Author: Kishor Patwardhan, Faculty of Ayurveda, IMS, BHU

1. Publication Ethics
Kishor Patwardhan
Professor, Department of Kriya Sharir, Faculty of Ayurveda, Institute of Medical
Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi

2. Where to Publish your research work?
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3. What is a ‘Good’ journal?
(Minimum essential requirements)
 Must be available online
(Searchable/Easy to locate/share)
 Must be ‘Peer-reviewed’ (Refereed)
 Must be indexed with some widely consulted
database (e.g., PubMed Central, Medline, Web of
Science, Scopus)
 Google Scholar is NOT an indexing database
3http://the-aps.org/trainees/Symposia/2010%20talks/Barrett-web.ppt

4. ‘Better’ journal
(Optional requirements):
 Has got a good Impact Factor
 ‘International’ (Editorial Board must be of International
character)
 Has got good SNIP/SJR ranking/Cite-Score
 It is an ‘Open Access’ journal (Sometimes a requirement)
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5. ‘Convenient’:
 Takes minimum time for editorial decision
 Provides easy online submission process, /manuscript tracking
facility
 Known Acceptance Rate
 No article processing fee / color printing charges/ reprint
charges / submission fee
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6. Be careful with
 Fake Impact Factors / Fake Journal Metrics
 ‘Author Pays’ model of Open Access
 Fake Peer-Review process
 Don’t fall prey to ‘Call for papers’
 Claims such as ‘Under the process of PubMed indexing’
 Claims such as ‘Indexed in Elsevier’
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7. www.scholarlyoa.com
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8. Bogus journal metrics (Examples)
 Advanced Science Index
 Directory of Journal Quality Factor
 International Scientific Indexing
 International Impact Factor Services
 GISI Impact Factor
 Global Impact Factor
 Universal Impact Factor
 SJIF Impact Factor
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9. Authorship
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10. Responsibilities of an author
 Originality
 Good record keeping
 Integrity, Honesty, Objectivity
 Openness / Transparency
 Respect for IPR
 Declaring Conflict of interest/ Disclosures
 Submitting Copyright Agreements
 Obtaining Consent to reuse published content
 Responsibility (Corrections/ Withdrawing/ Retracting)
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11. Authorship
 First Author:
 The one who has carried out the actual work, and has
written the manuscript
 Corresponding Author (Usually the senior most/last author):
 The one who originally conceived the study, planned it and
approved the final manuscript to be published
 Second/ third/.. authors:
 Who helped in carrying out the work and also in manuscript
preparation

12. What about…..
 Those who did not contribute to your study, but helped you in
writing the manuscript ?
 Those who contributed to your study, but did not help you in
writing the manuscript ?
 Acknowledgement?
 Author?

13. Authorship: Ethical considerations
Included in
acknowledgments
InvolvementinStudy
Involvement with Manuscript
High
High
Low
Low
Cramer and Rieger, 2001
Included in
acknowledgments
NOT included in
acknowledgments:
NOT listed as author
List as author

14. Responding to reviewer comments
 Corresponding author’s responsibility
 Revise manuscript thoroughly as per reviewer
recommendations
 Follow reviewers’ instructions as far as possible
 Deny politely, if you must
 Give your point- by- point response
 Highlight the changes in the manuscript with yellow color
 Re-submit only after consulting your co-authors
 Stick to the time frame
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15. What if reviewers fail to detect some
errors?
 Errors may be detected after the publication
 Authors are encouraged to write to the editor if they find errors
after publication
 Communicate the sufficiently detailed Erratum to rectify the
errors.
 http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/errata.html
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16. Violations of Research Ethics
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17. Falsification: German cancer research case
 In 1998, German research funding agency looked at 347 papers
published by two researchers, F.Herrmann and M.Brach.
 It concluded that 29 of these contained falsified material and found
evidence of data manipulation leading to a suspicion of fraud in a
further 65 papers.
 In most cases the falsification of illustrations of blood and other cells
was noted.
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https://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/pn182.pdf

18. 18

19. Fabrication: The Pearce case
 In August 1996, Malcom Pearce, published a paper in the British
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
 He claimed to have rescued an ectopic pregnancy by transferring it
into the uterus.
 The ‘patient’ did never exist!
 Four other fraudulent papers were discovered after investigation,
two of which had been published in the BMJ.
 Pearce was struck off by the General Medical Council.
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https://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/pn182.pdf

20. Plagiarism: US National Science Foundation
 A researcher was asked to peer review a proposal for research,
which was later rejected on the basis of his comments.
 This reviewer subsequently submitted his own research proposal
to another funding body, which was accepted for funding.
 This proposal was found to have plagiarised the original
proposal.
 The researcher had submitted a number of other research
proposals plagiarised from proposals he had been asked to peer
review.
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https://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/pn182.pdf

21. Other forms of Violation of research ethics:
 Failure to disclose conflicts of interest: A study conducted in 1986
found that 96% of studies had financial relations with the drug
manufacturer.
 Multiple Submissions: Simultaneous submission of same paper to
multiple journals
 Redundant / Duplicate publication (Duplicate publication/
undisclosed publication)
 Authors publish the same paper in a number of different
journals
Suggesting Bogus Reviewers: Giving an alternative email id of the
author so that the author himself becomes a reviewer 21

22. Guest authorship:
 Including an author only because it may improve the chances of
acceptance
 The senior author (Geoffrey Chamberlain) on the ‘ectopic pregnancy’
paper had to resign from a number of senior positions.
 Ghost Authorship: Actual author’s name not included
 Anonymous Authorship: Publishing with pseudonym
 Surrogate authorship: Publishing someone else’s work in one’s
own name
 Gift Authorship: Adding the name of the spouse/ friend as
author
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23. Salami Slicing
 Publishing the same data in different forms in different journals
 Effect of Indian gooseberry on hyperglycemia in type-2 DM
 Biomedical journal
 Effect of Amalaki in Madhumeha with special reference to Prakriti
 Ayurveda journal
 Interferes in meta analyses as the same cases will be duplicated
 Ethical only if the data is too huge and each paper addresses substantially
different questions
 Editors must be informed in all such cases regarding prior publications
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24.  Editors’ Responsibilities
 Journal Owners’ Responsibilities
 Publisher’s Responsibilities
 Reviewers’ Responsibilities
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25. Further Reading:
 https://publicationethics.org/
 https://pubpeer.com/
 https://retractionwatch.com/
 http://www.icmje.org/
 http://www.wame.org/