EDITORIAL - Research Integrity and Scientific Misconduct

Anthony J. (Tony) Smith, Editor
J Dent Res 87(3):197, 2008
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Most institutions have policies and guidelines for research integrity and misconduct, but I wonder how many of us have read these? The fact that some countries have set up organizations to regulate research integrity perhaps reflects the level of concern about this issue. Our own regulatory controls—through IRB and ethical review committee approvals, national legislation, and peer review at the research publication stage—are clearly insufficient to prevent some researchers contemplating misconduct. Scientific journals now ask authors to make several declarations at submission about the integrity of their research, but nevertheless concerns remain. Many journals will have experienced plagiarism at some stage, and this highlights the differing attitudes to such misconduct (Brumfiel 2007; Yilmaz 2007). Collaborations with other researchers require a level of trust on both sides, and we should remember that when collaborative research is published, responsibility lies with all of the authors to ensure that the research has been conducted with the highest standards of integrity, and that all authors have had access to the primary data. Dual publication of data is also unacceptable, unless the previously published work is fully acknowledged, and similar caveats hold for the re-analysis of previously reported data.>>>

How Did Honor Evolve?

The biology of integrity

By David P. BARASH

The Chronicle Review,Volume 54, Issue 37, Page B11

P.S.- David P. Barash is an evolutionary biologist, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, and a frequent Chronicle contributor. He has never had to turn in any honor-code violators but has on occasion had the unpleasant task of dealing with them.

The Plagiarism Decision Process: The Role of Pressure and Rationalization

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 51, NO. 2, Page(s): 152-156, MAY 2008

Richard H. McCuen

Abstract — Plagiarism is more than just the failure to use quotation marks or to cite a paraphrased passage. Dual publishing, self-plagiarism, and ghost authorship are other forms of plagiarism. Plagiarism is generally viewed as an act when, in fact, it is a decision process. Five steps are used here to represent plagiarism as a decision process. Various forms of pressure act as stimuli to begin the process, and rationalization is used to justify the decision and to avoid feelings of regret. Education is necessary to decrease the likelihood that an individual will opt to plagiarize when faced with the opportunity. Considerations for education of graduate students and young faculty are discussed.

Index Terms — Decision making, dual publishing, education, ethics, ghost authorship, plagiarism, pressure, rationalization, self-plagiarism.

Guest Editorial - Plagiarism

Kaynak, O.; Braun, R.; Kennedy, I.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 51, NO. 2, MAY 2008

WELCOME to this special issue on plagiarism. One aim of this special issue is to sensitize academics, referees, authors, and editors to the need to watch for plagiarism. The issue contains ten interesting and insightful papers on the topic. We have included a good mix of practice and theory, program, and ethics. However, we were not convinced that a paper full of URLs pointing to all the paper mills was a good idea. Students also read the TRANSACTIONS!

Editor's note: Recent instances of author misconduct in Pramana

PRAMANA
Vol. 70 (No. 5), page 761, May 2008

Editor's note
The exploding nature of the amount of available scientific information indeed makes it a very demanding job for referees and editors to catch possible cases of plagiarism. While many cases are discovered during the refereeing process, some do slip through it. We are sorry that this has happened for Pramana in a few cases, in spite of the vigilance by referees and editors. In continuation of the Editorial discussing general Pramana policy on plagiarism, we would also like to comment on a few cases of scientific misconduct on the part of the authors that Pramana has had to deal with in the past few months.
Pramana did not escape being involved in the much discussed case of 65 papers withdrawn by the arXiv administrators (Cornell University) citing excessive overlap with materials published by others or the authors themselves. Two papers published in *Pramana (Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 239-247, August 2006; Vol. 68, No. 1, pp. 21-30, January 2007), were included in this list.
Pramana's own investigation, carried out with the help of Editorial Board Members concluded that 1. \. . . does not strictly qualify to be plagiarism for nothing is lifted verbatim, but it is certainly not also the case of the authors being unaware of the results . . . ". 2. . . . copied summary of discussion in parts - also acknowledged by authors. Looks like a case of minor plagiarism . . . ". Since we consider this as a form of plagiarism, we have asked the authors to publish an erratum in which appropriate references to the published material are cited when the discussion has had an overwhelming overlap with it.
In the second case (Pramana, Vol. 68, No. 6, pp. 995-999, June 2007; Vol. 69, No. 2, pp. 285-300, August 2007) we were alerted to overwhelming similarities with published material, by one of the authors of the plagiarized material. Pramana conducted its own investigation and confirmed 1. \. . . only the title, authors and acknowledgement are different but the whole text is plagiarized from - - -'s paper . . . ", 2. Clear case of plagiarism.
The competent authorities at the University (Dean, School of Physics, University of Malaysia) of the authors were informed, whereupon we found the disturbing news that the concerned authors were not members of the Institute they were claiming to be. These papers have been withdrawn by Pramana since then.
We have also uncovered instances where authors have submitted to Pramana a manuscript containing a part of the results presented in another manuscript submitted to another journal, prior to the submission to Pramana. This case of self-plagiarization was discovered already before publication, thanks to the vigilance of referees.
We would like to once again stress that Pramana takes a very serious view of such acts of plagiarization and indeed is bound to follow the steps laid out in the Editorial.


Rohini M Godbole
Editor
Pramana - J. Phys.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *See ERRATUM I & II <<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Ethical Policies and Procedures - APS

Ethical Policies Poster [printer-friendly PDF]

(Turkish Version and Chinese Version are also available)