Name of the course: Research Methodology & Intellectual Property

Rights
Course Code: 21RMI56
Name of the Faculty: Prof K. C. Hanchinal Semester: V

Module-1
Introduction: Meaning of Research, Objectives of Engineering Research, and Motivation
in Engineering Research, Types of Engineering Research, Finding and Solving a
Worthwhile Problem.
Ethics in Engineering Research, Ethics in Engineering Research Practice, Types of
Research Misconduct, Ethical Issues Related to Authorship

Introduction:

What Is Research?

 Research is a process of creating, or formulating knowledge that does not yet

exist.
 Research in common parlance refers to a search for knowledge.
 It is a scientific and systematic search for information on a particular topic or
issue.
 Research is an art of scientific investigation.
 Research is a careful investigation or inquiry specially through search for new
facts in any branch of knowledge.
 Some people consider research as a movement from the known to the unknown.
It is actually a voyage of discovery.
According to Clifford Woody, Research comprises

1. Defining and redefining problems

2. Formulating hypothesis or suggested solution
3. Collecting
4. Organizing and evaluating data
5. Making deductions and reaching conclusions
6. Carefully testing the conclusions to determine whether they fit the
formulating hypothesis.

According to D. Slesinger and M. Stephenson in the Encyclopaedia of Social

Sciences define research as "the manipulation of things, concepts or symbols for the
purpose of generalising to extend, correct or verify knowledge, whether that knowledge
aids in construction of theory or in the practice of an art."
  Research is, thus, an original contribution to the existing stock of knowledge
making for its advancement.
 It is the pursuit of truth with the help of study, observation, comparison and
experiment.

Booth et al. explains that the research cycle starts with basically a

practical problem: one must be clear what the problem being attempted to solve is and
why it is important. This problem motivates a research question without which one
can tend to get lost in a giant swamp of information. The question helps one zero in onto
manageable volume of information, and in turn defines a research project which is an
activity or set of activities that ultimately leads to result or answer, which in turn helps
to solve the practical problem that one started with in the first place as shown in Fig. 1

Fig 1. Research Cycle

Objectives of Engineering Research:

The objectives of engineering research are as follows

 To solve new and important problems, and since the conclusion at the end of
one’s research outcome has to be new, but when one starts, the conclusion is
unknown. So, the start itself is tricky, one may say. The answer is, based on
“circumstantial evidence”, intuition, and imagination, one guesses what may be a
possible conclusion.
 Knowing where and how to find different types of information helps one solve
engineering problems
  To apply scientific approaches to seek answers to open questions
 To develop new theoretical or applied knowledge and not necessarily limited to
obtaining abilities to obtain the desired result
 To gain familiarity with a phenomenon or to achieve new insights into it (studies
with this object in view are termed as exploratory or formulative research
studies)
 To portray accurately the characteristics of a particular individual, situation or a
group (studies with this object in view are known as descriptive research
studies)
 To determine the frequency with which something occurs or with which it is
associated with something else (studies with this object in view are known as
diagnostic research studies)
 To test a hypothesis of a causal relationship between variables (such studies are
known as hypothesis-testing research studies).

Motivation in Engineering Research:

The possible motives may be the result of one or more of the following desires:

1) Intrinsic motivations like interest, challenge, learning, meaning, purpose, are

linked to strong creative performance;
2) Extrinsic motivating factors like rewards for good work include money, fame,
awards, praise, and status are very strong motivators, but may block creativity.
3) Influences from others like competition, collaboration, commitment, and
encouragement are also motivating factors in research.
For example: my friends are all doing research and so should I, or, a person that I
dislike is doing well and I want to do better.
4) Personal motivation in solving unsolved problems, intellectual joy, service to
community, and respectability are all driving factors.
5) Several other factors like government directives, funding opportunities in
certain areas, and terms of employment, can motivate people to get involved in
engineering research.
6) The following factors would be a mix of extrinsic and intrinsic aspects: (i)
Wanting to do better than what has been achieved in the world, (ii) improve the
state of the art in technology, (iii) Contribute to the improvement of society, (iv)
Fulfillment of the historical legacy in the immediate sociocultural context.

Types of Engineering Research

The different types of research are

1. Descriptive versus Analytical

 2. Applied versus Fundamental
3. Quantitative versus Qualitative

i) Descriptive research includes

 comparative and correlational methods, and fact-finding inquiries, to
effectively describe the present state of art.
 The researcher holds no control over the variables; rather only reports as
it is.
 Descriptive research also includes attempts to determine causes even
though the variables cannot be controlled.

In analytical research, already available facts for analysis and critical evaluation
are utilized.

(ii) Applied versus Fundamental:

Research can either be applied research or fundamental (basic or pure) research.

 Applied research seeks to solve an immediate problem facing the organization,

whereas fundamental research is concerned with generalizations and
formulation of a theory.
 Research concerning natural phenomena or relating to pure mathematics are
examples of fundamental research.
 Research to identify social or economic trends, or those that find out whether
certain communications will be read and understood are examples of applied
research.

(iii) Quantitative versus Qualitative:

 Quantitative research uses Numerical data or statistical observations of a

sufficiently large number of representative cases to draw any conclusions.
 Quantitative research includes measurement of some characteristics.
Example: How many people clicked on the Advertisement after seeing it
 Qualitative research uses non mathematical data such as text, figures, video to
answer the questions.
 Qualitative research is particularly significant in the context of behavioural
sciences, which aim at discovering the underlying motives of human behaviour.

Finding and Solving a Worthwhile Problem

 A researcher may start out with the research problems stated by the Supervisor
or posed by others that are yet to be solved. Alternately, it may involve rethinking
 of a basic theory, or need to be formulated or put together from the information
provided in a group of papers suggested by the Supervisor.
 Research scholars are faced with the task of finding an appropriate problem on
which to begin their research.
 Skills needed to accomplish such a task at the outset, while taking care of
possible implications are critically important but often not taught.
 Once the problem is identified, the process of literature survey and technical
reading would take place for more certainty of the worthiness of the intended
problem. At other times, a development in another subject may have produced a
tool or a result which has direct implications to the researcher’s subject and may
lead to problem identification.
 A worthwhile research problem would have one or more attributes.
 It could be nonintuitive/counterintuitive even to someone who knows the area,
something that the research community had been expecting for sometime
 The researcher has to be convinced that the problem is worthwhile before
beginning to tackle it because best efforts come when the work is worth doing,
and the problem and/or solution has a better chance of being accepted by the
research community.
 Some problems are universally considered hard and open, and have deep
implications and connections to different concepts
 The recommended steps to solve a research problem are
1. Understand the problem, restate it as if it’s your own, visualize the problem
by drawing figures, and determine if something more is needed.
2. One must start somewhere and systematically explore possible strategies to
solve the problem or a simpler version of it while looking for patterns.
3. Execute the plan to see if it works, and if it does not then start over with
another approach.
4. Looking back and reflecting helps in understanding and assimilating the
strategy, and is a sort of investment into the future.

Ethics in Engineering Research

 Ethics generally refers to a set of rules distinguishing acceptable and
unacceptable conduct, distinguishing right from wrong.
 Although everyone recognizes some common ethical norms, but there is
difference in interpretation and application. Ethical principles can be used for
evaluation, proposition or interpretation of laws Although ethics are not laws,
but laws often follow ethics because ethics are our shared values.
  International norms for the ethical conduct of research have been there since the
adoption of the Nuremberg Code in 1947
 Whitbeck raised two simple but significant questions to address the tricky issue
of authorship in research: (1) who should be included as an author
(2) the appropriate order of listing of authors.
 In an increasingly interconnected world, the issue of coauthor ship is very
relevant to all researchers. There are issues around individuals who may be
deeply involved during the conduct of the research work, but may not contribute
in the drafting phase. Additionally, certain universities now put restrictions on
coauthor ship to prevent malpractices.
 Government bodies, and universities worldwide have adopted certain codes for
research ethics. Research ethics and the responsible conduct of research are
often erroneously used interchangeably.

Ethics in Engineering Research Practice:

 Technological developments raise a whole range of ethical concerns such as
privacy issues and data related to surveillance systems, and so engineering
researchers need to make ethical decisions and are answerable for the
repercussions borne out of their research as outcomes.
 The reason that ethics matter in data used in engineering research is usually
because there is impact on humans.
 Certain practices may be acceptable to certain people in certain situations, and
the reasons for unacceptability may be perfectly valid.
 We have unprecedented access to data today, and unprecedented options for
analysis of these data and consequences in engineering research related to such
data.
 Engineering ethics gives us the rule book; tells us, how to decide what is okay to
do and what is not. Engineering research is not work in isolation to the
technological development taking place. Researchers make many choices that
matter from an ethical perspective and influence the effects of technology in
many different ways:
1. By setting the ethically right requirements at the very outset, engineering
researchers can ultimately influence the effects of the developed technology.
2. Influence may also be applied by researchers through design (a process that
translates the requirements into a blueprint to fulfil those requirements). During
the design process, decision is to be made about the priority in importance of the
requirements taking ethical aspects into consideration.
 3. Thirdly, engineering researchers have to choose between different alternatives
fulfilling similar functions.
 Research outcomes often have unintended and undesirable side effects. It is a
vital ethical responsibility of researchers to ensure that hazards/risks associated
with the technologies that they develop, are minimized and alternative safer
mechanisms are considered. If possible, the designs should be made inherently
safe such that they avoid dangers, or come with safety factors, and multiple
independent safety barriers etc

Types of Research Misconduct:

Engineering research should be conducted to improve the state-of-the-art of

technologies. Research integrity encompasses dealing fairly with others, honesty about
the methods and results, replicating the results wherever possible so as to avoid errors,
protecting the welfare of research subjects, ensuring laboratory safety, and so forth. In
order to prevent mistakes, peer reviews should take place before the research output is
published.

There may be different types of research misconduct which can be summarized as

follows:

1) Fabrication (creation of data):

 Fabrication is the act of conjuring data or experiments with a belief of knowledge
about what the conclusion of the analysis or experiments would be, but cannot
wait for the results possibly due to timeline pressures from supervisor or
customers.
2) Falsification (Inappropriate alteration of data):
 Falsification is the misrepresentation or misinterpretation, or alteration of data
or experiments, even if partly, to support a desired hypothesis even when the
actual data received from experiments suggest otherwise.

Falsification and fabrication of data and results, hamper engineering research,

which

 cause false empirical data to percolate in the literature,

 wreck trustworthiness of individuals involved,
 incur additional costs,
 impede research progress,
 cause actual and avoidable delays in technical advancement.
Fabrication and falsification of data in published content can hurt honest
researchers getting their work published.

(3) Plagiarism (Taking other’s work):

Plagiarism takes place when someone uses or reuses the work (including portions)
of others (text, data, tables, figures, illustrations or concepts) as if it were his/her
own without explicit acknowledgement.

copying or reusing one’s own published work is termed as self-plagiarism and is also
an unacceptable practice in scientific literature. The increasing availability of
scientific content on the internet seems to encourage plagiarism in certain cases, but
also enables detection of such practices through automated software packages.

How are supervisors, reviewers or editors alerted to plagiarism?

(i) Original author comes to know and informs everyone concerned.

(ii) Sometimes a reviewer finds out about it during the review process.
(iii) readers who come across the article or book, while doing research.

Although there are many free tools and also paid tools available that one can
procure institutional license of, one cannot conclusively identify plagiarism, but can
only get a similarity score which is a metric that provides a score of the amount of
similarity between already published content and the unpublished content under
scrutiny.

It is important to see the individual scores of the sources, not just the overall
similarity index. Setting a standard of a maximum allowable similarity index is
inadequate usage of the tool.

A researcher should practise writing in such a way that the reader can recognize the
difference between the ideas or results of the authors and those that are from other
sources. Such a practice enables one to judge whether one is disproportionately
using or relying on content from existing literature.

4) Other Aspects of Research Misconduct: Serious deviations from accepted conduct

could be construed as research misconduct. When there is both deception and
damage, a fraud is deemed to have taken place.

Ethical Issues Related to Authorship:

 Academic authorship involves communicating scholarly work, establishing

priority for their discoveries, and building peer-reputation.
 It is the primary basis of evaluation for employment, promotion, and other
honours.
 There are several important research conduct and ethics related issues
connected to authorship of research papers and are summarized herewith in
 the context of engineering research. Credit for research contributions is
attributed in three major ways in research publications:
1) Authorship (of the intended publication)
2) Citation (of previously published or formally presented work)
3) Acknowledgment (of some inputs to the present research)

Ethical pitfalls/Issues/concerns in Authorships

Several ethical concerns arise in academic authorship are as follows
1) Guest” or “gift Authorship:
A person is expected to be listed as an author only when associated as a
significant contributor in research design, data interpretation, or writing
of the paper.
 coauthor ship bestowed on someone with little or no contribution to the
work
 Such authors dilute the contribution of those who actually did the work
 Such authors inappropriately inflate credentials of the listed authors.
2) Career-boost authorship:
 The primary author doubtingly bestows coauthor ship on a junior faculty
or a student to boost their chances of employment or promotion, which
can be termed as Career-boost authorship.
3) Career-preservation authorship:
 There is also an unfortunate malpractice of coauthor ship that can be
described as “Career-preservation authorship” wherein a head of the
department, a dean, a provost, or other administrators are added as
Coauthors wherein the principal author benefits from a “good relation”
with the superiors and the administrator benefits from authorship
without doing the required work for it.
4) Ghost coauthor ship:
 Sometimes, an actual contributor abstains from the list of authors due to
nondisclosed conflict of interest within the organization. Such coauthor
ships can be termed as ghost coauthor ship.
5) Questionable authorship:
 some researchers list one another as coauthors as a reciprocal gesture
with no real collaboration except minimal reading and editing, without
truly reviewing the work.

All listed authors have the full obligation of all contents of a research article, and so
naturally, they should also be made aware of a journal submission by the corresponding
author

Double submission is an important ethical issue related to authorship, which involves

submission of a paper to two forums simultaneously. The motivation is to increase
publication possibility and possibly decrease time to publication. Reputed journals want
to publish original papers, i.e., papers which have not appeared elsewhere, and strongly
discourage double submission.