Unit 3
Unit 3
Ethics: definition; Ethics with respect to science and research - intellectual honesty
and research integrity; Scientific misconducts: Falsification, Fabrication and Plagiarism
(FFP); Redundant publications: duplicate and overlapping publications, salami slicing;
Selective reporting and misrepresentation of data; Publication ethics: introduction and
importance; Standards setting initiatives and guidelines: COPE, WAME; Conflicts of
interest. Publication misconduct: definition, concept, unethical behaviour; Violation of
publication ethics, authorship and contributor ship; Identification, complaints and
appeals; Predatory publisher and journals.
Ethics
• Everybody in their everyday life attempts to behave from certain
perspectives laid out moral standards. This philosophical idea has various
applications in an individual's reality.
• Morals is concerned with the meaning of good and bad. It clarifies ways of
thinking that teach us the proper behaviour in a given circumstance, which
has forever involved dispute between savants.
• Each thinker has characterized it as indicated by their own emotional
understanding. While epistemology is worried about what we should accept
and how we should reason.
• Ethics is worried about what we should do, how we should live, and how
we should coordinate our networks. Unfortunately, it shocks numerous
new truth seekers that can reason about things like this. Strictly propelled
sees about ethical quality frequently take right and wrong to be only a
question of what is instructed by a heavenly being.
• Moral Relativism, maybe the most prominent attitude among individuals
who have dismissed confidence, essentially substitutes the orders of society
for the orders of God.
• Considering ethical quality as far as whose orders are definitive rules out
level headed investigation into how we should live, how we should treat
others, or how we should structure our networks.
• Reasoning, then again, treats in a serious way the chance of objective
request into these issues.
• The long furthermore, troublesome history of science ought to provide us
with some modest acknowledgment of how troublesome and
disappointing cautious request and examination can be.
• The way of thinking of science, for example, is worried about magical
issues about what science is, yet in addition with epistemological inquiries
concerning how we can know logical insights.
• The way of thinking of affection is also worried about magical inquiries
concerning what love is. However, it additionally worried about inquiries
regarding the worth of adoration that are more moral in character.
Ethics Defined
❖ A discipline dealing with what is proper course of action for
man (Aristotle, cit in Mckeon,1941)
❖ A branch of philosophy that looks at what is good and what
is bad
❖ A system of obligation that we have towards others
❖ Also known as moral philosophy, involves, systematising,
defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong
behaviour (www.iep.utm.edu/ethics)
❖ A study of principles guiding the good of the individual within
the context of social interactions and the community
Type of Ethics - Defined
Meta Ethics: “is a branch of analytic
philosophy that explores the status,
foundations, and scope of moral values,
properties, and words” Source:
https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k
/docs/Meta-ethics.html
Kant (1724-1804)
Aristotle
(384-322 Siddhartha rightness of an action
BC) – Socrates Gautama is determined by the
proposed a (469-399) (563-480 BC) character of the
theory of principle that a
virtue person chooses to act
upon
Ethics Evolution
Bentham (1781)
–Principle of utility –
Martin Luther King Fanon (1925-1961)
diapproves or
Mahatma Ghandi African
approves of every Nelson Mandela
(1869 – 1948) philosophy,
action according to (1918-2013) humaneness
tendency to augment
or diminish happiness
What is Research Ethics?
• Ethics are the set of rules that govern our expectations of our own and
others’ behavior.
• Research ethics are the set of ethical guidelines that guides us on how
scientific research should be conducted and disseminated.
• Research ethics govern the standards of conduct for scientific researchers
.
• It is the guideline for responsibly conducting the research.
• Research that implicates human subjects or contributors rears distinctive
and multifaceted ethical, legitimate, communal and administrative
concerns.
• Research ethics is unambiguously concerned in the examination of ethical
issues that are upraised when individuals are involved as participants in
the study.
• Research ethics committee/Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviews
whether the research is ethical enough or not to protect the rights, dignity
and welfare of the respondents.
What is ethics? What is Research?
What exactly is
research Ethics?
Research Ethics
Joan E. Sieber
Planning Ethically Responsible Research, p. 3
Research Ethics
Jeff Cooper
Albany Medical Center, Ethical Decision Making, 2001, p. 1
Research Ethics
Jeff Cooper
Albany Medical Center, Ethical Decision Making, 2001, p. 1
Research Ethics
1. Deductive Reasoning
Jeff Cooper
Albany Medical Center, Ethical Decision Making, 2001, p. 2
Research Ethics
Univesality and
Scientific Rigour (truth is
objectivity (explicit rules
accepted if there is
Key Features and systematic
sufficient evidence to
procedures)
support claims made of Scientific - Research should be
through the research
process. Such claims have
Research designed in a manner that
allows any competent
to withstand the scrutiny of
researcher to conduct a
repeated testing)
similar study and generate
the same findings
tence
m p e Justice
Co Non-maleficen
Integrity ce
Dignity
Honesty Privacy
Principles of Research Ethics
The general principles of research ethics are:
• Honesty
o Being honest with the beneficiaries and respondents.
o Being honest about the findings and methodology of the research.
o Being honest with other direct and indirect stakeholders.
• Integrity
o Ensuring honesty and sincerity.
o Fulfilling agreements and promises.
o Do not create false expectations or make false promises.
• Objectivity
o Avoiding bias in experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation,
peer review, and other aspects of research.
• Informed consent
o Informed consent means that a person knowingly, voluntarily and
intelligently gives consent to participate in a research.
o Informed consent is related to the autonomous right of the individual to
participate in the research.
o Informing the participant about the research objective, their role,
benefits/harms (if any) etc.
Principles of Research Ethics
• The general principles of research ethics are:
• Respect for person/respondent
o Autonomy, which requires that those who are capable of deliberation about
their personal goals should be treated with respect for their capacity for
self-determination; and
o Protection of persons with impaired or diminished autonomy, which requires
that those who are dependent or vulnerable be afforded security against harm
or abuse.
• Beneficence
o Maximize the benefits of the participants. Ethical obligation to maximize
possible benefits and to minimize possible harms to the respondents.
• Non-maleficence/ Protecting the subjects (human)
o Do no harm. Minimize harm/s or risks to the human. Ensure privacy, autonomy
and dignity.
• Responsible publication
o Responsibly publishing to promote and uptake research or knowledge. No
duplicate publication.
• Protecting anonymity
o It means keeping the participant anonymous. It involves not revealing the name,
caste or any other information about the participants that may reveal his/her
identity.
Principles of Research Ethics
• The general principles of research ethics are:
• Confidentiality
▪ Protecting confidential information, personnel records. It includes
information such as:
o Introduction and objective of the research
o Purpose of the discussion
o Procedure of the research
o Anticipated advantages, benefits/harm from the research (if any)
o Use of research
o Their role in research
o Right to refuse or withdraw
o Methods which will be used to protect anonymity and confidentiality of
the participant
o Freedom to not answer any question/withdraw from the research
o Who to contact if the participant needs additional information about
the research.
Principles of Research Ethics
• The general principles of research ethics are:
• Non-discrimination
o Avoid discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, ethnicity or
other factors that are violation of human rights and are not
related to the study.
• Openness
o Be open to sharing results, data and other resources. Also accept
encouraging comments and constructive feedback.
• Carefulness and respect for intellectual property
o Be careful about the possible error and biases.
o Give credit to the intellectual property of others. Always
paraphrase while referring to others article, writing. Never
plagiarize.
• Justice
o The obligation to distribute benefits and burdens fairly, to treat
equals equally, and to give reasons for differential treatment
based on widely accepted criteria for just ways to distribute
benefits and burdens.
Broad Categorization of Research
Ethics
1. MINIMIZING THE RISK OF HARM
2. OBTAINING INFORMED CONSENT
3. PROTECTING ANONYMITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY
4. AVOIDING MISLEADING PRACTICES
5. PROVIDING THE RIGHT TO WITHDRAW
Broad Categorization of Research
Ethics
1. MINIMIZING THE RISK OF HARM
• It is necessary to minimize any sort of harm to the participants.
There are a number of forms of harm that participants can be
exposed to. They are:
o Bodily harm to contributors.
o Psychological agony and embarrassment.
o Social drawback.
o Violation of participant’s confidentiality and privacy.
• In order to minimize the risk of harm, the researcher/data
collector should:
o Obtain informed consent from participants.
o Protecting anonymity and confidentiality of participants.
o Avoiding misleading practices when planning research.
o Providing participants with the right to withdraw.
Broad Categorization of Research
Ethics
2. OBTAINING INFORMED CONSENT
• One of the fundamentals of research ethics is the notion of informed
consent.
• Informed consent means that a person knowingly, voluntarily and
intelligently gives consent to participate in a research.
Informed consent means that the participants should be well-informed about
the:
o Introduction and objective of the research
o Purpose of the discussion
o Anticipated advantages, benefits/harm from the research (if any)
o Use of research
o Their role in research
o Methods which will be used to protect anonymity and confidentiality of the participant
o Freedom to not answer any question/withdraw from the research
o Who to contact if the participant need additional information about the research
Broad Categorization of Research
Ethics
3. PROTECTING ANONYMITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY
Protecting the anonymity and confidentiality of research participants is an
additionally applied constituent of research ethics.
▪ Protecting anonymity: It means keeping the participant anonymous. It
involves not revealing the name, caste or any other information about
the participants that may reveal his/her identity.
▪ Maintaining confidentiality: It refers to ensuring that the information
given by the participant are confidential and not shared with anyone,
except the research team. It is also about keeping the information
secretly from other people.
4. To avoid litigation
– In a scenario where a proposal is classified as Ethics
Category 1 (exempt from Ethics and Biosafety Research
Committee Review) liability and responsibility arising from
decisions based on ethics are shouldered by the FRC and
its members.
Six Fundamental Ethical Principles for
Scientific Research
Attribution of credit
Scientists should not plagiarise the work of other
scientists. They should give credit where credit is due
but not where it is not due.
Six Fundamental Ethical Principles for
Scientific Research
Public responsibility
Scientists should report research in the public media
when the research has an important and direct bearing
on human happiness and when the research has been
sufficiently validated by scientific peers.
Ethical considerations for scientific
conduct
Prevention:
•Rigorous Peer Review: Peer review processes aim to detect misconduct
before publication.
•Ethical Training: Many institutions require researchers to undergo training
in responsible research conduct.
•Transparency in Research: Open data, materials, and methods allow for
better scrutiny of research findings.
Redundant publications:
duplicate and overlapping publications,
salami slicing
•Examples:
• Only publishing favorable results while withholding unfavorable data
that doesn’t support the hypothesis (also known as "cherry-picking").
• Reporting only statistically significant results without mentioning
non-significant findings from the same study.
• Failing to disclose secondary or exploratory analyses that contradict
the primary findings.
•Examples:
• Data manipulation: Adjusting data points or statistical analyses to achieve
desired results (e.g., rounding numbers, removing outliers without
justification).
• Misleading graphs or visuals: Creating visual representations of data that
exaggerate differences, such as by manipulating the scales of graphs.
• P-hacking: Conducting multiple statistical tests until significant results are
found, then reporting only those results, even if they are due to chance.
▪ Intentional plagiarism
▪ a writer knowingly lifts text directly from other authors’ work without
giving appropriate credit.
▪ Duplicate publication
▪ an author submits for publication a previously published work as if it were
original.
▪ Self-plagiarism
▪ a writer copies large parts of an earlier manuscript word for word into a
new manuscript.
▪ can occur when individuals pursue large programs of research over many
years on the same topic, so they are constantly building on their own work
and in their own language.
Protecting against plagiarism
▪ Concerns the appropriate acknowledgement (not too much or too little) of collaborators’
substantial contributions to a piece of scholarly work.
▪ An ethical issue that appears frequently in scientific work because collaboration is the norm, not
the exception.
▪ Working alone means less productivity
▪ Working alone means having to do every thing well
▪ Collaboration means sharing workload, complementing skills, broadening the domain of
interest
▪ Recognizing co-author contributions appropriately be difficult to deal with because the correct
attribution of credit sounds easy but is hard to identify in practice.
▪ Making co-authorship decisions is important because on the one hand co-authorship confers
credit to individuals for their contribution to academic tasks, which can have academic, social,
and financial implications; but on the other hand, co-authorship also implies responsibility and
accountability for published works.
Four ethical issues relating to
co-authorship
1. Coercion authorship
▪ Occurs when intimidation is used to gain authorship credit, such as
when a senior person pressures a more junior person to include the
senior person’s name on a paper to which he or she has not
contributed enough to qualify for authorship.
2. Gift authorship
▪ Occurs when individuals are given recognition as co-authors without
having made substantial contributions, often for reasons like
acknowledging friendship, gaining favour, or giving the paper more
legitimacy by adding well-known senior researchers to the list of
authors.
Four ethical issues relating to
co-authorship
4. Ghost authorship
▪ Occurs when papers are written by people who are not included as
authors or are not acknowledged. A typical form of ghost authorship
involves using or hiring professional scientific writers, perhaps
because the researchers feel they cannot write “well” or
“scientifically.”
Managing co-authorship
▪ Professor Smith’s lab collaborated with a high profile lab group in Sweden that had
already engineered and published the correct gene construct to express chitin in vitro,
and who sent some of their materials to help Professor Smith’s team.
▪ Professor Smith’s post-doc, Mary, did the majority of the lab work, staying late and
working long hours to get the necessary data. A final year PhD student, Jiang, and a
technician, Oliver, both helped Mary do some of the technical work.
▪ Professor Smith did not write any of the paper, but reviewed and edited Mary’s drafts
that she sent to him. He is writing the cover letter and submitting the paper to Nature.
▪ Mary wrote the bulk of the paper but for the Introduction she used paragraphs of text
directly from Jiang’s unsubmitted, draft thesis.
Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and
Software
supporting algorithms; testing of existing code
Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/ reproducibility of results/experiments
Validation
and other research outputs
Formal analysis Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data
Investigation Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection
Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing
Resources
resources, or other analysis tools
Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code,
Data Curation
where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse
Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive
Writing - Original Draft
translation)
Writing - Review & Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically
Editing critical review, commentary or revision – including pre-or postpublication stages
Visualization Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/ data presentation
Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to
Supervision
the core team
Project administration Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution
Funding acquisition Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication
Managing co-authorship: Communicate
early and openly
▪ Significant results increase the chance of being published but when published data are
biased, data synthesis might lead to flawed conclusions.
▪ Means that we do not know if the strength of the relationship found is purely an
artifact of the sample, the
analytical method used, or legitimate judgment
calls made by the researcher.
Recommendations for honest reporting
▪ Refers to the wording of scientific reports so they are not biased in terms of
gender, race, orientation, culture, or any other characteristics.
▪ Guidelines:
▪ Specificity
▪ describe specific behaviours rather than stereotypes: e.g., calling a behavior
“dominant and opinionated” instead of “typically male”.
▪ Labelling
▪ Refer to concrete labels rather than abstract class tags, e.g., referring to countries’
populations—Mexicans or Chinese—instead of classes like “Hispanics” or “Asians”
▪ Professional acknowledgments
▪ Use professional classifications, not personal labels, like “medical practitioner” or “doctor”
instead of “female doctor.”
Responding to Allegations of Possible
Misconduct
• Journals should have a clear policy on handling concerns or allegations
about misconduct, which can arise regarding authors, reviewers, editors,
and others. Journals do not have the resources or authority to conduct a
formal judicial inquiry or arrive at a formal conclusion regarding
misconduct. That process is the role of the individual's employer,
university, granting agency, or regulatory body. However, journals do have
a responsibility to help protect the integrity of the public scientific record
by sharing reasonable concerns with authorities who can conduct such an
investigation.
•
• Deception may be deliberate, by reckless disregard of possible
consequences, or by ignorance. Since the underlying goal of misconduct is
to deliberately deceive others as to the truth, the journal's preliminary
investigation of potential misconduct must take into account not only the
particular act or omission, but also the apparent intention (as best it can
be determined) of the person involved. Misconduct does not include
unintentional error.
Responding to Allegations of Possible
Misconduct
• The most common forms of scientific misconduct include (the following
are taken with minor modification from the ORI publication Analysis of
Institutional Policies for Responding to Allegations of Scientific Misconduct
[http://ori.dhhs.gov/html/polanal2.htm, full report in PDF format,
accessed 3/13/04]):
• Falsification of data: ranges from fabrication to deceptive selective
reporting of findings and omission of conflicting data, or willful
suppression and/or distortion of data.
• Plagiarism: The appropriation of the language, ideas, or thoughts of
another without crediting their true source, and representation of them as
one's own original work.
• Improprieties of authorship: Improper assignment of credit, such as
excluding others, misrepresentation of the same material as original in
more than one publication, inclusion of individuals as authors who have
not made a definite contribution to the work published; or submission of
multi-authored publications without the concurrence of all authors.
Responding to Allegations of Possible
Misconduct
• Misappropriation of the ideas of others: an important aspect of scholarly activity is the exchange
of ideas among colleagues. Scholars can acquire novel ideas from others during the process of
reviewing grant applications and manuscripts. However, improper use of such information can
constitute fraud. Wholesale appropriation of such material constitutes misconduct.
• Violation of generally accepted research practices: Serious deviation from accepted practices in
proposing or carrying out research, improper manipulation of experiments to obtain biased
results, deceptive statistical or analytical manipulations, or improper reporting of results.
• Material failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements affecting
research: Including but not limited to serious or substantial, repeated, willful violations of
applicable local regulations and law involving the use of funds, care of animals, human subjects,
investigational drugs, recombinant products, new devices, or radioactive, biologic, or chemical
materials.
• Inappropriate behavior in relation to misconduct: this includes unfounded or knowingly false
accusations of misconduct, failure to report known or suspected misconduct, withholding or
destruction of information relevant to a claim of misconduct and retaliation against persons
involved in the allegation or investigation.
• Deliberate misrepresentation of qualifications, experience, or research accomplishments to
advance the research program, to obtain external funding, or for other professional
advancement.
•
Responses to possible misconduct
• Journals should have an explicit policy describing the process by which they will respond to
allegations of misconduct. The process described in the following 2 paragraphs is an example
of a policy for an individual journal:
• All allegations of misconduct will be referred to the Editor-In-Chief, who will review the
circumstances in consultation with the deputy editors. Initial fact-finding will usually include a
request to all the involved parties to state their case, and explain the circumstances, in
writing. In questions of research misconduct centering on methods or technical issues, the
Editor-In-Chief may confidentially consult experts who are blinded to the identity of the
individuals, or if the allegation is against an editor, an outside editor expert. The
Editor-In-Chief and deputy editors will arrive at a conclusion as to whether there is enough
evidence to lead a reasonable person to believe there is a possibility of misconduct. Their goal
is not to determine if actual misconduct occurred, or the precise details of that misconduct.
• When allegations concern authors, the peer review and publication process for the
manuscript in question will be halted while the process above is carried out. The investigation
described above will be completed even if the authors withdraw their paper, and the
responses below will still be considered. In the case of allegations against reviewers or
editors, they will be replaced in the review process while the matter is investigated.
• All such allegations should be kept confidential; the number of inquiries and those involved
should be kept to the minimum necessary to achieve this end. Whenever possible,
references to the case in writing should be kept anonymous.
Responses to possible misconduct
• Journals have an obligation to readers and patients to ensure that their published research is both
accurate and adheres to the highest ethical standard. Therefore, if the inquiry concludes there is a
reasonable possibility of misconduct, responses should be undertaken, chosen in accordance with the
apparent magnitude of the misconduct. Responses may be applied separately or combined, and their
implementation should depend on the circumstances of the case as well as the responses of the
participating parties and institutions.
The following options are ranked in approximate order of severity:
• A letter of explanation (and education) sent only to the person against whom the complaint is made,
where there appears to be a genuine and innocent misunderstanding of principles or procedure.
• A letter of reprimand to the same party, warning of the consequences of future such instances, where
the misunderstanding appears to be not entirely innocent.
• A formal letter as above, including a written request to the supervising institution that a investigation be
carried out and the findings of that inquiry reported in writing to the journal.
• Publication of a notice of redundant or duplicate publication or plagiarism, if appropriate (and
unequivocally documented). Such publication will not require approval of authors, and should be
reported to their institution.
• Formal withdrawal or retraction of the paper from the scientific literature, published in the journal,
informing readers and the indexing authorities (National Library of Medicine, etc), if there is a formal
finding of misconduct by an institution. Such publication will not require approval of authors, should be
reported to their institution, and should be readily visible and identifiable in the journal. It should also
meet other requirements established by the International Committee of Journal Editors (accessed
12/2/03). It is recommended that editors inform readers and authors of their reservation of the right to
publish a retraction if it meets these conditions, thereby helping decrease arguments with authors.
• Editors or reviewers who are found to have engaged in scientific misconduct should be removed from
further association with the journal, and this fact reported to their institution.
Principles of Transparency and Best
Practice in Scholarly Publishing
Introduction
• The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access
Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and
the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) are scholarly organizations that
have collaborated to identify principles of transparency and best practice for
scholarly publications.
• Editorial decisions should be based on scholarly merit. They should not be affected
by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs,
race, or religion of the authors. Journals should ensure no policies create an
exclusionary environment for anyone wanting to engage with the journal and should
regularly assess their policies for inclusivity.
• Journal content (Name of journal, Website, Publishing schedule, Archiving,
Copyright, Licensing)
• Journal practices (Publication ethics, Peer review, Access)
• Organization (Ownership and management, Advisory body, Editorial team/contact
information)
• Business practices (Author fees, Other revenue, Advertising, Direct marketing)
• Translations (Português, Bengali, Prevod, Latin American Spanish [version 3.0])
Principles of Transparency and Best
Practice in Scholarly Publishing
Journal content Organization
1. Name of journal 10. Ownership and management
2. Website 11. Advisory body
3. Publishing schedule 12. Editorial team/contact information
4. Archiving
5. Copyright Business practices
6. Licensing 13. Author fees
14. Other revenue
Journal practices 15. Advertising
7. Publication ethics and related 16. Direct marketing
editorial policies
8. Peer review
9. Access