Research & Publication Ethics

Paper Code: 
GEO145
Credits: 
2
Contact Hours: 
30.00
Max. Marks: 
100.00
Objective: 
To make students introduced with the philosophy and ethics of research and publication and to make them learn about scientific conduct of research and publication.To make them familiarized with the publication ethics, open access publishing, database and research metrics.
6.00
Unit I: 
Philosophy and Ethics
 Introduction to philosophy: definition; nature & scope; concept; branches
 Ethics: definition; moral philosophy; nature of moral judgements & reactions
 
6.00
Unit II: 
Scientific Conduct
 Ethics with respect to science & research, group discussion on subject specific ethical issues
 Intellectual honesty & research integrity
 Scientific misconducts: falsification, fabrication, & plagiarism (FPP), group discussion on subject specific FPP issues
 Redundant publications: duplicate & overlapping publications, salami slicing
 Selective reporting & misrepresentation of data
6.00
Unit III: 
Publication Ethics
 Publication ethics: definition, introduction & importance
 Best practices/standard setting initiative & guidelines: COPE, WAME etc
 Conflicts of interest, group discussions on conflicts of interest
 Publication misconducts: definition, concept, problems that lead to unethical behaviour & vice versa, types
 Violation of publication ethics, authorship & contributor-ship, group discussion on subject specific authorship issues
 Identification of publication misconduct, complaints & appeals, group discussion on examples and fraud from India & abroad
 Predatory Publishers & journals
6.00
Unit IV: 
Open Access Publishing
 Open access publications & initiatives SHERPA/RoMEO online resource to check publisher copyright & self-archiving policies
 Journal finder/journal suggestion tools viz. JANE, Elsevier Journal Finder, Springer Journal Suggester etc.
 Software tools developed by SPPU to identify predatory publications
 Software tools: use of plagiarism software like Turnitin, Urkund, and other open source software tools.
6.00
Unit V: 
Databases & Research Metrics
 Indexing databases
 Citation databases: Web of Science, Scopus, etc.
 Impact Factor of journal as per Journal Citation Report, SNIP, SJR, IPP, Cite Score
 Metrics: h-index, g index, i10 index, altmetrics.
Academic Year: 
2023-2024