E-text

Research and Publication Ethics(RPE)

Module -5A
Publication Misconduct
Contents

05A.0 Objectives
05A.1 Overview
05A.2 Ethical issues in various Disciplines
05A.3 Fabrication, Falsification and Plagiarism (FFP) : Research Fraud
05A.4 Authorship
05A.5. Conflict of Interest (COI)
05A.6 Misconduct by Publishers, Editors and Peer Reviewer
05A.7 Ethics in Publication
05A.8 Complaints and Appeals : examples and Fraud from India and Abroad
05A.9 Cases from India and Abroad
05A.10 Honesty in Research Publication
05A.11 Conclusion

05.A.0 Objectives

The objective of this unit is to obtain the basic ideas regarding

 To know the definition of publication misconduct,
 To know the ethics in research publication,
 To know the research integrity,
 To know the FFP,
 To know what is research fraud,
 To know the different kinds of authorship in research publication, unaccepted
authorship, and conflict of interest.

05A.1 Overview

Intellectual work in the form of research articles is published in periodicals. This practice
started since the emergence of formal education and research activities as imparted in
educational and research institutes throughout the world. Authors reported their progress and
research results with due sincerity and honesty. At present a new sorry state has been very
spectacular in publication world. Authors, publishers, editors, peer reviewers are dishonestly
involved in some way or other in this publication process. And that is why; a serious term
publication misconduct has been coined in this publication arena. Some national and
international organisations are coming forward with their code of instructions so as to guide
and arrest the publication misconduct and behaviour and pointed some measures and standards
regarding this misconduct.

Publication misconduct is a wrongful behaviour as well as unethical activities and process

associated with the publication of research literature in any suitable form. It is sometimes done
knowingly or unknowingly; intentionally or unintentionally to publish a work of one’s without
acknowledging the original author or to copy of major portion from that source or by simply
changing minor portion anywhere of that sources and thus presenting the same in a published
media as the original one under self-authorship. Both in research and publication activities
there are various avenues, components and stages, those are authorized by different personnel
and through unethical approach, if this process is, anyway, demoralized then this will also be
come under the purview of publication misconduct. In academic arena, this misconduct has
been profusely experienced now a day. The US Federal Policy on “Research Misconduct has
explicitly defined research conduct as fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, in proposing,
performing, or reviewing research or in reporting research results”. This definition explicitly
mentioned the three terms Fabrication, Falsification, Plagiarism sometimes called it together
FFP pertaining the unethical practices in research publication.

Publication misconduct defines as research misconduct to include the following activities:-

 fabrication: making up results or other outputs (e.g. artifacts) and presenting them as
if they were real

 falsification: manipulating research processes or changing or omitting data without

good cause

 plagiarism: using other people’s material without giving proper credit

 misrepresentation: for example, misrepresentation of data, of interests, of

qualifications or experience, or of involvement, such as inappropriate claims to
authorship or attribution of work

 breach of duty of care: breach of confidentiality such as disclosing the identity of

individuals or groups involved in research without their consent; improper conduct in
peer review such as failing to disclose conflicts of interest; or not observing legal and
ethical requirements or obligations of care

 failure to meet ethical, legal and professional obligations: for example, failure to
declare competing interests; misrepresentation of involvement or authorship;
misrepresentation of interests; breach of confidentiality; lack of informed consent;
misuse of personal data; and abuse of research subjects or materials

 Improper dealing with allegations of misconduct: failing to address possible

infringements such as attempts to cover up misconduct and reprisals against
whistleblowers.

There are many other activities those are not defined as misconduct. However, some
researchers consider that these activities are not ethical practices. These include as follows:-

 Publication of same paper in multiple journals without informing to the respective

editor of the multiple journals
 Failing to maintain the research records properly
 Failing to restore the research data for a specific period of time
 Filing a patent solely without properly intimating the collaborators
 Presenting review of literature without making acknowledgement to previous relevant
contributors
  Exploiting research scholars and students for own interest as well as without
acknowledging their support.
 Using inappropriate statistical techniques and its representation so as to establish
significance of the research

05A.2 Ethical issues in various Disciplines

05A.2.1 Ethical Issues in Science and Technology

The researchers in this field must have to show their regards to the interest of humanity. They
must have to undertake the total research process with due care and honesty. UNESCO
continues to enforce some guidelines in relating to ethical issues in science and technology
since 1970s. A report on “ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subject
of research” commonly known as “The Belmont Report” was published in 18 April 1979 and
there it is proposed three basic principles for the evaluation of research project involving human
as a subject.

1. Respect to person
2. Beneficent
3. Justice

05A.2.2 Ethics Issues in Humanities and Social Sciences

Issues of ethics are very much neglected in the field of humanities, after 1990s the
researchers of in this disciplines are following research integrity. Humanities in the European
Research Area Joint Research Programme (HERA) pointed that “ethical conduct of research
[in humanities] was a matter for the conscience of the individual researcher” (European
Commission, Guidance Note for Researchers and Evaluators of Social Sciences and
Humanities Research (Draft), 2010.
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/fp7/89867/social-
scienceshumanities_en.pdf.

This kind of categorisation can be found in the mentioned EU Code of Ethics for Socio-
Economic Research as well as in the Guidelines for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences,
Law and the Humanities.). Ethical guidelines and codes for research in humanities and social
sciences often divide values and principles related to research into three major facets:

1. Standards of scientific practice

2. Responsibilities towards individuals and communities directly participating in
research
3. Considerations of societal impacts of research

The following values and principles are to be applied in humanistic research:-

1. Avoiding harm to anybody

2. Confidentiality and anonymity are to be maintained
3. Human dignity should be preserved
 4. Voluntary and informed consent are to be sought

05A.2.3 Ethics Issues in Professional Studies

The researchers of this discipline must have to follow ethical issues very sincerely as human
beings are directly getting services from them. Thus some fundamental principles are to be
followed to behave ethically and these are:

1. Respect to people’s dignity and rights

2. Responsible practice is to be maintained
3. Integrity in relationship is highly needed
4. Responsibility to clientele is to be focused

05A.3 Fabrication, Falsification and Plagiarism (FFP) : Research Fraud

It is nothing but the unethical approach and practices at any point of total research journey. The
Department of Health and Human Services, office of the research integrity services US
National Institutes of Health has been defined Research fraud or research misconduct ” research
misconduct is defined as fabrication, falsification and plagiarism, and does not include honest
error or differences of opinion.”

05A.3.1 Fabrication

It is the process of putting research data, recording, analyzing, reporting, concluding them
through simply synthetically and unethically.

05A.3.2 Falsification

It is the process of changing of research contents, data, illustrations, equipment and processes
by means of manipulation with a view to set the research data with the desired result of the
research study.

05A.3.3 Plagiarism

It is the process of putting one’s work, ideas, process, results, etc. without giving proper
acknowledgement (ORI, 2007). The term “Plagiarism” has come into the form “plagiarius”
senses “kidnapper, seducer, plunderer, etc.”. Roman poet Martial has been used the term first
time in context of his poet around 80 AD. At that time, poets were expected to be able to recite
key works by other authors. However, when Martial learned that another poet, Fidentinus, was
reciting his works and taking credit for them, Martial chose to respond.

But Martial didn’t have the option of going to the courts. Modern copyright law wouldn’t exist
for another 1600 years and there was no legal remedy available. Instead, Martial wrote a series
of verses about Fidentinus, essentially creating a diss track about him.

From the Romans to the 17th century, skill was prized over originality and many great artists
and authors copied. This includes Shakespeare, who copied many of his most famous plots and
passages, and Leonardo Da Vinci, who copied some of his most famous works.
Part of this was there was no mass media. The printing press would not be invented until 1440.
Literacy rates were low (at 40% in England in 1533) and neither art nor books could be trivially
copied.

05A.3.3.1 Definition of Plagiarism

Oxford Dictionary of English defines that plagiarism means "the practice of taking someone
else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." Plagiarism is presenting someone
else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your
work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in
manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition. Plagiarism may be
intentional or reckless, or unintentional. It is now called as checking of similarities.

05A.3.3.2 Various types of Plagiarism

According to various resources of plagiarism it has been found that there are following types
are considered as similarities : -

 someone's literature as one’s own

 Replication of words, ideas, quotes from someone’s without acknowledgement
 Deteriorating to use someone’s quotation (without quotation marks)
 Using false information as the source of a quotation
 Juggling words of copying of the sentence from source without acknowledgement
 Using long sentences or ideas from other sources with or without acknowledgement
 Using other images from web resources as own writing without acknowledgement
 Using copyrighted audio, video as your own without acknowledgement

05A.3.3.3 Forms of Plagiarism

There are various types of plagiarism or similarities has been identified and defined. These
kinds of similarities are serious issues on violations of academic integrity. Some common types
of similarities have discussed below:-

 Direct / Verbatim Plagiarism : Directly stating a paragraph of text without

acknowledgement.
 Self-Plagiarism : Restating previous works and ideas of your own as in new scientific
writing.
 Mosaic Plagiarism : Mixing text and ideas from various resources without
acknowledgement.
 Accidental Plagiarism :
 Paraphrasing plagiarism : Restating one’s ideas without acknowledgement.
 Collusion :
 False citation : Deteriorating to use false information in acknowledgement.
 Failure to acknowledge assistance :
 Global Plagiarism : Using whole content without acknowledgement
05A.4 Authorship

Generally authorship means the writer or contributor of any writing, literature or an art. It can
refer to individual or groups that create an idea or develop the publication for dissemination of
intellectual or creative work. It may be single or collaborative groups responsible for
production of an intellectual creation.

Harrods Librarian’s Glossary defines “author” -“The person, persons or corporate body,
responsible for the writing or compilation of a book or other publication.”

The author is one who is primarily responsible for an artistic content of a document. (Glossary,
DDC, 19th edition vol.1, Melvil Dewey 1876).

Authorship is the characteristic of a person who has “meaningful participation in the

planning, design, and interpretation of the experiments and in the writing of the paper.” (p.
1417)

For a periodical publication, the contributors of research articles refer to the authors. These
authors are accountable for their published work. UGC has defined the “author’ in regulation
entitled “Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational
Institutions) Regulation, 2018” as “a student or a faculty or a researcher or stuff of higher
educational institutions who claims to be the creator of the work under consideration.”

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends four criteria
that can be defined as authorship are as follows (ICMJE, 2020):

1 Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition,

analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2 Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3 Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4 Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions
related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated
and resolved.

COPE has formulated the “authorship” for any document which should be based on some
characteristics in the preparation of manuscript through one or more characteristics as follows:-

1 The writer should have to contribute substantial contribution or any design for the work
2 Collection, organization, interpretation of data during the period of study
3 Analysing, concluding critically the data for valid representation and scholarly
communication

Arrangement of authorship pattern for a publication is generally managed through balanced

discussion between the contributors. Somewhere technical gatekeeper or the supreme
supervisor is represented as first author followed by other scholars according to seniority. In
other cases, the particular research scholars who is involved in the research process as well as
communicator with the journal authority comes as first author followed supervisor. Sometimes
the sequence of authorship pattern depends upon the culture and precedence of research
institute. Elsevier in its documents “Ethics in Research and Publication” and pointed out five
types of unaccepted authorship as follows:-

05A.4.1 Anonymous Authorship

Authorship should be very clear and explicit in nature i.e. complete name with conventional
parts of naming of the author should be clearly alphabetized who is accountable for the
published work. The pseudonym or any fictitious symbol either in abbreviation or numerical
form of anonymous authorship is not at all acceptable.

05A.4.2 Ghost Authorship

A ghost author is an author who has contributed substantially in writing the research manuscript
but his name is not mentioned in the author place explicitly. However, the authors have not
acknowledged their contribution either in preface or in acknowledgement area. As their name
is not mention in the authors place, for this reason they are termed as ghost author. This
publisher has no right to put their name in the author’s place. Or in case if these ghost author
demand them as one of the author of this publication this can be acceptable also. As the ghost
authors have contributed something, so their names treated as authors at per. Those who make
small contributions that would not qualify them as an author should be listed in the
acknowledgements with the extent of their contribution clearly stated (Schofferman, 2015).

05A.4.3 Guest Authorship

Guest authorship refers to senior authors who are included because of their respect or influence
in the hope that this will increase the likelihood of publication and/or impact of the paper once
published (Harvey, 2018).

05A.4.4 Gift Authorship

Gift authorship refers to the practice of offering authorship to a senior or junior colleague in
the blatant or surreptitious hope that they will return the favor and they are included in the list
of co-authors though they have no significant contribution in that particular study (Harvey,
2018).

05A.4.5 Honorary authorship

Honorary authorship refers to those who are named as authors merely because they hold senior
positions within the service or facility where the research occurred, and may have helped secure
funding (Harvey, 2018).

05A.4.6 Surrogate Authorship

This is a kind of authorship where this present author presents or submit a work without give
his own data or description or explanation but only citing the ideas of the original authors. It is
actually happens in philosophical and political thought presentation.
Harvey stressed in his writing published in “Nature” that Gift, Guest, and Honorary authorship
be treated as at best opportunistic and at worse scientific misconduct (Rajasekaran S., Li Pi, S.
R., Finnoff, 2014).

05A.5 Conflict of Interest (COI)

An interest may be defined as a commitment, goal, or value held by an individual or an

institution.

Examples include a research project to be completed, gaining status through promotion or

recognition, and protecting the environment. Interests are pursued in the setting of social
interactions.

05A.5.1 Conflict of Interest (COI)

The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) A
conflict of interest exists when two or more contradictory interests relate to an activity by an
individual or an institution. The conflict lies in the situation, not in any behavior or lack of
behavior of the individual. That means that a conflict of interest is not intrinsically a bad thing.

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.

According to Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Conflicts of interest are

"situations in which financial or other personal considerations may compromise, or have the
appearance of compromising, an investigator's judgment in conducting or reporting research"
(AAMC, 1990).

In the year 1992, a white document was published by the joint venture of National Academy
of Sciences; National Academy of Engineering; Institute of Medicine; Committee on Science,
Engineering, and Public Policy; Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research
(NAS, 1992) towards the fostering faculty and student awareness relating to integrity of
research process.

Integrity in Scientific Research defines "A conflict of interest in research exists when the
individual has interests in the outcome of the research that may lead to a personal advantage
and that might therefore, in actuality or appearance compromise the integrity of the research."

Conflicts can also exist as a result of personal relationships, academic competition, and
intellectual passion. An example might be a researcher who has:

 A relative who works at the company whose product the researcher is evaluating.
 A self-serving stake in the research results (e.g. potential promotion/career
advancement based on outcomes).
 Personal beliefs that are in direct conflict with the topic he/she is researching.

There are few following types of typical conflicts of interest listed by Canadian political
scientists Ken Kernaghan and John Langford in their book, “The Responsible Public Servant”:-
Self-dealing - One works for government and use one’s official position to secure a contract
for a private consulting company one’s own. Another instance is using one’s government
position to get a summer job for one’s daughter.

Accepting benefits Bribery is one example; substantial [non token] gifts are another. For
example, you are the purchasing agent for your department and you accept a case of liquor
from a major supplier.

Influence peddling Here, the professional solicits benefits in exchange for using her influence
to unfairly advance the interests of a particular party.

Using your employer’s property for private advantage. This could be as blatant as stealing
office supplies for home use. Or it might be a bit more subtle, say, using software which is
licensed to your employer for private consulting work of your own. In the first case, the
employer’s permission eliminates the conflict; while in the second, it doesn’t.

Using confidential information. While working for a private client, you learn that the client
is planning to buy land in your region. You quickly rush out and buy the land in your wife’s
name.

Outside employment or moonlighting. An example would be setting up a business on the

side that is in direct competition with your employer. Another case would be taking on so many
outside clients that you don’t have the time and energy to devote to your regular employer. In
combination with [3] influence peddling, it might be that a professional employed in the public
service sells private consulting services to an individual with the assurance that they will secure
benefits from government: “If you use my company, I am sure that you will pass the
environmental review.”

Post-employment. Here a dicey situation can be one in which a person who resigns from public
or private employment and goes into business in the same area. For example, a former public
servant sets up a practice lobbying the former department in which she was employed.

05A.6 Misconduct by Publishers, Editors and Peer Reviewer

The publishers, editors and peer reviewer are not free from the publication misconduct.
Sometimes they ignore the research integrity. And sometimes publishers want to achieve
financial gain from the authors. Hence a great fault remains on their responsibility. The normal
relation or social relation, sometimes affect the attitude and behaviour editors, publishers and
peer reviewer in favour of their interacted candidates because both of them are human being.
As a professional authority, they forget their responsibility to publish the creative works for
the further betterment of the society. They ignore the false data, false analysis and so on and
so forth due to their partial attitude which affects much the total publication process and its
implication in society. And hence publication misconduct is identified as a topic before under
taking of research study. They should have clear idea regarding the guidelines of the Council
of Scientific Editors (CSE), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and
Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE). Publishers and their editors have to clear instruction
to authors for peer review process, the definition of authorship and requirement of declaration
against copyright. Publishers should have to render editorial freedom as well as clear
instruction to peer reviewers regarding their responsibilities.
05A.6.1 Editors Decision

Journal owners should have to follow the editorial decision regarding the publishing of a
particular article. Similarly, publishers also should have to give the appropriate instruction
regarding the editorial policies and processes of the journal. Editors should be free to evaluate
the appropriateness of any paper that is yet to published. Thus, a good understanding based on
scientific integrity be established between editors and publishers.

05A.7 Ethics in Publication

05A.7.1 Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE)

The Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) which acts as international forum for editors and
publishers of peer reviewed journals has prescribed a “code of conduct” and “best practice
guidelines” for publishing the article properly. COPE has been established by Mike Farthing
(editor of Gut : International journal in gastroenterology and hepatology), Richard Smith
(editor of BMJ : British medical journal) and Richard Horton (Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet
journal) in April 1997. These guidelines discuss the publication ethics. The University Grants
Commission (UGC) has also provided similar document entitled “Guidance Document on
Good Academic Research Practices (GARP) in September, 2020”. This document is a general
framework for research integrity. It covers various aspects of research ethics like research
integrity, dissemination of research output by selecting the right journal publication. This is
equally applicable to researchers, authors, and members of editorial board, journal managers
and publishers.

05A.7.2 Existing of Predatory Journals : a new platform for publication

In India and also in abroad a new kind of journal publication inviting the authors to publish
their literature for gaining some profits from authors. The publishers of this journal are very
much reluctant and do not undertake any policy for ethical publication and thus does not care
appropriate review mechanism i.e. no peer review system; no editorial advisory board, etc. for
maintaining the quality of publication and thus they are charging a processing charge with
quick publication. This kind of journal is termed as Predatory journal. And this is equalized
with fake journals. The term has been coined by Jeffrey Beall, Librarian from University of
Colorado at Denver in his article “Predatory publishers are corrupting open access” in Nature
journal (Beall, 2012). The oxford dictionary meaning of the term “predatory” means “the
violent and dishonest acquisition of property” or “seeking to exploit others”.

Nowadays, number of publications is considered as the quality assurance of an individual and

in some institution it is one of the measures for promoting the incumbent. However, some
authors lack to publish original writing from their own endeavor. And, thus, authors are
mentally forced to publish unqualified or ordinary literature in these predatory journals by
submitting a monetary amount as demanded by the journal owner.

Due to the emergence of open access journal system in this digital era extends a wide
opportunity for publication. The young Master holders, and inexperienced Ph. D. researchers,
from all over the world are searching through internet different titles of journals for quick
publication. Due to the lack of awareness they are victimized and they simply make a contact
with these predatory and fake journals for their publication. These authors do not aware about
the publication misconduct or ethical process of publication. And hence, a huge amount of
literature creating publication pollution and at the same time the authors are not getting due
credit in times of credential judgment and simply they are wasting time due to their
unawareness.

Academician in India, have contributed 35% of their articles in various predatory open access
journals in between 2010 – 2014 and this study was conducted by Cenyu Shen & Bo-Christer
Björk and it is reported in the Bio Medical Central Medicine Journal.

Another report was made by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist

(Washington DC, USA founded by Charles Lewis in 1997) where it is pointed out that there
are over 1100 predatory journals and around of 175000 articles have been published in pseudo-
scientific platforms (Alecci, 2018).

05A.8 Complaints and Appeals : examples and Fraud from India and Abroad

A fair mechanism should be followed so that authors can appeal to editorial decisions so as to
further correct the unintentional faults or any unwanted textual and numerical date revision.
Editors mediate all types of communication between authors and peer reviewers in time of
review activities. In this respect editors can adopt additional peer review process for the final
decision.

05.A.8.1 Complaints and Appeals

Complaints: Complaints are the reaction process happened during the post-publication of an
article. It is made by an author whose original and published article is anyway used by the
accused author who has published his article later with research misconduct. Thus the former
author points out critically where FFP characteristics are adhered in the next published article
of the accused author and the prior author launches a complaint before the editor under whose
jurisdiction the later author publishes his article. This complaint is handled by the editorial
board of the journal and decides the course of action and at the same time a feedback is provided
to the complainant. If the complainant is not satisfied regarding the complaint then he submit
the complaint to the committee of publication ethics.

Appeals: Appeal is the next process adopted by the author after getting negative information
regarding publication of his article from the editorial corner. Thus, appeal is the reaction
adopted by authors and request sends with proper justification and authenticated information
against the negative feedback of the editorial board and to communicate with the editor again
for further consideration for publication. Therefore, it is the second level of publication activity.
In this respect editors decision is the final for the publication.

05.A.9 Cases from India and Abroad

05.A.9.1 Cases from India

Sometimes publication misconduct or frauds in publications are obtained through some

newspapers, subjective newsletters, or from human resources. However, there is no organized
institution who deals with this matters or rarely report systematically. That is why it is not
possible cite the exact examples from India. As the publication is going on in enormous rate
either in digital or printed format so, this publication misconduct may be happened in the
publication world. The new form of concepts such as publication misconduct, research
integrity, FFP, research ethics as well as the emergence of new controlling organisation such
COPE, WAME certainly proves that the birth of misconduct very much inevitable in any
country of the world. We have to wait to have these facts specifically from India until and
unless no organized study and analysis in this respect are materialized through an organized
body like other parts of the world.

05.A.9.2 Cases from Abroad

Some examples and fraud cases relating to publication misconduct from abroad with special
reference to USA are tabulated as follows and all these data were identified and analysed by
the Office of the Research Integrity (ORI), US Department of Health and Human Services (US
DHHS).

Year Name of the Country Types of Publication Misconduct

Default Author

2021 Yibin Lin, USA  knowingly and intentionally

Ph.D. scholar,  falsified, fabricated, and plagiarized six
University of (6) papers and eight (8) manuscripts,
Texas Health  falsely created fictitious author names
Science Center and affiliations without listing himself as
an author
 publication in bioRxiv and medRxiv, open
access preprint repositories,
 falsely assembling random paragraphs of
text, tables, and figures from previous
publications and manuscripts
 Improve his citation metrics.
2021 Viravuth Yin, USA  knowingly, intentionally, and/or
Ph.D. Scholar, recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating
Mount Desert data
Island  three (3) published papers and two (2)
submitted manuscripts
Biological
Laboratory

2020 Charles A. USA  intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly

Downs, falsifying and/or fabricating data
University of  six (6) grant applications submitted for
Arizona Public Health Service (PHS) funds:

2020 Logan Fulford, USA  intentionally, knowingly, and/or

Cincinnati recklessly falsifying data
Children’s 
Hospital
 Medical
Center

2020 Anil K. USA  intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly:

Jaiswal, Ph.D.  used random blank background sections
Scholar, of film or empty boxes to falsely represent
University of or fabricate western blot analyses;
Maryland at  used manipulated images to generate and
report falsified data in figures; and
Baltimore
 used mislabeled images to falsely report
data in figures
 four (4) funded PHS grant applications,
 four (4) unfunded PHS grant applications,
 and six (6) PHS-supported published
papers
2020 Rahul Dev USA  intentionally plagiarizing, falsifying,
Jayant, Ph.D., and/or fabricating data
Assistant  plagiarizing four (4) images of brain
Professor organoids and one (1) graph
Pharmaceutical  one (1) image of brain organoids from
Nature Communications 2018 Oct 9;
Sciences, 9(1):4167
School of  Fabricating nine (9) bar graphs
Pharmacy, representing experiments measuring
Texas Tech
University
Health Science
Center

2020 Dr. Shin-Hee USA  intentionally, knowingly, and/or

Kim, former recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating
Assistant data
Professor of  altering, reusing, and relabeling same
source Western blot images, microscopy
Veterinary
fields, and data of viral titers and mouse
Medicine, immune response from non-correlated
University of experiments
Maryland  represent the results of different viral
(UMD) strains
 seven (7) published papers and
 two (2) grant applications submitted to
NIAID, NIH
 Four (4) figures of three (3) published
papers by reusing and relabeling images
from non-correlated blots and using blank
backgrounds as blot images with negative
expression of proteins.
Prasadarao  recklessly including falsified and/or
Nemani, fabricated data
Ph.D.,  published paper and grant applications for
Children’s PHS funds
Hospital Los  enterobacterial infection-induced
intestinal epithelial cell injury in a
Angeles neonatal murine model
 falsely represent results using images
from unrelated experiments in eight (8)
figures
 One (1) published paper and four (4) grant
applications
Dr. David J.  intentionally, knowingly, and/or
Panka, recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating
Harvard Western blot images
Medical  by editing, selectively cutting, flipping,
reordering, reusing, and relabeling the
School and
same source images or non-correlated
Beth Israel images to represent different results
Deaconess  Western blot images in twelve (12) figures
Medical of three (3) published papers and one (1)
Center conference presentation

Ozgur  knowingly, intentionally, and/or

Tataroglu, recklessly falsifying data included
Ph.D.,  One (1) paper and two (2) grant
University of applications submitted to National
Institute of General Medical Sciences
Massachusetts
(NIGMS), National Institutes of Health
Medical (NIH)
School

Yihong Wan,  intentionally, knowingly, and/or

Ph.D., recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating
University of bone histomorphometry data by altering
Texas or creating Excel data table values for
additional bone samples that did not exist
Southwestern
or were not analyzed and by falsely stating
Medical means and standard deviations calculated
Center from experiments with N values (i.e.,
number of mouse samples) that were
larger than the actual N values in the
following published paper
 eight (8) extended figures of one (1)
published paper
 Multiple Excel spreadsheets and by
creating increased N values without
testing additional samples.
  Funded and supported by U.S Public
Health Service (PHS), National Institute
of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney
(NIDDK) and NIH
Zhiwei Wang,  knowingly, intentionally, and/or
M.D., Wayne recklessly falsifying data
State  grant applications R01 CA120008, R01
University CA131151, and R01 CA131456 submitted
to NCI, NIH; his 2006 Ph.D. dissertation
(hereafter referred to as the
“Dissertation”)
 Intentionally, knowingly, and/or
recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating
images representing protein expression,
invasion and migration assays, and
electrophoretic mobility shift assays
(EMSA) in experiments designed to
identify underlying mechanisms
controlling cell proliferation,
differentiation, and apoptosis in cancer

Types of Publication of Misconducts done by Default Authors as reported by ORI, US DHHS

(from 2008 – 2021)

Year No. of Authors

2021 2

2020 10

2019 5

2018 6

2017 2

2016 2

2008 & older 3

Year-wise Publication Misconduct report by ORI, US DHHS

The table reveals the year-wise publication misconduct has been reported by ORI, US DHHS. It is seen
from the table that within 20 years in USA publication there are total number of thirty authors who were
identified in any way or other from publication misconduct point of view.

05A.10 Honesty in Research Publication

In the knowledge development system, researchers, publishers, research guides, research

administrative departments, research organization can be considered as sub-system. In each of
the zones, transparency, honesty relating to undertaking the research work, reviewing the
literature, reporting and communicating research result are the prime importance. In this regard,
the University Grants Commission has created the consortium of Research Ethics (CARE) so
as to guide and promote the total research process in Nov, 2018.

UGC forwarded another venture by creating an expert group on good academic research
practices which was chaired by Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar, VC, BHU towards formulating the
procedure for research integrity.

05A.10.1 Publication ethics as Individual Responsibility

a) Research should be made through individual honesty and personal endeavor.

b) Proper acknowledgement of the both printed and web resources should be followed
ethically.
c) Each research must have to be aware about the plagiarism.
d) Researcher should follow the rules that must not hamper the conflict of interest.
e) Researcher should submit paper very objectively and honestly pertaining to journal
submission requirements.
f) Multi submission of same manuscript should be avoided.

05A.10.2 Publication ethics as Publishers Responsibility

a) The journal editors should have to follow the ethical practices pertaining to COPE and
WAME.
b) Research conflict should be avoided in times of review process.
c) Any scholarly publication is always the social benefit and thus commercial behaviour
should be avoided.
d) Nevertheless, all the common practices for the publication of articles in both printed
and e-journals should be followed.

ORI enlisted nine core instructional areas relating to conducting responsible research and
ensuring integrity as follows :-

1 Data acquisition, management, sharing, and ownership

2 Mentor/trainee responsibilities
3 Publication practices and responsible authorship
4 Peer review
5 Collaborative science
6 Human subjects
7 Research involving animals
8 Research misconduct
9 Conflict of interest and commitment

05A.11Conclusion

Any writing made by an author or any research activity undertaken by a scholar is being
published not for publication shake only but for better knowledge development in the society.
From the dawn of civilization, from a layman to philosopher all were involved in searching the
truth and this truth is communicated to all parts of society so for further development. In this
modern age, education and research has flourished throughout the world. The knowledge and
research product are being published through printed media and digital media where from we
are getting a chance of publishing in open access in a greater way. These are all positive
academic pursuit. A majority of rational academic community and the relevant rational
publishing mechanism are following the normal system of whole dissemination process of
publication which is automatically attuned with ethical and behavioural practices already
incorporated since the moment of publication. But the degeneration, cultural degradation in
publication activities strongly engulfed by the un-academic attitude of both authors and
publishers. That is why publication misconduct is very prevalent and enormously the existences
of predatory journals are appearing to exploit the academic community knowing their
unawareness condition of quality publication. Both the rational authors and publishers must
have to adopt and concerted effort towards establishing the ethical aspects of creation of
literature and their standard qualitative dissemination of periodical literature based on ethical
norms.

Questions

1. What is Publication misconduct?

2. Write the short note on FFP.
3. Define the term Plagiarism.
4. Discuss the various forms of plagiarism.
5. Elucidate the term predatory journal.
6. Explain the different kinds of authorship.
7. Make a short note of Conflict of Interest.
8. Write down on the ethical responsibility in publication of the Publisher.
9. What are the major responsibilities for the ethical publication of the author?
10. What are the ethical issues of professionals?

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3, 2020.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts

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Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

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