This book, ‘A Handbook of Research and Publication Ethics’, serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding and navigating the ethical dimensions of academic publishing. It is designed to address the multi faceted challenges faced by researchers, editors, peer reviewers, and institutions in maintaining ethical integrity in their work. By combining theoretical foundations with practical case studies and expert insights, the book aims to provide actionable strategies for upholding high ethical standards in research publication. This book is a ready reckoner for research scholars pursuing M.Phil. and Ph.D. The book also helps early-career researchers. It has 21 chapters with a focus on readability. Readers will explore topics, such as philosophy, ethics, research misconduct, authorship criteria, plagiarism, data fabrication and falsification, peer review ethics, conflicts of interest, and other emerging topics in research. Additionally, the book delves into the roles of transparency and accountability in fostering a trustworthy research environment. With its interdisciplinary approach and relevance to both early-career and seasoned professionals, this book aspires to be a cornerstone resource for promoting a culture of ethical awareness and responsibility within the academic community. Whether you are a researcher, educator, or policy-maker, this book offers valuable perspectives and tools to support ethical decision-making and advance scholarly integrity.
Prof. Yogendra Singh is a Professor and University Librarian at the Swami Rama Himalayan University, Dehradun. Before this assignment, he worked as a Chief Librarian at IIT, Roorkee in Senior Professor Status for almost two decades and as a Scientist in the Defence Research and Development Organization. Prof. Singh is a National Merit Scholar and is the recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship of the United States Government. Under the fellowship, he conducted research at the University of Maryland on the digitization of the Archives of the University of Roorkee (Now IIT, Roorkee). He has also worked at the University of Alberta, Canada in the capacity of Visiting Librarian. He is the recipient of the Best Librarian Awards from many professional bodies in the country. His main interests are the use of Information Technology in Library and Information Services, Database searching and evaluation, and bibliometric, scientometric, and socio-networking evaluation of research. He has conducted more than a hundred workshops and published more than twenty papers in this area. Prof. Singh has been teaching Research Publications and Ethics to the Ph.D. coursework students for the last seven years at Swami Rama Himalayan University and has summarized his experiences in this book.
Dr. Geeta Rana is an Associate Professor, in the Himalayan School of Management Studies at Swami Rama Himalayan University, Dehradun, India. She has earned her Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT, Roorkee) in Management. She is also an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management Rohtak (IIMR). She is engaged in teaching, research, and consultancy assignments. She has more than 20 years of experience in teaching and handling various administrative as well as academic positions. She has to her credit more than 65 papers published in referred ABDC category journals of Emerald, Sage, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, and Inderscience. She has also presented several research papers at national and international conferences. She has authored and edited many books published by Taylor & Francis, Nova Science, New Age Publications, etc. She has conducted and attended various workshops, FDPs, and MDPs in India and abroad on various research topics specifically research publication ethics. Dr. Rana is a recipient of many National and International awards. Her research interests include Managerial effectiveness, Employer branding, Organizational attractiveness, Green human resource management and Research ethics. She has been teaching Research Publication and Ethics to the Ph.D. coursework students at Swami Rama Himalayan University for the last many years. She is a corresponding author on this book.
Dr. Ravindra Sharma is an Assistant Professor in the Himalayan School of Management Studies at Swami Rama Himalayan University, Dehradun, India. He has earned his Ph.D. in Management from Uttarakhand Technical University, India. He holds master’s degrees in Business Administration (MBA) and Computer Applications (MCA). He also qualified University Grant Commission National Eligibility Test in Management (UGC-NET). Dr.Sharma has more than 16 years of corporate and academic experience. He has conducted many faculty development programs for the national and international audience. He has published more than 40 research papers in referred journals of Emerald, Sage, Springer, IGI Global, and Inderscience. He has published books in the area of employer branding, HR 4.0, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) with reputed publishers like Taylor Francis Group USA, Nova Science Publishers USA, and IRP Publication House India. Dr. Sharma has contributed 32 chapters in different books published in Springer, IGI Global, Tailor & Frances, and Palgrave Macmillan. He has presented research papers at national and international conferences. He has also attended a paper development workshop in the Indian Institute of Management Rohtak, India. He has been honored as a session chair and keynote speaker in international conferences in various universities. His research interests include employer branding, entrepreneurship, Industry 4.0, and Innovation.
1. Introduction to Ethics ..........................................................................1
2. Moral Philosophy ...............................................................................11
3. Moral Judgement ................................................................................15
4. Philosophy ...........................................................................................19
5. Ethics with Respect to Science and Research .................................37
6. Selective Reporting and Misrepresentation of Data ......................43
7. Integrity in Scientific Research .........................................................47
8. Intellectual Honesty and Research Integrity ..................................61
9. Publication Ethics ...............................................................................63
10. Publication Misconduct .....................................................................67
11. Violation of Publication Ethics, Authorship and Contributorship ..................................................................................83
12. Redundant Publications: Duplicate and Overlapping Publications, Salami Slicing ..............................................................87
13. An Introduction to COPE .................................................................95
14. Conflict of Interest ............................................................................101
15. How to Handle Authorship Dispute? ...........................................111
16. Falsification .......................................................................................125
17. Identification of Publication Misconduct, Complaints and Appeals ..............................................................................................129
18. Plagiarism in Research ....................................................................137
19. Predatory Publishers ........................................................................143
20. Open Access to Scholarly Literature .............................................155
21. Selecting a Right Journal .................................................................179
