Ethics: Definition, introduction and importance

“Ethics” the term is generally defined as a set of principles that distinguish between
acceptable and unacceptable behavior or way of conducting a task.

One of the most commonly known ethical code in medical practice, the “Hippocratic Oath,”
dates back to 500 B.C.

Moreover, ethical policies addressing issues related to plagiarism, fabrication, conflicts of

interest etc. are being outlined at different governmental and academic levels.

Conflicts of interest
Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may
influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors. They have been described as those
which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They
may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial.

Peer review
Peer reviewers are external experts chosen by editors to provide written opinions, with the
aim of improving the study. Working methods vary from journal to journal, but some use
open procedures in which the name of the reviewer is disclosed, together with the full or
“edited” report.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

GUIDELINES ON GOOD PUBLICATION PRACTICE

COPE was founded in 1997 to address breaches of research and publication ethics. A
voluntary body providing a discussion forum and advice for scientific editors, it aims to find
practical ways of dealing with the issues, and to develop good practice. They thought it
essential to attempt to define best practice in the ethics of scientific publishing. These
guidelines should be useful for authors, editors, editorial board members, readers, owners of
journals, and publishers.

Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS). International

Guidelines for Ethical Review of Epidemiological Studies. Geneva: WHO, 1991.

World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)

What is WAME?
Established in 1995, WAME (pronounced “Whammy”) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit voluntary
association of editors of peer-reviewed medical journals from countries throughout the world
who seek to foster international cooperation among and education of medical journal editors.
Membership in WAME is free and all decision-making editors of peer-reviewed medical
journals are eligible to join. Membership is also available to selected scholars in journal
editorial policy and peer review. WAME has more than 1830 members representing more
than 1000 journals from 92 countries (as of July 27, 2017).
Few of the international codes and policies include:
 Code of Ethics from the International Sociological Association
 Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights from UNESCO
 International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects from
the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS)
 Declaration of Helsinki from the World Medical Association
 Nuremberg Code
 The Chemical Professional's Code of Conduct from the American Chemical Society
 Singapore Statement on Research Integrity

Various organizations have played an instrumental role in the development and adoption of
the ethical guidelines across universities, funding agencies, publishers, and institutions. Some
of the prominent names are listed below. Moreover, universities and research institutes set up
an independent administrative entity called ethical committee (EC) or an institutional
review board (IRB). This body is mainly responsible for protecting the rights and welfare of
human subjects involved in clinical studies. IRBs and ECs oversee any clinical trial or
biomedical research. These entities not only review the protocol but also ensure compliance
with the required ethical codes, thereby minimizing any risk to the subjects
involved.

THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED WITH PUBLICATION ETHICS ARE

1) International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE).
2) World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
3) Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

The ICMJE was established in 1978, in Vancouver, British

Columbia, Canada, by a group of medical journal editors. ICMJE developed
recommendations which are primarily for authors who want to submit their work in ICMJE
member journals. These recommendations discuss the role and responsibilities of the
authors, contributors, reviewers, and editors. Steps of manuscript preparation, submission,
and editorial issues related to publication in medical journals are also discussed and drafted.
The uniform requirements for manuscript submitted to biomedical journals, which most of
the journals are following were drafted by ICMJE.

The WAME is a non-profit voluntary association, which was established in 1995 by a group
of members of the ICMJE. The role of WAME is to facilitate worldwide
cooperation and communication among editors of peer-reviewed medical journal.
Membership in WAME is free and all decision-making editors of peer reviewed journals are
eligible to join. WAME has more than 1830 members representing more than 1000 journals
from 92 countries.

The COPE also helps in ethical publication. COPE was founded in 1997 by a small number
of UK medical editors as a self-help group to discuss troubling ethical cases in the
publication process. It provides paid membership and currently has more than 7000 members
in various disciplines from all parts of the world. The purpose of COPE is to find the practical
ways to deal with the misconduct cases and to develop codes of conduct for good publication
practice.

Types of authors
Ghost Author
A ghost author is a person who has made a substantial contribution to the research or writing
of a manuscript but is not listed as an author. A ghost author might be a direct employee or
hired contract employee of pharmaceutical company and hence, listing him as an author
amounts to COI.

Guest or gift/honorary author

It is dishonest to omit an author who has made significant contributions. In contrast to ghost
author, guest or gift/honorary author is someone who is named as an author, but who did not
contribute in a meaningful way to the design, research, analysis, or writing of a paper.
The inclusion of their name in the author list might increase chances of acceptance for
publication. However, sometimes senior investigators may also give honorary authorship to
their colleagues for encouraging collaborations and maintaining good working relations or as
repayment of favors.
Whatever the cause, the gift or guest authorship is an unacceptable practice in publication.

Group authorship
The order of authorship should be mutually decided before taking up the study. It has to be a
joint decision of all coauthors.

Attribution of credit
Despite these guidelines, authorship battles for inappropriate attribution of credit are
witnessed in this area also. Usually, the dispute is for the “First author” place because most of
the articles are cited by the name of the first author. Conventionally, the extent of
involvement decides the order of authorship; for example, the person who has done the
majority of the groundwork would be considered eligible for being the first author (junior
researcher) and the person who planned and conceived the study would be the last author
(supervisor).

According to ICMJE [15], an author must satisfy these four criteria:.

1.Made substantial contributions to the design and conception of the study; data
collection, analysis, and interpretation.
2.Drafted or revised the intellectual content/ output.
3.Approved the final version of the manuscript for publication.
4.Agreed to be accountable for the research work, ensuring that queries related to
accuracy or integrity of the research are resolved.

PREDATORY PUBLISHERS AND JOURNALS

Jeffrey Beall, an American academic university librarian, first used the term ‘predatory’ in
the context of publishers and journals exploiting the author-pays business model of online
‘gold’ open-access publishing. Consequently, predatory publishing is sometimes confused
with non-predatory open-access publishing.

What is a predatory journal?

A predatory journal is a publication that actively asks researchers for manuscripts. They have
no peer review system and no true editorial board and are often found to publish mediocre or
even worthless papers. They also ask for huge publication charges.

Warning signs of fake journals, based on the 16 Principles of transparency:

1. Website: The journal’s website contains misleading or false information (eg, indexing,
metrics, membership of scholarly publishing organisations), lacks an ISSN or uses one that
has already been assigned to another publication, mimics another journal/publisher’s site, or
has no past or recent journal content.
2. Name of journal: The journal name is the same as or easily confused with that of another;
scope, or association.
3. Peer review process: Peer review and peer review process and model are not mentioned, or
manuscript acceptance or a very short peer review time is guaranteed. Submitted manuscripts
receive inadequate or no peer review.
4. Ownership and management: Information about the ownership and/or management is
missing, unclear, misleading, or false.
5. Governing body: Information on the editorial board is missing, misleading, false, or
inappropriate for the journal; full names and affiliations of editorial board members are
missing.
6. Editorial team/contact information: Full names and affiliations of the journal’s editor/s and
full contact information for the editorial office are missing, the editor-in-chief is also the
owner/publisher, or the editor-in-chief is also the editor of many other journals, especially in
unrelated fields.
7. Copyright and licensing: Policies and notices of copyright (and publishing licence and user
licence) are missing or unclear.
8. Author fees: Mandatory fees for publication are not stated or not explained clearly on the
journal website, submission system, or the letter of acknowledgement and/or are revealed
only in the acceptance letter, as a condition of acceptance.
9. Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct: There is
no description on how cases of alleged misconduct are handled.
10. Publication ethics: There are no policies on publishing ethics (eg, authorship/contributor
ship, data sharing and reproducibility, intellectual property, ethical oversight, conflicts of
interest, corrections/retractions).
11. Publishing schedule: The periodicity of publication is not indicated and/or the publishing
schedule appears erratic from the available journal content. Access: The way(s) in which
content is available to readers, and any associated costs, is not stated, and in some cases listed
articles are not available at all.
13. Archiving: There is no electronic backup and preservation of access to journal content
(despite such claims).
14. Revenue sources: Business models, business partnerships/agreements, or revenue sources
are not stated; publishing fees or waiver status are linked to editorial decision making.
15. Advertising: Advertising policy is not given, or advertisements are linked to editorial
decision making or are integrated with published content.
16. Direct marketing: Direct marketing is obtrusive and gives misleading or false
information.
ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP –
If a journal claims to be supporting Open Access then check if it is a member of either the
Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA) or the Directory of Open
Access Journals (DOAJ).
It’s also worth checking if they belong to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
which maintains a code of conduct for publishers.

A few things to look out for and signs that give away a bogus journal. Recently, the
Hyderabad-based OMICS Group, which publishes over 700 journals, was in the news for
its deceptive business practices.

The US-Federal Trade Commission charged OMICS with making false claims about peer
reviewing and listing editors who have not agreed to be associated with the journals.

The number of predatory journals is increasing day-by-day and also getting more difficult to
identify.

Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado in Denver, first coined the term
“predatory journals” and maintained a listing of predatory journals which was later taken
down.
Cabell’s International launched a revised version of the list called Cabell’s Blacklist, which
can be accessed for a fee at the company’s website. With over 4,000 predatory journals
(according to Cabell’s Blacklist), here are a few things to look out for and signs that give
away a bogus journal.