and dissertations, proceedings of conferences, seminars, meetings,
etc. are also covered therein.

Presentation The important consideration in the matter of presentation of entries in

indexing and abstracting periodicals is of maintaining uniformity and consistency in
rendering the bibliographical description throughout. For each document sufficient and
adequate bibliographical description is given for easy identification and location. The
minimum details required for the purpose are author(s), title and locus (source from
where the document has appeared). The index usually follow established standards for
the purpose. A few additional details which the indexing and abstracting periodicals
have found it worthwhile to include are: name of the institution where the work reported
upon has been done, address of authors, translated title and the language of the
original document. Some services provide class number to the entries according to the
chosen scheme of classification. The entries bear a running serial number which also
serves as index number. It is obvious that abstracts are an additional feature of
abstracting periodicals. In the presentation of abstracts also, standard practices are
followed. There are different types of abstracts such as indicative, informative and
detailed abstracts. What type of abstract is given is a matter of editorial policy. Two
most common methods of arrangement of entries in Indexing and abstracting
periodicals are grouping the entries according to broad subjects and within them by
author or chronological order and backed up by a table of content and several indexes
as well as by alphabetical subject headings. In some cases, a classified arrangement
maybe followed. In current awareness lists, there are many ways of presenting and
arranging the entries. They are not to be mistaken as necessarily relevant to the
purpose of indexing periodicals. Some indexing periodicals, especially those that follow
the arrangement of subject headings, cumulate the entries from issue to issue to make
up an annual volume or for two or more years. The provision of various types of indexes
enhances the retrieval efficiency of indexing and abstracting periodicals. Considerable
care and attention are, therefore, paid to the preparation of indexes. The common types
are : author and subject or key word indexes. Some may give title index also.
Specialised indexes, such as patent index, formula index, ring index, taxonomic index
and geographical index are provided in certain periodicals. They have specific purpose
and value in retrieving information. Indexes are provided in each issue and are also
cumulated volume/yearwise: Major services such as the Chemical Abstracts have
cumulated indexes for multi-volumes. A few other helpful features of Indexing and
Abstracting periodicals are detailed contents page, list of journals covered, list of
standard abbreviations used and explanatory note on how to use and find out from the
periodicals. Some producers of indexing and abstracting periodicals such as
Psychological Abstracts may offer photocopying service for the items covered, an
52
indication of which will be found in the preliminary pages. The periodicity of the indexing
and abstracting periodicals is mostly dependent upon the volume of literature that would
be available for coverage in a year. For example, CA is published every week with cycle
whereas Indian Science Abstracts is published fortnightly.

http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/33138/1/Unit-4.pdf

1. Introduction The most fundamental problem facing journal readers, library users and,
it follows, librarians, is physically to get hold of all the journal articles they need when
they need them. Experience varies enormously of course, but the days in which every
essential journal was held in all major academic libraries have passed. The reason most
commonly cited is the economic, prices of scholarly journals have been increasing at
rates much higher than inflation. There has also been growth in the number of journal
titles, which reflects changes within traditional academic disciplines: broadening and
subsequent fragmentation within fields, and greater emphasis on cross-disciplinary
work. The problem is compounded by many other things such as shrinking number of
publishers since the smaller publishers are getting bought by the bigger ones, etc. The
shrinking number of publishers combined with the veritable monopoly writers grant
publishers makes for higher prices. Academic authors have a choice of how they
publish and provide access to their research. Traditionally, academic authors have
communicated their research through peer reviewed scholarly journals, which have
become increasingly managed and controlled by publishers as a commercial enterprise.
The vast majority of these publishers charge for, and therefore limit, access to journals.
However, the number of authors choosing to make their research freely available
through an open access route is increasing. The volume of scientific literature typically
far exceeds the ability of scientists to identify and utilize all relevant information in their
research. Improvements to the accessibility of scientific literature, allowing scientists to
locate more relevant research within a given time, have the potential to dramatically
improve communication and progress in science. With the web, scientists now have
very convenient access to an increasing amount of literature that previously required
trips to the library, inter-library loan delays, or substantial effort in locating the source.
1.1 Open Access Journals Open access journals maintain the traditional values of
journals: notably peer review, but also editing and formatting, and marketing. What is
different is that OA journals are free to the end-user. Velterop gave three criteria for a
journal to be open access: free accessibility to all articles, the depositing of all articles in
an archive/repository, and a licence granted for the right to copy or disseminate
(Velterop, 2003). Some journal publishers currently offer delayed free access, or back
access, making issues of journals free after six months or a year. In fast moving topics,
such material can be out of date when the majority gain access. OA journal publishers
such as the non-profit Public Library of Science (PLoS) or for-profit BioMed Central
53
(BMC) allow immediate free access, or OA. Although these journals charge author fees,
only a minority of existing OA journals do so. In some cases costs are supported by
funding bodies and associations (Suber, 2005a). Many OA journals make their article
metadata available in an OAI-compliant format, meaning that OAI service providers can
harvest the metadata: “In other words, e-prints in the form of open access journal
content are available to all and the pointers to them are easily harvestable” (Swan et al,
2004). While there has been growth in the number of OA journals and articles, numbers
of articles are still relatively low compared to those published in established subscription
journals. Every type of traditional scholarly information is available digitally in open
access format. The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) at Southampton
University, the Experimental OAI Registry at University of Illinois, the Directory of Open
Access Repositories (DOAR) created by University of Lund and University of
Nottingham have up-to-date information about the variety of repositories, and provide
handy discovery tools for discovering open access scholarly databases. There is
considerable overlap among these. ROAR has the valuable extra feature of charting the
growth of many of the repositories. DOAJ, the Directory of Open Access Journals
maintained by University of Lund, and OAIster managed by Michigan University also
provide a good overview of the variety and size of more than 2,380 open access
journals and about 685 institutional digital archives, respectively. Both of them have the
very important additional bonus to allow searching their content at the item level. DOAJ
has 1,08,004 articles while OAIster has 9,407,171 records from 678 institutions. The
numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, especially in OAIster, as the same items
may appear in two or more digital collections. 408 There are many genres of open
access digital collections. These include open access digital monographs, dictionaries,
encyclopedias, directory databases, numerical databases, audio/image/ video
databases, beyond the most prevalent textual databases of journal articles and
conference presentations. In the textual database category there are digital bibliography
collections (without subject descriptors), indexing databases, indexing & abstracting
databases, and full text databases. The link is the single most important, characteristic
feature of Web pages. The link allows us to approach an information resource in which
any item of information is, potentially, an instant of a ‘click’ away, but to exploit this
potential requires ingenuity and more flexible systems to be able to design and apply
links more effectively than we do now. A way in which this feature of the Web can be
used immediately to enhance journal papers is to build on established practice by
linking citations to the cited articles. 2. Open Access Indexing & Abstracting Databases
Although availability varies greatly by discipline, over a million research articles are
freely available on the web. Some journals and conferences provide free access online,
others allow authors to post articles on the web, and others allow authors to purchase
the right to post their articles on the web. For example, efficient means of locating
articles via web search engines or specialized search services is required, and a
substantial percentage of the literature needs to be indexed by these search services
54
before it is worthwhile for many scientists to use them. Computer science is a
forerunner in web availability — a substantial percentage of the literature is online and
available through search engines such as Google, or specialized services such as
ResearchIndex. Even so, the greatest impact of the online availability of computer
science literature is likely yet to come, because comprehensive search services and
more powerful search methods have only become available recently. When print articles
and journal issues were simply discrete entities, libraries and secondary publishers
provided some integration through services such as bibliographic cataloguing, indexing
and abstracting. The prime role played by Abstracting and Indexing databases in pre-
internet era, is now diminishing these days because the full-text databases are the most
sought after. To appreciate the importance of the open access indexing databases, one
has to remember that until the late 1980s they were the most common ready reference
database species in the libraries which spent huge amount of money for licensing them.
The H.W. Wilson company, for example, had only indexing databases for many years. It
was only in the early 1990s that for example Agricultural Index was enhanced with
abstracts to become Agricultural Abstracts. These are –understandably- not open
access as the content providers like H.W. Wilson, make their profit (and spend a lot of
money) on creating these indexing/abstracting databases. However, beyond the most
well-known indexing-abstracting databases produced by government agencies, like
Medline, ERIC, AGRICOLA, NTIS, etc. there are other open access indexing/
abstracting databases. Most importantly, the largest commercial and society publishers
of scholarly journals, conference proceedings and books, such as the American
Chemical Society, IoP, APS, Elsevier, Springer, Taylor 409 & Francis, Emerald Press
and many of the smaller publishers offer together open access to tens of millions of
bibliographic records with abstracts for scholarly journal articles and conference papers.
Some of them do so directly, others, through their digital facilitators, like SAGE, Oxford
University Press through HighWire Press, Springer, and Taylor & Francis through
MetaPress, and Palgrave Macmillan and many others through IngentaConnect.
Publishers migrate from one digital facilitator to another, and/or let one handle some of
their journals, and another the rest of their journals. Many government agencies and
professional bodies sponsoring and managing many projects at the national level in
several countries to improve access to local research through supporting the publishing
of indigenous scholarly journals, and the creation of indexing/abstracting databases to
increase the visibility of locally and regionally pertinent research results, and to facilitate
open access to the full text archives of the largest scholarly publishers. 3. Citation
Indexing Bibliometrics is the application of quantitative methods to analyse and identify
patterns in the usage of materials, or the historical development of a specific body of
literature, in particular its authorship, publication, and use. Bibliometric techniques are
often adopted for the assessment of authors, departments and higher education
institutions. The ISI Web of Knowledge database has been used for bibliometric
assessment and evaluative purposes by many groups and organisations. The term
55
‘citation’ refers to a paper being cited by another author. A cited work is a paper that has
been mentioned in another paper, while a citing work refers to other cited papers that it
references (Garfield, n.d). Citation indexing is the process of building an index of
citations to cited items. A citation index is a database connecting citing articles to cited
articles. While in a given paper its reference list points to earlier work as influences, only
a citation index can provide a list of the later papers that cited the given paper. Citation
indexes are used for citation analysis. With the growth of online capabilities, citation
indexes and analysis have become more sophisticated. More full-text content is now
available online, providing connections between documents in the form of citations and
hyperlinks. With the rise in OA journals and repositories there is potential for a greater
number of journals and articles to be included in online citation indexes. While ISI was
once the only source of information providing citation data, online technologies have
meant that new citation indexes, some automated, have been developed. 4. Citation
Indexes Searching for cited and citing references has its own special output
requirements which help the users to find the most cited papers by an author, journal or
on a subject. As citation searching gains acceptance, there will be a growing demand to
display information prominently about the absolute and relative citedness of the papers,
and to sort the search results by citedness score. For decades the family of Science
Citation Index, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Arts & Humanities Citation
Index of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) represented the only databases
which included the list of cited references. The introduction of the Web of Science
(WoS) service on the Web of Knowledge (WoK) platform a few years ago brought out
much more from this unique database than the few existing implementations by online
aggregators (DataStar, DIALOG, DIMDI). 410 Others also realized the immense
advantage of using cited and citing references to complement subject searches, and to
discover scholarly papers which would not be found by subject searching for several
reasons. Elsevier jumped on the bandwagon with vigour by launching the Scopus
database. Its tagline emphasizes that it is the largest indexing/abstracting database, but
its special value is in the close to eight million records enhanced with about 180 million
cited references. The majority of these are included in the records prepared for
scholarly articles and conference papers published after 1995. Publishers increasingly
offer hot-linked, actionable cited references in their digital archives. HighWire Press, by
far the best of the digital facilitators which help publishers in digitizing their archives,
goes a step further. It automatically displays a list of short entries of the articles
published in journals in its stable which cite the article being looked at. There is still
much to be done to exploit the power of cited references which provide a network of
related papers deemed relevant by the authors to cite. These citing links become bi-
directional as soon as a citing paper is cited by a subsequent paper, and the network of
related papers keeps growing – exactly as envisioned by Eugene Garfield in creating
his citation indexes 50 years ago. Obviously, these intellectual links are so much easier
to follow on the web and should be presented prominently at every phase when the
56
output of a search is displayed. The Open Access movement comprises many
complementary initiatives, including digital scholarly journals, discipline-specific e-print
servers, institutional repositories, and author self-archiving (Jacso, 2006). While these
initiatives vary in intent, scope, and implementation, they all support the same concept:
that scholarly research should serve the interests of the scholars themselves, and that
those interests are best served by the broadest access to the largest body of high-
quality research. 5. Citation Indexing Services Existing citation indexing services include
both pay-to-use selective journal indexing, and free-touse Web indexing. Selective
journal indexing services: ISI Web of Knowledge, Elsevier’s Scopus and CrossRef are
examples of selective journal citation indexing, and are provided on a commercial basis.

https://ir.inflibnet.ac.in:8443/ir/bitstream/1944/1319/1/406-417.pdf

(B) Research Metrics 1. Impact Factor of journal as per Journal Citation Report, SNIP,
SIR, IPP, Cite Score 2. Metrics: h-index, g index, i10 index, altmetrics

Research metrics are the fundamental tools used across the publishing industry to
measure performance, both at journal- and author-level
Why do we need research evaluation metrics

- Selection of appropriate journal

- Exponential growth of scientific literature
- Research awards ad fellowships
- Selection for jobs and promotions
- Understanding institutional and country wise research profile
- What is journal matrices
o It is the tool researchers use to obtain consistent information regarding
any journal
o It is the ranking of a journal with a specific discipline
o Most of the citation metrics are journal level
- Basic function is to
▪ Compare features of multiple journals
▪ Ultimately selecting a journal that best fits the authors need

Academic Institutions Struggling to Define Appropriate Performance Metrics

Traditional Metrics Measure Inputs and Size  Can no longer demonstrate their
educational and scholarly impact via traditional measures such as the number
programmes/Size  Gate count, and Footfall  New measures of success (still 57
under development)

Evolving Metrics Aligned With Value, but Hard to Quantify • Impact on student
learning • Contribution to research productivity • Research Impact • Grant
proposals and funding • Awards/Recognition • Ranking/ Funding

Citation Analysis Examination of the frequency, patterns, and graphs of citations in

articles and books. It uses citations in scholarly works to establish links to other works
or other researchers. Citation Analysis is one of the most widely used methods of
bibliometrics.

• Publication count Number of publications produced by individual, school or university

• Citation count Number of times publication is cited by other publications

These have various applications,  The identification of expert referees to review

papers  Grant proposals,  Providing transparent data in support of academic merit
review,  Selection, Tenure, and promotion decisions. This competition for limited
resources may lead to ethical questionable behavior to increase citations.

managing research impact.pdf

IMPACT FACTOR The Impact Factor is probably the most well-known metric for
assessing journal performance. Designed to help librarians with collection management
in the 1960s, it has since become a common proxy for journal quality. The Impact
Factor is a simple research metric: it’s the average number of citations received by
articles in a journal within a two-year window. The Web of Science Journal Citation
Reports (JCR) publishes the official results annually, based on this calculation:

Number of citations received in one year to content published in Journal X during

the two previous years, divided by the total number of articles and reviews
published in Journal X within the previous two years.

For example, the 2017 Impact Factors (released in 2018) used the following
calculation: Number of citations received in 2017 to content published in Journal X
during 2015 and 2016, divided by the total number of articles and reviews published in
Journal X in 2015 and 2016.

How can I get an Impact Factor for my journal? Only journals selected to feature in
the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
receive an official Impact Factor. To be eligible for coverage in these Web of Science
indices, journals must meet a wide range of criteria. For many journals, the first step to 58
receiving an Impact Factor is to feature in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI).

What are the disadvantages of the Impact Factor?

1. The Impact Factor is an arithmetic mean and doesn’t adjust for the distribution of
citations. This means that one highly-cited article can have a major positive effect on the
Impact Factor, skewing the result for the two years. Most journals have a highly-skewed
citation distribution, with a handful of highly-cited articles and many low- or zero-cited
articles.
2. The JCR doesn’t distinguish between citations made to articles, reviews, or
editorials. So that the Impact Factor doesn’t penalize journals that publish rarely-cited
content like book reviews, editorials, or news items, these content types are not counted
in the denominator of the calculation (the total number of publications within the two-
year period). However, citations to this kind of content are still counted. This creates two
main problems. Firstly, the classification of content is not subjective, so content such as
extended abstracts or author commentaries fall into an unpredictable gray area.
Secondly, if such articles are cited, they increase the Impact Factor without any offset in
the denominator of the equation.
3. The Impact Factor only considers the number of citations, not the nature or
quality. An article may be highly cited for many reasons, both positive and negative. A
high Impact Factor only shows that the research in a given journal is being cited. It
doesn’t indicate the context or the quality of the publication citing the research.
4. You can’t compare Impact Factors like-for-like across different subject areas.
Different subject areas have different citation patterns, which reflects in their Impact
Factors. Research in subject areas with typically higher Impact Factors (cell biology or
general medicine, for example) is not better or worse than research in subject areas
with typically lower Impact Factors (such as mathematics or history). The difference in
Impact Factor is simply a reflection of differing citation patterns, database coverage, and
dominance of journals between the disciplines. Some subjects generally have longer
reference lists and publish more articles, so there’s a larger pool of citations. Impact
5. Factors can show significant variation year-on-year, especially in smaller
journals. Because Impact Factors are average values, they vary year-on-year due to
random fluctuations. This change is related to the journal size (the number of articles
published per year): the smaller the journal, the larger the expected fluctuation.

What is the 5-year Impact Factor? The 5-year Impact Factor is a modified version of
the Impact Factor, using five years’ data rather than two. A journal must be covered by
the JCR for five years or from Volume 1 before receiving a 5-year Impact Factor. The 5-
year Impact Factor calculation is:
Number of citations in one year to content published in Journal X during the
59
previous five years, divided by the total number of articles and reviews published
in Journal X within the previous five years.

The 5-year Impact Factor is more useful for subject areas where it takes longer
for work to be cited, or where research has more longevity. It offers more stability for
smaller titles as there are a larger number of articles and citations included in the
calculation. However, it still suffers from many of the same issues as the traditional
Impact Factor

CITESCORE

1. What is CiteScore? CiteScore is the ratio of citations to research published. It’s

currently available for journals and book series which are indexed in Scopus. CiteScore
considers all content published in a journal, not just articles and reviews. The CiteScore
calculation is:
Number of all citations recorded in Scopus in one year to content published in
Journal X in the last three years, divided by the total number of items published
in Journal X in the previous three years.

Journals that publish a large amount of front matter (such as editorials or peer
commentaries) will perform worse by CiteScore than by Impact Factor because this
front matter is rarely cited
2. What are the differences between CiteScore and Impact Factor?

1 CiteScore is based on the Scopus database rather than Web of Science. This
means the number of citations and journal coverage in certain subject areas is
notably higher.
2 CiteScore uses a three-year citation window, whereas Impact Factor uses a
two-year citation window.
3 The CiteScore denominator includes all content published in the journal. The
Impact Factor denominator includes only articles and reviews.
4 CiteScore covers all subject areas, whereas the Impact Factor is only available
for journals indexed in the SCIE and SSCI.

CiteScore suffers from some of the same problems as Impact factor; namely that it isn’t
comparable across disciplines and it is a mean calculated from a skewed distribution.

SNIP - SOURCE NORMALIZED IMPACT PER PAPER SNIP is a journal-level metric

which attempts to correct subject-specific characteristics, simplifying cross-discipline
comparisons between journals. It measures citations received against citations
expected for the subject field, using Scopus data. SNIP is published twice a year and
looks at a three-year period. The SNIP calculation is:
60
Journal citation count per paper, divided by citation potential in the field. SNIP
normalizes its sources to allow for cross-disciplinary comparison.

In practice, this means that a citation from a publication with a long reference list
has a lower value. SNIP only considers citations to specific content types (articles,
reviews, and conference papers), and does not count citations from publications that
Scopus classifies as “non-citing sources”. These include trade journals, and many Arts
& Humanities titles.

SJR - SCIMAGO JOURNAL RANK The SJR aims to capture the effect of subject field,
quality, and reputation of a journal on citations. It calculates the prestige of a journal by
considering the value of the sources that cite it, rather than counting all citations equally.
Each citation received by a journal is assigned a weight based on the SJR of the citing
journal. So, a citation from a journal with a high SJR value is worth more than a citation
from a journal with a low SJR value. The SJR calculation is:

Average number of (weighted) citations in a given year to Journal X, divided by

the number of articles published in Journal X in the previous three years.

As with SNIP and CiteScore, SJR is calculated using Scopus data.

h-INDEX
1. What is the h-index? The h-index is an author-level research metric, first
introduced by Hirsch in 2005. The h-index attempts to measure the productivity of a
researcher and the citation impact of their publications. The basic h-index calculation is:

Number of articles published which have received the same number of citations.

For example, if you’ve published at least 10 papers that have each been cited 10
times or more, you will have a h-index of 10.

A h-index of 20 means that an academic has published at least 20 papers that have
received at least 20 citations each. The h-index thus combines an assessment of both
quantity (number of papers) and an approximation of quality (impact, or citations to
these papers).

h-index rewards consistent stream of high-impact publications

An academic cannot have a high h-index without publishing a substantial number of

papers. However, this is not enough. These papers need to be cited in order to count for
the h-index. Hence the h-index favours academics that publish a continuous stream of
papers with lasting and above-average impact.

2. What are the advantages of the h-index? Results aren’t skewed The main advantage
of the h-index is that it isn’t skewed upwards by a small number of highly-cited papers. It 61
also isn’t skewed downwards by a long tail of poorly-cited work. The h-index rewards
researchers whose work is consistently well cited. That said, a handful of well-placed
citations can have a major effect.

3. What are the disadvantages of the h-index?

a. Results can be inconsistent Although the basic calculation of the h-index is

clearly defined, it can still be calculated using different databases or time-frames,
giving different results. Normally, the larger the database, the higher the h-index
calculated from it. Therefore, a h-index taken from Google Scholar will nearly
always be higher than one from Web of Science, Scopus, or PubMed. (It’s worth
noting here that as Google Scholar is an uncurated dataset, it may contain
duplicate records of the same article.)

b. Results can be skewed by self-citations Although some self-citation is

legitimate, authors can cite their own work to improve their h-index

c. Results aren’t comparable across disciplines The h-index varies widely by

subject, so a mediocre h-index in the life sciences will still be higher than a very
good h-index in the social sciences. We can’t benchmark h-indices because they
 are rarely calculated consistently for large populations of researchers using the
same method.

d. Results can’t be compared between researchers The h-index of a researcher

with a long publication history including review articles cannot be fairly compared
with a post-doctoral researcher in the same field, nor with a senior researcher
from another field. Researchers who have published several review articles will
normally have much higher citation counts than other researchers

G-index

What is the g-index?

g-index, proposed by Leo Egghe in his paper Theory and practice of the g-index, 2006,
as an improvement to the h-index. The g-index gives more weight to highly-cited
articles.
62
To calculate the g-index:

 "[Given a set of articles] ranked in decreasing order of the number of citations

that they received, the g-index is the (unique) largest number such that the top g
articles received (together) at least g² citations."

 g-index looks at overall record

 A g-index of 20 means that and academic has published at least 20 articles
that combined have received at least 400 citations. However, unlike the h-index
these citations could be generated by only a small number of articles. For
instance an academic with 20 papers, 15 of which have no citations with the
remaining five having respectively 350, 35, 10, 3 and 2 citations would have a g-
index of 20, but a h-index of 3 (three papers with at least 3 citations each).
 g-index allows highly-cited papers to bolster low-cited papers
 Roughly, h is the number of papers of a certain “quality” [citations] threshold, a
threshold that rises as h rises; g allows citations from higher-cited papers to be
used to bolster lower-cited papers in meeting this threshold. Therefore, in all
cases g is at least h, and is in most cases higher. However, unlike the h-index,
the g-index saturates whenever the average number of citations for all published
papers exceeds the total number of published papers; the way it is defined, the
g-index is not adapted to this situation.
Advantages of the g-index

 Accounts for the performance of author's top articles.

 Helps to make more apparent the difference between authors' respective

impacts. The inflated vales of the g-index help to give credit to lowly-cited or non-
cited papers while giving credit for highly cited papers.

Disadvantages of the g-index

 Introduced in 2007, and the debate continues whether the g-index is superior to
the h-index. It is not as widely accepted as the h-index.

i10-index

The i10-index, a metric used by Google Scholar, is the number of publications with

at least 10 citations for all of the citations listed in your profile. This is a very simple
metric to calculate but it is only available in Google Scholar.

What can one conclude from complex metrics?

63
Here I return to the publication records of Maria and myself. As indicated earlier, our
total number of citations (approximately 8300 vs. 9500) and time since first publication
are quite similar (17 years vs. 20 years). As a result, our number of citations per year is
very similar too (489 vs 475). This time I show the more complex metrics. What can we
conclude from these?

h-index

My record shows a higher h-index than that of Maria. This is not surprising, given that
she has published fewer papers and hence it is more difficult for her to achieve a high h-
index. In Maria’s case, only one third of her papers are not included in the h-index. In
my case, this is true for nearly 60% of my papers. That said, given that her h-index is
lower, it is easier for her to increase it further as her next paper only needs to acquire 27
citations to be included, whereas my next paper needs to acquire 46 citations.

g-index
My g-index is more than twice as high as that of Maria. The simple reason is that neither
the g-index nor the h-index can be higher than the total number of papers published and
Maria has “only” published 41 papers so far. Hence, the maximum her g-index can
reach is 41. Even if she would publish another paper without any citations, her g-index
would still increase. This is clearly a limitation of the g-index.

Conclusions

The h-index and g-index are both limited by the number of papers one publishes. Hence
these indices – and especially the g-index – will always favour academics that publish
more papers (provided they are cited at least moderately well). These indices are
therefore not very suitable to assess the impact of academics that have published one
or two ground-breaking contributions, but have not published any further highly cited
work. For these academics, the total number of citations might be a more appropriate
metric. That’s exactly why Publish or Perish provides a wide range of metrics. The
variety of metrics allows you to select the metrics most appropriate to your purpose.

Altmetrics

1. What are altmetrics? Alternative metrics (or “altmetrics”) help you to measure the 64
impact of a journal by looking at the social activity around it. They use quantitative and
qualitative data alongside traditional citation- and usage-based metrics to provide an
insight into the attention, influence and impact of academic research. The most common
method of reporting on altmetrics is the Altmetric Attention Score. This tool tracks a
wide range of online sources to capture the conversations happening around academic
research.

2. How is the Altmetric Attention Score calculated? Altmetric monitors each online
mention of a piece of research and weights the mentions based on volume, sources,
and authors. A mention in an international newspaper contributes to a higher score than
a tweet about the research, for example. The Altmetric Attention Score is presented
within a colorful donut. Each color indicates a different source of online attention
(ranging from traditional media outlets to social media, blogs, online reference
managers, academic forums, patents, policy documents, the Open Syllabus Project,
and more). A strong Altmetric Score will feature both a high number in the center, and a
wide range of colors in the donut. Discover the different ways you can make Altmetric
data work for you by reading this introduction from Altmetric’s Head of Marketing, Cat
Chimes.

3. What are the advantages of the Altmetric Attention Score?

 a. Receive instant, trackable feedback Altmetric starts tracking online
mentions of academic research from the moment it’s published. That means
there’s no need to wait for citations to come in to get feedback on a piece of
research.

b. Get a holistic view of attention, impact and influence The data Altmetric
gathers provides a more all-encompassing, nuanced view of the attention,
impact, and influence of a piece of research than traditional citation-based
metrics. Digging deeper into the Altmetric Attention Score can reveal not only the
nature and volume of online mentions, but also who’s talking about the research,
where in the world these conversations are happening, and which online
platforms they’re using.

4. What are the disadvantages of the Altmetric Attention Score?

a. Biases in the data which Altmetric collects There’s a tendency to focus on

English-speaking sources (there’s some great thinking around this by Juan Pablo
Alperin). There’s also a bias towards Science, Technology and Medicine (STM)
topics, although that’s partly a reflection of the activity happening online around
research.

b. Limited to tracking online attention The Altmetric Attention Score was built 65
to track digital conversations. This means that attention from sources with little
direct online presence (like a concert, or a sculpture) are not included. Even for
online conversations, Altmetric can only track mentions when the source either
references the article’s Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or uses two pieces of
information (i.e. article title and author name)

https://editorresources.taylorandfrancis.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/11/Understanding-research-metrics.pdf

Unit - IV

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING 1. Open access publications and initiatives 2.

SHERPA/RoMEO online resource to check publisher copyright & self-archiving policies
3. Software tool to identify predatory publications developed by SPPU 4. Journal
finder/journal suggestion tools viz. JANE, Elsevier Journal Finder, Springer Journal
Suggested, etc.

PUBLICATION MISCONDUCT 1. Subject specific ethical issues, FFP, authorship 2.

Conflicts of interest 3. Complaints and appeals: examples and fraud from India and
abroad

Open Access Publications and initiatives

1.1 Open Access Journals Open access journals maintain the traditional values of
journals: notably peer review, but also editing and formatting, and marketing. What
is different is that OA journals are free to the end-user.

1.2 Three criteria for a journal to be open access:

1.2.1 free accessibility to all articles,
1.2.2 the depositing of all articles in an archive/repository, and
1.2.3 a licence granted for the right to copy or disseminate.

1.3 Some journal publishers currently offer delayed free access, or back access,
making issues of journals free after six months or a year. In fast moving topics, 66
such material can be out of date when the majority gain access. Some OA journal
allow immediate free access, or OA. Although these journals charge author fees,
only a minority of existing OA journals do so. In some cases costs are supported by
funding bodies and associations. Many OA journals make their article metadata
available in an OAI-compliant format, meaning that OAI service providers can
harvest the metadata: “In other words, e-prints in the form of open access journal
content are available to all and the pointers to them are easily harvestable”.
1.4 While there has been growth in the number of OA journals and articles, numbers of
articles are still relatively low compared to those published in established
subscription journals. Every type of traditional scholarly information is available
digitally in open access format. The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR)
at Southampton University, the Experimental OAI Registry at University of Illinois,
the Directory of Open Access Repositories (DOAR) created by University of Lund
and University of Nottingham have up-to-date information about the variety of
repositories, and provide handy discovery tools for discovering open access
scholarly databases.
1.5 There are many genres of open access digital collections. These include open
access digital monographs, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, directory databases,
numerical databases, audio/image/ video databases, beyond the most prevalent
textual databases of journal articles and conference presentations. In the textual
 database category there are digital bibliography collections (without subject
descriptors), indexing databases, indexing & abstracting databases, and full text
databases. The link is the single most important, characteristic feature of Web
pages. The link allows us to approach an information resource in which any item of
information is, potentially, an instant of a ‘click’ away, but to exploit this potential
requires ingenuity and more flexible systems to be able to design and apply links
more effectively than we do now. A way in which this feature of the Web can be
used immediately to enhance journal papers is to build on established practice by
linking citations to the cited articles.
1.6 Open Access Indexing & Abstracting Databases Although availability varies
greatly by discipline, over a million research articles are freely available on the web.
Some journals and conferences provide free access online, others allow authors to
post articles on the web, and others allow authors to purchase the right to post their
articles on the web. Efficient means of locating articles via web search engines or
specialized search services is required, and a substantial percentage of the
literature needs to be indexed by these search services before it is worthwhile for
many scientists to use them. When print articles and journal issues were simply
discrete entities, libraries and secondary publishers provided some integration
through services such as bibliographic cataloguing, indexing and abstracting. The
prime role played by Abstracting and Indexing databases in pre-internet era, is now
67
diminishing these days because the full-text databases are the most sought after.
However, beyond the most well-known indexing-abstracting databases produced by
government agencies, like Medline, there are other open access indexing/
abstracting databases. Most importantly, the largest commercial and society
publishers of scholarly journals, conference proceedings and books, such as the
American Chemical Society, IoP, APS, Elsevier, Springer, Emerald Press and
many of the smaller publishers offer together open access to tens of millions of
bibliographic records with abstracts for scholarly journal articles and conference
papers. Some of them do so directly, others, through their digital facilitators, like
SAGE, Oxford University Press through HighWire Press, Springer. Publishers
migrate from one digital facilitator to another, and/or let one handle some of their
journals, and another the rest of their journals. Many government agencies and
professional bodies sponsoring and managing many projects at the national level in
several countries to improve access to local research through supporting the
publishing of indigenous scholarly journals, and the creation of indexing/abstracting
databases to increase the visibility of locally and regionally pertinent research
results, and to facilitate open access to the full text archives of the largest scholarly
publishers.
Open Access (OA) initiative emerged as a revolutionary movement that promotes
free access to scholarly publications over the Internet, removes the price and
permission barriers and ensures the widest possible dissemination of research.

Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through

which research outputs are distributed online, free of cost or other access barriers. With
open access strictly defined, barriers to copying or reuse are also reduced or removed
by applying an open license for copyright.

Open access journals are journals whose articles are available and reusable worldwide

free of charge and without restrictions immediately on publication. Most open access
journals do not charge their authors for publishing articles.

Publishing open access offers a number of benefits

● Increased citation and usage: ● Wider collaboration: Open access

Studies have shown that open access publications and data enable
articles are viewed and cited more researchers to carry out collaborative
often than articles behind a paywall. research on a global scale.

● Greater public engagement: Content is ● Faster impact: With

available to those who can't access permissive licences like CC BY, 68
subscription content. researchers are empowered to build on
existing research quickly.
● Increased interdisciplinary
conversation: Open access journals ● Compliance with open access
that cross multiple disciplines help mandates: Open access journals and
researchers connect more easily and books comply with major funding
providing greater visibility of their policies internationally.
research. 
SHERPA/ROMEO online resource to check publisher copyright and self-achieving
policies

Sherpa Romeo is an online resource that aggregates and analyses publisher open

access policies from around the world and provides summaries of publisher
copyright and open access archiving policies on a journal-by-journal basis.

The database used a colour-coding scheme to classify publishers according to their

self-archiving policy. The colour codes were retired in 2020, with the launch of a new
site.

The policy information provided through this service primarily aims to serve the
academic research community. Since the service launched over 15 years ago, publisher
policies and the open access sector have changed a lot. Open access policy can be
complex and varies according to geographical location, the institution, and the various
routes to open access — all of which affects how and where you can publish your
research.

Software tool to identify predatory publications developed by SPPU

Predatory publishing means deceptive Publishing or to write only for the purpose

of publishing.

It is a problematic academic publishing mechanism that involves charging huge

publication fees to writers without properly checking articles for quality and legitimacy
and without providing the other editorial and publishing services that standard and
legitimate journals provide.

These journals are considered predatory journals because scholars are forced into
publishing with them, although some authors may be aware that the journal is of poor
quality or predatory.

A recent analysis of who is publishing in such spurious Journals has indicated that most
authors in predatory journals are from developing countries, especially India, Nigeria,
and some African and Middle East countries. 69
In such a situation, the appointment of this committee by the Hon Vice Chancellor,
Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) is commendable.

Journal finder/journal suggestions tools viz.JANE, Elsevier Journal Finder,

Springer Journal Suggester etc.

Here are useful online resources that provide journal suggestions or recommendation to
researchers.

1.  Elsevier Journal Finder

Elsevier® Journal Finder helps you find journals that could be best suited for publishing
your scientific article. Powered by the Elsevier Fingerprint Engine™, Elsevier Journal
Finder uses smart search technology and field-of-research specific vocabularies to
match your article to Elsevier journals.

2. IEEE Publication Recommender

Search 170+ periodicals and 1500+ conferences. Compare critical points such as
Impact Factor and Submission-To-Publication Time. Get all the key data about IEEE
publications at a glance.
 3. Springer Journal Suggester

Search over 2,500 journals (Springer and BioMed Central) to find the most suitable
journal for your manuscript. Easily compare relevant journals to find the best place for
publication.

 4. Edanz Journal Selector

Edanz is a Hong Kong-based company that provides fee-based services to authors

such as copyediting and letter writing. One of its services is a journal finder, at the
moment this service is currently free on their website. Among other services described
here, this one appears to have the broadest coverage.

5. Journal Article Name Estimator (JANE)

This service originates in the Netherlands. It is limited to journals included in Medline, a

database published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Thus, it’s limited to
biomedical sciences journals. This one offers an alternative search method to entering
your article’s title and abstract — you can enter keywords in a simple search box.

6. Cofactor Journal Selector 70

This service originates in the UK. Established for two years and has over 50 freelance
editors. This one offers an options menu to find journals that match your requirements.

7. Journal Guide

JournalGuide is a free tool created by a group of software developers, former

researchers, and scholarly publishing veterans at Research Square. A growing journal
database across all academic fields that search, filter, sort and compare journals from
more than 46,000 titles.

After all, the best way to become familiar with the top journals in your field is to:

● Read may articles in your area of study and take note of where the best ones are
published.

● Consult with senior colleagues in your department.

Consult with an academic librarian.

Introduction Man’s ability to wonder, including wondering at his ability to wonder, is a
unique feature of the human race. The ability of humans to transfer the new information
and/or new interpretation of a phenomenon to other contemporary human beings and to
those of future generations has been instrumental in progress of human civilizations.
Curiosity and the self-driven efforts to satisfy personal curiosity form the basis of
research. Research involves systematic and creative investigations in any domain of
knowledge, be it about philosophical or materialistic issues, or anything in this Universe
that can be perceived by our senses. Such acts improve the understanding, enable
postulation of operative laws and enhance knowledge. The improved knowledge in turn
facilitates new conclusions and raises new questions. Being a social organism, it is
natural that individuals, who acquired new knowledge/ understanding, share the same
with others. This in turn implies that the society comprises both the owners and
recipients of new information. Research starts with questions for which a researcher
wishes to seek answers. The researcher may be involved alone in this act of seeking
answer, or may involve a group or groups with whom the researcher Subhash Chandra
Lakhotia & Praveen Chaddah 36 collaborates. Since all institutions of higher learning
are also bestowed with the responsibility of training young minds in the appropriate
methods of research, a researcher also has the role of a mentor. Each of these aspects
requires adherence to some basic ethical practices. This chapter considers the ethical
and general issues regarding the choice of the specific questions pertaining to research,
71
principles of collaboration and roles of and relationship between mentors and mentees.
For specific details on various issues, the guidelines provided by the Committee on
Publication Ethics (COPE) may be referred to. Topic of Research Research is about
creating new knowledge. It starts with defining the question for which one seeks an
answer. However, to get a satisfactory and meaningful answer(s), researcher needs to
have the required competence and capability to pursue the question effectively. The
next requirement is the act of carrying out the actual research, which in the domain of
science and may involve the use of theoretical and/or experimental approaches. The
results with due interpretation and contextualization generate new
knowledge/understanding. The final stage is dissemination of the outcome of research
through sharing the new knowledge with others and its validation by other independent
experts. At each of these steps Ethics related issues are involved. These are discussed
below. Ideally, one selects a question for further research because of the curiosity about
some specific aspect where the researcher feels that the available information for a
given phenomena/process/observation does not provide a satisfactory answer or
explanation and/or provide an appropriate or optimal process/method. However, in
reality the choice of specific topic selected for research is determined by a variety of
factors such as the place of work and the research mandate of the institution/group. In
other instances, like in universities and colleges, the researcher may have some more
freedom in selection of the topic of research. Choice between basic or applied research
in such places is left to the aptitude and the capability of the individual investigator.
However, since most of research activity in academic institutions is public-funded, it
may be desirable that some of the basic research also addresses issues of local
relevance. Choice of a topic which cannot be addressed meaningfully in a given
institutional Ethics of Research 37 set up may lead to wasteful expenditure of public
money and may thus be construed to be ‘unethical’. Researchers need to continuously
update themselves in order to, keep their expertise contemporary and use the available
facilities to enable them to move deeper into the research problem of their interest. The
researcher may also initiate new areas with due diligence on understanding of
previously acquired experiences. As the facilities and expertise improve with
experience, research directions tend to evolve proportionately and at times may even
lead to activities in altogether different direction(s). Such changes can be facilitated
through collaborations with other researchers with complimentary expertise (see later).
Failure to ‘evolve’ with time and experience is injustice to one’s profession. The most
important determinant of the topic of research is the background training of the
researcher. The question identified to be addressed must be commensurate with the
experimental/theoretical capabilities of the investigator, and also with the accessible
facilities. A research problem should not normally be selected by an investigator just
because the field is ‘hot’ or more funding is available (Lakhotia, 2009). The researcher
or his/her team should embark upon investigations in such ‘hot’ or better-funded areas
only if they have the required interest and competence, for, doing otherwise is not being
72
honest to the profession. In recent decades, new techniques and technologies have
been appearing at an exponentially faster pace. There is often a tendency to procure
modern and ‘latest’ models of equipment or to create ‘megafacilities’ without a defined
question being addressed to. Many journals and reviewers also place undue importance
on the use of ‘latest’ and ‘high-end’ techniques and equipment, which is also indirectly
or directly promoted by industry. It is unethical to install or create a mega-facility with
tax-payer’s money only to ‘show’, while the actual utilization remains very limited.
Further, the use of such a facility, without a valid reason, but only to ‘impress’ reviewers
and readers, is also equally unethical. Researchers should not ‘invent’ questions to
make use of the available ‘fancy’ facilities (Lakhotia, 2009). Rather, effort should be
directed to create facilities that are relevant to the primary questions that are of interest
to the researcher or use them where available on a collaborative basis. It must be noted
that any instrumental facility not in use on a regular basis, morally constitutes an
Subhash Chandra Lakhotia & Praveen Chaddah 38 unethical practice and it should be
responsibility of the hosting institutions and the funding agencies to carry out rigorous
audit and make use of such audit for future reference. While formulating new research
project proposal for funding support or for a graduate student, the time-frame, facilities
and expertise available for completing the proposed work in the stipulated time-period
need to be kept in mind. Young investigators, who are starting their academic career,
should generally avoid taking up research projects that are near direct extensions of the
work that was carried out by them during their doctoral and/or post-doctoral research.
This would not only avoid a direct and unfavorable competition with the ‘parent’ lab but
would also help the young investigator to establish one’s own identity. Sensu-strcito,
extension of ideas developed with supervisor, without his/her explicit consent also
amounts to an unethical practice. Research project to be taken up by an investigator
should be original and not based on plagiarized idea(s) of others. Without due credits
and permissions, it is grossly unethical to use unpublished ideas learnt as a reviewer or
while listening to fellow workers explaining their research, for one’s own research. The
investigator has to ensure and satisfy for self that the methods and processes utilized
for research are appropriate and correctly followed. In experimental research, ‘good
laboratory practices’ need to be properly followed and documented. Appropriate
clearances from institutional and/or national level ethics committees for the relevant
domain must be obtained beforehand when undertaking research that may impinge
upon various ethical issues (e.g. issues related to humans as subjects and samples
derived from them, protection of privacy of human subjects, animal rights,
environmental or habitat destructions etc. in biomedical sciences or use of hazardous
chemicals, radio-isotopes etc.). Appropriate calibration and standardization of
apparatuses/ instruments and of materials used for research must be carried out so that
the results remain reliable and reproducible by the investigators as well as by others.
Collaborative Research and Sharing of Credits In recent times, research in sciences
increasingly needs inter-disciplinary or trans-disciplinary approach. This requires
73
collaboration of experts in Ethics of Research 39 different but complementary domains
so that the question being asked can be examined from different perspectives. In some
cases collaboration develops at a late stage of investigation when help of another
laboratory or researcher is required to fill in some gap/s for which the original lab is not
so competent (Chaddah, 2018). Developing and maintaining healthy and productive
collaboration requires good ethical practices. Such collaborations within the institution or
outside should be forged on good and a priori well defined understanding to avoid
possible conflicts at a later stage. A healthy and lasting collaboration is built on honesty
and mutual trust for the long-term sustenance. Depending upon the need in specific
cases, collaboration may be a one-time event or may be a longterm partnership. In
either case, the bases of collaboration and creditsharing should be understood and
agreed upon at the initial stages itself as a safeguard against any later stage
misunderstanding or dispute. A collaborative work may also involve one or more Ph.D.
student(s). In such cases, the basis for inclusion of specific aspects of the collaborative
outcome in the doctoral thesis of the student/s should be understood and agreed upon
ab-intio, by collaborating partners. This would ensure error-free data, avoid any
accidental plagiarism and would make the dissemination of the research output
smoother. Collaboration may also be required in some cases when a research proposal
is required to be submitted to make use of a centralized user facility (e.g., synchrotron
radiation sources, neutron sources, particle accelerators, an inter-university Centre, a
centralized or national computational facility or an instrumentation center) where use of
the facility is allotted based on merit of the proposed work. The scientist responsible for
use of the facility may become a collaborator in the specific investigation, even though
the collaborator may not have been involved at the initial stages of the development of
concept and the planning. It would be unethical plagiarism of ideas on part of the facility
manager/provider to make use of the concept and/or design submitted by the original
investigator without his/her knowledge/permission (Chaddah, 2018). Similarly it will be
unethical on the part of user to take advantage of the facilities maintained by the hosts
without assigning due credits. It is always advisable that the credit sharing be decided
ab initio. In a large group, it may be appropriate to mention the contribution/s of each
author. Claiming authorship by Subhash Chandra Lakhotia & Praveen Chaddah 40
virtue of being a group head/ institution head without any intellectual contribution is an
unethical practice (for further discussion about ethical issues in authorship, see below
and Chapter 5). Mentoring Young Faculty Mentoring young investigators (YI) and
guiding Ph.D. research scholars is an important responsibility of senior scientists. Since
ethical values are mostly transmitted and imbibed in an involuntary manner, the mentors
have a great role in ensuring perpetuation of good ethical values and conduct. They
need to lead by example and guide YI in developing and equipping their labs. A YI who
joins a new place should be welcomed and facilitated to feel ‘at home’ by those already
established there. The YI needs advice about seeking financial support from appropriate
agencies. While mentors need not hand-hold the YI, they may act as catalysts to help
74
them find their own moorings. Mentors must not ‘exploit’ YI for their own glorification. If
someone who had studied and/or worked for Ph.D. in a given department/institution and
later joins the same place, he/she must be treated as a peer for an all-round healthy
growth, rather than a student or subordinate, which may stunt the YI. From the YIs point
of view, it will always be desirable to work in a place, other than where she/he obtained
the doctorate degree. This is good for/her long term academic growth and will avoid
complications arising from the conflict of interest. Research Supervisor-Student
Relationship The relationship between a supervisor and Ph.D. scholar is markedly
different from a typical teacher-student relationship. It requires a continuous dialogue so
that the actual research work gets better synergized and the research student gets
really involved in planning and execution of the plan, rather than working only as a
technical help to the supervisor. Since the doctoral degree is generally the last step in
formal learning, a good foundation in ethical practices is essential to prepare quality
researchers who can be effective leaders in times to come. Some general practices that
should be followed by the supervisor and students are noted below. Ethics of Research
41 The research objectives and research plan that a new Ph.D. scholar wishes to
undertake for his/her doctoral thesis should be adequately discussed by supervisor and
student. For an informed and meaningful discussion leading to student’s desire to work
on the given topic, the student also needs to have read the relevant literature. A
research student should choose the doctoral supervisor keeping in view his/her
personal interests and competence in a given field and the research interests and
competence of the proposed supervisor. A good matching of ‘wavelengths’ of the
supervisor and student is essential for developing a healthy and lasting relationship.
The research plan should be discussed by both the student and the supervisor so that
the research student understands why a given strategy is being followed as also the
modus operandi on data collection, recording of observations and interpretations.
Research supervisor should guide and steer progress of the student’s research efforts
so that the work to be embodied in the doctoral thesis can generally be completed
within the stipulated time-frame available to the Ph.D. scholars. An overly ambitious
plan with a large proportion of uncertainty should generally be avoided. However, if an
enthusiastic student is willing to take the challenge, he/she may work on such questions
with an explicit understanding that negative results can also be useful science. It must
be realized at all level that more than anything else; a doctoral thesis is a training for a
student to learn to carry out a project independently. This focus should never be lost.
Supervisor needs to ensure adequate training of research students on safe, ethical and
appropriate usages of the various research methods and equipment. While they learn
the technique, they should also be trained to understand their operative principles.
Students should be encouraged to read widely, to participate in seminars and
discussion meetings and to periodically present their own data and/or data from other
publications to improve their ability to effectively communicate. They should be
encouraged to share their ideas and it is the responsibility of the senior to create an
75
ambience of trust. Research students need to be encouraged and provided with
opportunities to improve their writing skills (Moore, 2018). They should be encouraged
to prepare the first drafts of manuscripts for publication or for the doctoral thesis. Any
corrections/modifications made by the supervisor Subhash Chandra Lakhotia &
Praveen Chaddah 42 should be explained to improve the learning curve of the young
student. Supervisor must neither dogmatically impose his/her views on the research
student nor expect the results to fit the supervisor’s favored hypothesis. Student should
be encouraged to have freedom to respectfully disagree with the supervisor if in the
student’s understanding; the supervisor’s views appear to require modifications. A
healthy discussion leads to better planning and, therefore, better outcome. Generally at
this level, both students and the supervisor learn a new subject together and both
should be matured enough to learn from each other through discussions. Supervisors
should also prepare and mentor the Ph.D. scholars as future independent researchers.
This requires not only being good in asking relevant and original questions and
designing appropriate research plans, but also understanding the process of research
publications, research funding and general administration in laboratory so that younger
colleagues learn to steer research from the very beginning. The doctoral thesis
prepared by a Ph.D. scholar should include only the work actually carried out by
him/her. When additional but closely related work, being simultaneously carried out in
the lab or in other collaborator’s lab, is required to be incorporated in the doctoral thesis
for comprehensiveness, the same should be duly identified and acknowledged. The
doctoral thesis is a candidate’s lasting record of work carried out by him/her and for
which the doctoral degree is conferred. Therefore, the work must be executed ethically
and the same must be presented in the thesis following all the general ethical principles
like refraining from plagiarism and manipulations of data and/or images. The supervisor
should ensure, using available text-similarity check software, that the document is free
of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. Its literary presentation should be good and due
credits for earlier works should be provided as appropriate. Getting the doctoral thesis
written by someone else on payment of a fee or for other considerations is grossly
unethical as well as patently illegal. Likewise, it is totally illegal and unethical for the
mentor to demand and receive unwarranted material gratifications from the Ph.D.
scholar for supervision and ‘getting the doctoral thesis ready’. Such practices should be
reported and firmly dealt with. Ethics of Research 43 Authorship in research
publications emanating from the work embodied in a doctoral thesis follows the general
ethical principles discussed above and in Chapter 5. The supervisor may decide to
include or not include his/her name as an author depending upon how much was his/her
actual contribution to the research work and the resulting manuscript. If for some
reason(s), the supervisor does not wish to be named as an author, the Ph.D. scholar
may be formally permitted to publish the work without the supervisor’s name. However,
it would be unethical for the supervisor to publish the work without the student’s name.
Any disagreement/dispute between supervisor and the Ph.D. scholar should be
76
addressed timely so that it does not get blown out of proportion. Adequate institutional
mechanisms, like the thesis advisory committee consisting of 3-4 faculties for each
student, must exist to address all such issues. Concluding Remarks Research is the
most important and fundamental activities of human society and has been singularly
responsible for all the technological and economical advances that we enjoy. When
carried out ethically it provides lasting pleasure and satisfaction to researcher also. Any
short-cuts to achieve some pleasure/recognition in short-term may harm not only the
researcher in more than one way in the long run, but also often have more lasting and
wider implications in mis-directing efforts of other researchers with unwanted
consequences. Therefore, effective training of enthusiastic young researchers in good
ethical practices is as important as training them effectively in their chosen disciplines.
References 1. Chaddah Praveen (2018) Ethics in Competitive Research: Do not get
scooped; do not get plagiarized, ISBN: 978-9387480865
Ethics of Publication Subhash Chandra Lakhotia Cytogenetics Laboratory, Department
of Zoology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi–221005 Srinivasan Chandrasekaran
Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru–560012
‘Connaître, découvrir, communiquer—telle est, au fond, notre honorable destine’ (To get
to know, to discover, to publish—this is the destiny of a scientist”_ – François Arago
“Brevity in writing is the best insurance for its perusal “ – Rudolf Virchow Introduction In
contemporary practices, research is more formalized and has become an integral part
of both the academic institutions imparting higher education and institutions created for
research. Besides the self-satisfying aspect of the act of research and dissemination of
the new information to others under the ownership of researcher(s), the research output
is also a major factor for assessing the competence and achievements of an individual,
groups of individuals or an institution (Lakhotia, 2014b; Chaddah and Lakhotia, 2018).
Since the most common contemporary form of dissemination of research occurs via
books/articles that are published (hard copy and/or online soft copy), the owner of the
new knowledge generated through research becomes an author as well. Research that
leads to invention of new methods, processes, machinery, product, is disseminated
after being patented to safeguard the commercial interests of the intellectual property of
the inventor. Owner(s) of the patent(s) is (are) also author(s) (Chaddah 2018). Scholarly
work is published in the form of a book (single/multiple authored, or edited with multiple
authors), articles in research journals, Subhash Chandra Lakhotia & Srinivasan
77
Chandrasekaran 66 conference proceedings or in preprint archives. Authors, journal
editors, peer reviewers, and publishers together are involved in the act of publication of
research output. Publication of an article in any of the above forms is an essential
building block in the development of a comprehensible and reliable network of
knowledge. Research and the publication process are built on trust based upon the
basic belief that information and data are collected and reported honestly without
falsification and misrepresentation, so that the resulting literature can be used as a
reliable basis for further work. Since there are huge career pressures to publish
research outputs, unethical behavior on parts of authors, journal editors, peer reviewers
and or publishers is unfortunately becoming more noticeable in recent times (Mayer and
Steneck, 2012; National Academy of Sciences 2009; Tharyan, 2012). It should be noted
that if a published work is subsequently found to be unreliable or dishonest, not only
personal and institutional reputations are destroyed for good, research efforts building
upon such published work also suffers significantly in a cascading manner. Therefore, it
is important for all parties to follow the highest standards of ethical behavior. The
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has articulated very detailed notes on ethical
practices expected of authors, editors, reviewers and publishers
(https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines; also see ICMJE Recommendations
2017). Some general guidelines on ethical practices that should be followed in the
course of a publication are discussed here. Authors and Contributors Authorship
confers credit for the work that has been carried out to result into a publication. This has
many important academic, social, and financial implications. It is implicit that authorship
entails responsibility and accountability for the published work. As advised by COPE, an
author should have contributed to the manuscript in at least one or more of the following
ways: O Significant contributions to conception and/or design of the work O Acquisition,
analysis, and/or interpretation of data generated/ collected during the work O
Drafting/editing the work or revising it critically and thus contributing important
intellectual content. Ethics of Publication 67 When a book, research article or other
category of research output is authored by one person, it is implicit that all the research
work related to that publication was essentially carried out by that person, and he/ she
bears all responsibilities. In multi-authored publications, however, it becomes necessary
to clearly identify contributions of each author so that their responsibilities can be
defined. In such publications, all the authors, however, have following collective
responsibilities. O To be accountable for all aspects of the work to ensure that questions
related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated
and resolved; O Final approval of the version to be published; O Each author should be
able to identify which co-authors are responsible for which specific part of the work. As
most research work in recent times involves actual intellectual participation of more than
one person in the given investigation, order of the authorship in multi-authored
publications becomes important because often it is taken to reflect relative contributions.
Such publications typically identify one or more authors as first authors, one or more as
78
Corresponding authors and others, if any, as co-authors, However, in some groups, it is
customary to list authors alphabetically, sometimes with a note that all authors made
equal contributions to the study and the publication. The order of authorship should be a
joint decision of the coauthors. All authors should be prepared to explain the order in
which the authors are listed. Generally, these decisions should be agreed upon before
starting to write the article. It is desirable to inform the Editor/Journal about the relative
contribution of each author to the study at an early stage. All authors in a multi-author
manuscript should agree to be listed and should approve the submitted and accepted
versions of the publication. Any change to the author list should be approved by all
authors including any who have been removed from the list. The corresponding author
of a manuscript is the individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with
the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and
also generally ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as
providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, documentation Subhash
Chandra Lakhotia & Srinivasan Chandrasekaran 68 related to clinical trials, collecting
information on conflict of interest issues etc., are adequately complied with. The
corresponding author may, however, delegate some of these responsibilities to one or
more co-authors through mutual consent. The corresponding author must be available
throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a
timely manner. Additionally, he/she should be available after publication to respond to
criticisms of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or
additional information, should questions about the paper arise after publication. In some
cases, there may be a need to share the credit of being the ‘corresponding author’ with
one or more co-authors. In such cases, all those designated as ‘corresponding’ authors
are expected to share the above noted responsibilities equally, unless specified
otherwise. Name(s) of the corresponding author(s) may come anywhere, in the order as
collectively agreed upon. Those identified as the first author(s) would have carried out
bulk of the primary work that forms the basis of the article to be published. Persons,
other than those listed as authors may have contributed to the study in some ways.
However, they do not have the right to be co-authors in the study because they do not
meet the above noted criteria. All such persons should be duly acknowledged for their
contribution to the study at an appropriate place in the article. Examples of activities that
do not qualify a contributor for authorship are procurement of funding, general
supervision of a research group or general administrative support. Those who provided
only assistance in writing, technical editing, language editing, and/or proofreading do
not qualify to be co-authors. Undesirable Authorships Some other types of authorship
like guest authorship, honorary or gift authorship, and ghost authorship described below
are grossly unethical, and therefore, unacceptable. O Guest Authorship: It is defined as
authorship based exclusively on the expectation on part of the other authors that
inclusion of a particular name as co-author may improve the chances of the work getting
accepted for publication or for other personal gains. It is unethical to include such
79
“guest” author name since he/she made no useful contribution to the study. Ethics of
Publication 69 O Honorary or Gift Authorship: It is defined as authorship based solely on
a feeble affiliation with a study, e.g., head of the department/institution, whose name is
included solely because of his / her administrative position. Another example of ‘gift’
authorship is the inclusion of names of colleagues on the understanding that she/he will
do the same, with the sole objective of swelling each other’s publication lists. These
kinds of ‘gift’ authorship are highly unethical. Having multiple authors on research
publications that emanate essentially from the work embodied wholly in doctoral thesis
of one student amounts to unethical ‘gift authorship’, unless the actual work carried out
by the doctoral degree candidate and by others who share authorship in the related
publications is clearly identified in the thesis. O Ghost Authorship: In this case, although
the persons participated in the research, data analysis, and/or writing of a manuscript,
they are not listed as authors in the manuscript or while filing a patent application. It is
unethical to exclude names of persons who have, by general principles, to be included
as authors. A different class of ghostauthorship, which may not be unethical, is where a
person contributed to writing of a paper as a professional writer (on payment or
honorary basis), but will not be a co-author in the final manuscript. Such help should,
however, be acknowledged in the acknowledgement section, if required. O Anonymous
Authorship: Since authorship has to be transparent and requires accountability, it is
improper to use pseudonyms or to publish scientific articles anonymously. O Surrogate
Authorship: There are instances where manuscripts are written or got written by
someone else without any original data of one’s own. Such papers are often published
in ‘predatory’/bogus journals. These acts are unethical and illegal. In order to ensure
appropriate credits to all those actually involved in a given research output, many
research journals ask and publish information about the specific contributions of each
listed author. A more widespread use of such practice would facilitate avoidance of
unethical practice of including or excluding some persons as authors and at the same
time let the readers know about specific contributions of individual authors. Subhash
Chandra Lakhotia & Srinivasan Chandrasekaran 70 General Responsibilities of Authors
All authors have certain basic responsibilities during the course of actual research and
during preparation of a manuscript based on the research output. O Originality: The
authors should provide a statement corroborating to the originality of the study they
have submitted for consideration. It is not unusual for some journals to request the
authors to provide copies of reports on other studies (unpublished articles, manuscripts,
and abstracts) related to the study under consideration. O Good Record-keeping and
Maintenance of Data: It is mandatory that researchers maintain daily log-books to
record every day’s work and results. Errors due to carelessness and negligence should
be avoided. The results, with any substantiating image or data outputs, must be
maintained for a reasonable period of time even after the data have been published so
that any subsequent queries/doubts etc can be satisfactorily answered. O Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is the adoption of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words
80
without giving suitable credit, including those obtained through confidential review of
others’ research proposals and manuscripts. It should be understood that something
being freely available on the internet does not mean that it can be copied as such. The
authors must be aware of the issue of data/idea plagiarism and its consequences.
Plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) in a manuscript is unethical and illegal. If any
information is derived from the web e.g. Wikipedia, where the details on authorship may
not be available, due reference to the link should be provided. For the use of other’s
data, due permission from the copyright holder needs to be taken in writing and this
should be preserved. O Honesty, Objectivity and Integrity: Authors must follow honesty,
objectivity and integrity and avoid bias in experimental design, data analysis, data
interpretation, and reporting data, results, methods and procedures in all scientific
communications. Fabrication, falsification, or misrepresentation of data is plainly
unethical and should not be resorted to. Trimming outliers from a data set without
providing Ethics of Publication 71 reasons or using an unsuitable statistical technique to
enhance the significance of results is unethical and not permitted. O Conflict of Interest:
Authors should disclose any conflict of interest (personal or financial) that may affect
research. Researchers should also avoid bias in peer review, personnel decisions, grant
writing, grant approval and other aspects of research O Openness: The authors should
be willing to share data, results, ideas, tools, and resources, especially after publication.
O Respect for Intellectual Property: It is the authors’ responsibility to honor patents,
copyrights, and other forms of intellectual property. When privy to someone else’s
unpublished data/research plans (as a reviewer, editor or a visitor to a lab or member of
audience at a lecture, etc.), one should not use the privileged or confidential information
and/or ideas for one’s own work without prior permission since this is ‘idea plagiarism’
(Chaddah 2018). It is unethical to use unpublished data, methods, or results of others
without permission. Due credit should be given wherever required. Literature review
should acknowledge relevant prior contributions of other people in the field. O Copyright
Agreement: While publishing an article, authors are usually required to assign copyright
to the journal publishing their study. Assignment of copyright is a legal document in
which the authors assign certain rights to the publisher. Generally, these agreements
allow the authors to retain certain rights to the material. Authors must carefully read and
understand the copyright agreement document. The content for which a copyright
agreement is being signed must be original and not under copyright elsewhere. Authors
should ensure that the study under consideration is original and does not contain
plagiarized content since the original source may already be ‘owned’ by someone.
‘Creative Commons’ organization has defined different categories of copyright licenses
which permit reuse of published material under defined conditions; these are followed/
adopted by different publishers/journals. For details, see https://
creativecommons.org/share-your-work/. O Disclosures: It is mandatory for authors to be
honest and objective when complying with journal submission requirements. This entails
disclosures about the originality of the content, each author’s actual Subhash Chandra
81
Lakhotia & Srinivasan Chandrasekaran 72 contribution to the study. Financial support
and conflict of interest should be disclosed correctly. O Consent for Reuse of Published
Material: Authors sometime may need to reuse data and/or images previously published
by themselves or others. Depending upon the copyright conditions of such material,
they may need to seek formal consent of the publisher and/or original authors; in those
cases which are not held under copyright, reuse may not need any formal permission.
However, in all cases of reuse of text, data and/or figure, attribution to the original
source must be made. O Confidentiality: All communication between authors and the
journal is to be treated as confidential. The identified corresponding author is the
specific contact for all communication about the manuscript throughout peer review and
the publication process. Authors should observe journal policy on communication with
external peer reviewers. O Responsible Publication: The primary objective of a research
publication is to share the new knowledge with others to advance scholarship, rather
than to just advance an individual’s career. Therefore, anything that is published implies
responsibility on part of author/s. O Public Announcement of New Results: A work which
is submitted and accepted for publication should generally be not announced in general
public till its formal publication. The norms defined by the given journal for the purpose
should be followed. Ethical Conventions of Publications O Multiple Submissions: It is
unethical and illegal to submit the report of a study to more than one journal at the same
time. If authors want to submit their article to another journal while it is under
consideration elsewhere, they must formally notify and request the editor of the journal
in which it is under consideration, about withdrawal of their manuscript from further
consideration by that journal. All coauthors must agree to the request for withdrawal and
this agreement must be made clear to the editor of the journal with which the study is
under consideration. Only after the receipt of notification from the journal acknowledging
the withdrawal, the authors may submit their manuscript elsewhere. Authors should
inform the editor if they wish Ethics of Publication 73 to withdraw their work from review,
or if they choose not to respond to reviewer comments after receiving editors’
communication asking for revisions. O Multiple Publications: It is unethical, and
amounts to plagiarism, to duplicate or reorganize/reformulate existing publications into
new publications by willfully disguising the sources of work. Slicing of a given study to
produce several publications is also undesirable as the significance of the study may be
lost because of the piecemeal information in each. O Suggesting Potential Reviewers:
Some journals ask author/s to suggest names of potential reviewer and, in some cases,
also of those whom the author/s may not like to be reviewer because of potential conflict
of interest. It is unethical to suggest names of potential reviewers on the basis of
friendship/acquaintance which may enhance the likelihood of acceptance. It is
absolutely unethical to suggest fictitious names as reviewers with self-directed
addresses so that the authors become reviewer as well. O Error Correction in a
Published Paper: Author/s may become aware, after a work has been published, of
some errors in data or their interpretation due to an oversight. If it was a case of
82
inadvertent error in data collection or analysis or interpretation of data, all authors, if it
was a multi-authored publication, should be informed, and the error and its nature and
implications on the final inferences should be reported to the editor of the journal.
Authors may publish, in consultation with the editor, either an erratum or a new paper to
rectify the previous error in the same journal. O Withdrawal or Retraction of a Published
Paper: Author or editor or a reader may notice/suspect an act of deliberate mis-conduct,
such as falsification of data or plagiarism etc. on part of authors in a published paper.
This needs to be carefully investigated, especially by the journal, to establish the
alleged mis-conduct. If established, all authors need to be informed about the same and
either the author/s may decide to retract/withdraw the paper or the journal may publish,
with due reasons, a retraction notice for the earlier published paper. Such acts of mis-
conduct, when established, are to be dealt by the responsible institution/s following the
regulations/laws in force at the time. Subhash Chandra Lakhotia & Srinivasan
Chandrasekaran 74 Where to Publish? Once the authors are ready to prepare their
research output in the form of a manuscript, they have to consider and decide about
how and where to disseminate the new knowledge. In earlier times, this was usually
done first at a meeting of academic bodies (Academies/Societies) where the
participating experts would discuss the new findings. These could then be published as
part of the ‘Proceedings’ of the meeting or could be published as independent
monograph or book. Publication of conference proceedings continues as a forum for
dissemination. However, the published proceedings of conferences organized by
individuals or groups rather than by established Academies/Societies do not usually get
a wider attention and often do not also follow serious peer-review process. Therefore,
often such stand-alone publications are not given much importance. The most common
mode of dissemination of research output is in form of publication in research journals,
where the manuscript submitted by authors is subject to peer-review by one or more
subject experts or peers before being published. In recent times, the practice of sharing
the new knowledge, prior to formal publication in research journals, is to make the
output available in the form of ‘pre-print’ through individual/institutional web-site and/or
through organized ‘pre-print’ archives. Some issues that authors should consider while
deciding on the mode of dissemination of knowledge are noted below. Pre-print
Archives ‘Pre-print’ Archives publish the manuscript as submitted by author/s, subject to
some general conditions but without any prior peer-review. These provide a free eternal
open-access to the original research output. Preprint archives do not generally publish
review articles. ‘Pre-print’ Archives facilitate ‘post-publication’ peer-review since any
reader has the possibility of posting comments on the published material. This can help
author/s in improving their work and in preparation of the final manuscript for publication
in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. Pre-print archives help authors claim priority and
also help in curbing ‘idea-plagiarism’ that can sometimes happen in the process of
conventional publication in peerreviewed journals. Pre-print archives are becoming
common as they Ethics of Publication 75 provide free open-access to new findings
83
without any hindrance. Research output available on pre-print archives is also being
increasingly accepted for assessment of individuals/institutions. Peer-Reviewed
Scholarly Journals Scholarly journals may publish only review article or only original
research articles or a mix of the two. A given journal may be broadly multidisciplinary or
may limit its scope to specific wider or specialized subject domain. Journal may be
published only in hard-copy or only as online format or in both forms (hybrid journals). A
given journal may not levy any charge on authors or may varyingly charge on various
counts (charges for manuscript processing, number of pages of the published article,
color image reproduction, open access etc.). The number of scholarly journals being
published is continuously increasing since publication in peer-reviewed journals is the
most common mode of research output dissemination and its assessment. While
selecting the journal where author/s may want to submit their new manuscript, following
points should be considered. O The journal has proper credibility and reputation.
Journal of longer standing in the field should be preferred. However, the so-called
‘impact factor’ should not become the major determinant in the choice of a journal. O
Journal is published regularly and punctually, and should have welldefined peer-review
and editorial policies. O The journal is likely to be read by fellow workers who would be
knowledgeable about and interested in the given subject domain. O The journal should
have a policy of publication of the category of article (review/original research article/
letter to editor, commentary/ opinion etc.) that is desired to be published. O Journals,
whose previous history of publications indicates an unduly longtime taken to publish
submitted articles, can be avoided. O Author/s should look at the articles published in
the given journal in recent times to assess their quality and scope. O While preparing a
manuscript for submission to a journal, author/s must carefully understand and follow
the instructions to authors provided by the journal about general layout and length of the
Subhash Chandra Lakhotia & Srinivasan Chandrasekaran 76 manuscript, style of citing
references in text and in the list of reference, quality and sizes of illustrations etc. to
avoid outright rejection or delays. O Generally, negative results are not published by
authors as well as most journals. However, in some cases, the negative results can also
be significant and may help modify an existing model or may help others in planning
their own studies. Some journals in recent times have initiated publication of negative
results and these may be selected for such instances. Alternatively, authors may place
such results as preprints. O Publication in journals published by established
academies/learned societies/universities etc. are to be preferred over those published
by commercial organization (Lakhotia, 2014c). They are expected to follow the best
practices and have no commercial element in their publication. O Payment of open
access charges should generally be avoided since the copy-right laws do not restrict
author/s in sharing their published material with peers in the form of hard- or soft-copy
(e.g. as pdf files) anywhere in the world (Lakhotia, 2017). O Several institutions
differentiate between journals published within and outside their country. Such
distinction is unethical (Lakhotia, 2013a). Author/s and regulatory agencies should not
84
follow it. It is the quality and the content of paper that should be used for evaluation and
not the impact factor of a journal where it is published (Lakhotia, 2014a; Chaddah and
Lakhotia, 2018). O Authors must avoid ‘Predatory’ or bogus journals (Lakhotia, 2015),
which charge a fee to rapidly publish ‘anything’ without peer-review. Due care should be
taken while submitting a manuscript to a journal which levies publication or other
charges to ensure that the journal is not a predatory/bogus. Publication in such bogus
journals is unethical and often not recognized. While submitting to a recently started
new journal, its authenticity and quality should be carefully ascertained to ensure that
the journal is not of ‘predatory’ or bogus category (Patwardhan et al., 2018). Ethics of
Publication 77 Responsibilities of the Editors Most journals appoint a chief-editor and
several sub- or section-editors and members of editorial board. Generally, the chief-
editor, being the point of reference for most correspondence relating to a submitted
manuscript, has the major share of responsibilities in all matters relating to processing
of submitted manuscripts till their rejection/publication as well as to deal with any post-
publication/rejection activities. In majority cases, the editorial positions in journals are
honorary and, therefore, the editorial job is done more for the love of labor and prestige
associated with it. Editors (all categories) and their decisions play important roles in
ensuring the quality of published material and thus the overall prestige of the journal.
Their responsibilities include getting timely and informed peerreviews on the
submission, check of linguistic properties of the text, quality and adequacy of data and
any illustration material in the manuscript, appropriate formatting of the text for
publication, getting proofs corrected in time and finally to publish with good quality in
scheduled time. The following general ethical aspects need to be followed by editors
(Galipeau et al., 2016). O Editor of a journal must be academically competent in the
given domain of the journal and must have a liking for editorial activities to be able to
discharge the responsibilities with effectiveness and authority. O Prior to accepting the
appointment as chief-editor or editor of a journal, the person should find out not only the
nature of responsibilities, but also the quality-policies of the journal and its publishers. O
All editors must agree to devote the required time for discharging their editorial duties so
that the editorial work does not get delayed/ postponed. O An active researcher may
perform better as an editor since he/she is expected to understand the nature of
research and expectations of authors. O All submissions should be submitted by the
editor to check for plagiarism, quality of illustration materials. O Most journals receive
many more manuscripts than can be published. In many cases, editors can outright
reject/return a submission because of obvious poor-quality or its being outside the
scope of the journal. Subhash Chandra Lakhotia & Srinivasan Chandrasekaran 78
Policies for such rejections should be well-defined and available to potential authors. O
Editor should promptly select peer-reviewers with due care about their expertise and
experience in the field. O Due confidentiality of the review process, where single- or
doubleblind review system is adopted, has to be maintained. Even when the reviewer
names and comments are subsequently made public, due confidentiality needs to be
85
maintained at early stages of the single- or double-blind review system. O Many
journals ask authors to suggest potential reviewers while some others also ask names
of those whom they may not like to be reviewer for possible conflict of interest. In either
case, editor must apply his/ her own knowledge, experience and judgment to agree or
disagree with authors or act otherwise. If the reviewer name/s suggested by author/s
turn out to be fictitious, editor must decline the submission besides also reporting the
ethical mis-conduct to the institution to which the author belongs. O Editors need to
ensure timely receipt of comments on the manuscript from reviewers. Most online
submission software used by different journals provide for automatic reminders to
reviewers. Undue delays can adversely affect author and also to the prestige of the
journal. O Editor should also personally evaluate the reviewers’ reports and authors’
responses to take an informed judgment rather than merely acting as postman between
the two parties. O If an editor happens to be an author in a submission to the same
journal, which follows blind or double-blind review process, the manuscript should be
processed by someone else in the editorial team in a manner which precludes the
editor-cum-author in this case to have any access to the review process. O Editor has to
ensure appropriate copy-editing of the manuscript to take care of linguistic issues and
formatting of references, figures, tables etc. and to get timely proof corrections and
subsequent publication. O Editor’s responsibilities continue post-publication as well,
especially when questions of priority, plagiarism, unethical manipulation of data etc
arise. In such cases, proactive and informed action and decision need to be taken.
Ethics of Publication 79 O The published articles should carry information about the
dates of original and revised submission, if applicable, and date of acceptance. All
efforts should also be made to publish online version as ‘ahead of print’ soon after the
manuscript is accepted. Responsibilities of Reviewer Reviewers play a major role in
publication of a manuscript in a journal. In most cases, the act of reviewing of scholarly
publications is an honorary work rather than a paid service. The quality of peer-
reviewing shapes the prestige of a journal in the discipline since they act as watch-dogs
for ethical conduct of research and correct presentation of data and the claims made
thereon. The different models of pre-publication peer-review, which are currently in
practice, vary in several features as noted below: O Timing: Pre-publication in case of
all peer-reviewed journals while for Pre-Prints it is Post-publication. O Identifiability: in
pre-publication double blind peer-review, neither the authors nor reviewers know each
other‘s identity; in single blind mode the reviewers know author identity but authors do
not know who the reviewers are. In pre-publication open review, each knows identity
and reviewers’ identity may also be made known to readers when the article is
published. Reviewers’ comments and author replies may also be published in some
cases with or without divulging reviewer identity. In the post-publication review of
published pre-prints, identity of peers who make a comment is known. O Mediation: In
most cases of double- or single-blind review, editors mediate between reviewers and
authors. In some cases, reviewers can interact openly with each other, but not with
86
authors. In the fully open review system, reviewers, author/s and editors openly interact
with one another. To be fair to editors and authors, peer-reviewers should follow the
general ethical practices (Moore, 2012; Lakhotia, 2013b). O A reviewer should accept
the given responsibility only if adequately competent and knowledgeable in the field and
should follow the timeline provided by the journal for submitting comments. One should
Subhash Chandra Lakhotia & Srinivasan Chandrasekaran 80 be willing to accept the
responsibility of peer-reviewing as part of professional requirements. If for some reason
one is not able to accept the reviewer responsibility, the editor must be promptly
informed. O Any possibility of a conflict of interest should be immediately reported to the
editor. O Reviewers should remain conscious that as active researchers, they
themselves are or may have been authors and thus should provide adequate ‘space’ to
authors to express their interpretation of the data, especially if that is not in full
agreement with the current views (Lakhotia, 2013b). It is an established fact that only
those publications that show inadequacy of the existing models/theories etc. and, which
come out with newer ideas, often make a real advance in the understanding. O
Reviewers should check for originality in the question/s addressed and some novelty in
findings that permit some advance in understanding using valid
methods/materials/experimental designs etc. O Reviewers should also examine any
possible unethical practices that may have been used by authors and inform the
editor/journal about the same. O Reviewers should also be conscious of the fact that the
authors who decided to undertake the given study did so with certain context and
proceeded in the way they did because of their own reasons and that they wrote the
manuscript in the way they did. O Reviewer should not try to impose their own preferred
hypothesis / theory or experimental designs etc. Review should be constructive in
critique of the work and the manuscript so that even if it is rejected, authors can make
use of the reviewer’s comments and suggestions in improving the future research
output. O Information in the article available to the reviewer as part of prepublication
review is confidential and privileged, and, therefore, reviewer should not use such
information for one’s own or someone else’s advantage. Involving someone else (e.g., a
junior colleague) in the review process should not be practiced without permission of the
journal. If involved, their identity should be made known to the editor for record and for
giving due credit for the effort. Ethics of Publication 81 O Editor expects an honest and
unbiased assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the article under review.
Reviewers are usually required to provide confidential comments to the editor and more
detailed comments to be read by the authors. Most journals also require a clear
recommendation to accept/revise/reject. Such recommendation should be supported by
the comments to editor and author. O Reviewers should be willing to re-review a revised
version, if so requested. They should generally refrain from raising new issues, unless
arising from the revised content, for the sake of rejection. O If an editor has to also
review the submitted manuscript, it should be done transparently, rather than as an
anonymous reviewer. O Confidentiality of the review process in single- or double-blind
87
system has to be maintained following the journal’s policy and this responsibility
continues even after publication/rejection of the manuscript that was reviewed.
Responsibilities of Publishers All research output needs a publisher to widely
disseminate the research output in a hard-copy and/or online formats. Publishers who
disseminate research output in the form of journals, monographs, books (authored or
edited) etc., are established scholarly societies/academies or academic institutions or
commercial publishers. Occasionally, individuals or academic institutions may also
publish proceedings of a conference as a stand-alone volume. Recent years have
witnessed an increasing involvement of commercial publishers in dissemination of
scholarly works, which unfortunately, also has brought in some unethical practices
(Lakhotia, 2017). Some general ethical principles that should be followed by publishers
of scholarly articles are noted below. O Publication of research output is a societal
responsibility and, therefore, should not be taken as a purely commercial activity
(Lakhotia, 2014c). O The announced schedule and frequency of publication is to be
maintained. O Publishers should not take recourse to artificially enhance the citation/
impact factor of journals. Subhash Chandra Lakhotia & Srinivasan Chandrasekaran 82
O Publishers must not interfere in academic freedom of editors and editorial board in
processing of the manuscripts submitted for publication. O Publisher must provide
adequate infrastructure support to editors in discharge of their duty and responsibilities.
O Details of editorial, review, ethical and publication policies of the journal must be
transparent and available for anyone to see. Author guidelines and information about
any charges payable by author/s should be clearly stated. O Any charge payable by
authors should be payable only after acceptance of the manuscript, unless a journal
levies submission charge. O Where ever possible, author charges may be relaxed or
waived off, if the authors are not able to pay because of limited resources. In any case,
the peer-review and acceptance of a manuscript should be dependent upon academic
merits rather than the payable charges. O Publishing of ‘predatory’ or bogus journals,
which would rapidly publish ‘anything’ on payment of a fee but without sensible
peerreview is absolutely unethical (Lakhotia, 2015; Patwardhan et al. 2018). Ethics of
Retraction Publishers, editors and reviewers of all scholarly publications have to be
vigilant to avoid any possible unethical mis-conduct on their part or on part of authors.
Yet, there would be cases when instances of diverse categories un-ethical practices in
published work are noticed after publication by reader, author, reviewer or editor. Any
such situation must be immediately brought to the notice of Editor/Publisher who then
has to initiate proper enquiry, which would also involve seeking clarifications from the
author/s. The course of action to be followed should be as suggested by the COPE
guidelines, which the scholarly journals and publishers are required/expected to adhere
to. Depending upon the seriousness of the unethical mis-conduct, authors may publish
an ‘apology’ note, or editors may publish ‘expression of concern’ or retract the paper. In
more serious cases, the editor is expected to inform the authors and the concerned host
institution about the mis-conduct. Ethics of Publication 83 Besides the intentional or un-
88
intentional unethical practices, cases of errors in judgment/interpretation of data may
also be noticed by authors/ readers. Such cases need to be dealt with differently by
author/s, editor and the journal. They may agree to publish an erratum or even a new
paper to clarify the earlier error/mis-judgment. Concluding Remarks Professional
involvement in research is primarily an outcome of our innate curiosity and thus,
primarily has a self-satisfying goal. However, when properly disseminated, research
also adds to the collective increase in knowledge and understanding of the human
society and leads to technological innovations and advances which have more profound
consequences. Assessment of research output of an individual or institution also has
significant consequences for the professional advancement. Following appropriate
ethical guidelines at every step of research and its dissemination obviously adds to the
pleasure of researchers as well as the target audience. References