What is the extent of research ethics in today's race of publication. Do researchers possess ethical orientation or compromise ethics to publish voluminous papers.
Dear Bodh R Sharma:
Thank you for the invitation to this discussion and following my discussion:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Exists_the_next_situation_when_an_outsider_researcher_who_has_achieved_a_very_encouraging_result_in_earthquake_forecasting_is_not_supported
You know well my response from it... Any nice words about it are far from reality ... I don't want to talk about a negative tone ...
Regards, Laszlo
This is apparent, the quality of research is deteriorating with the increasing competition of the publishers to siphon-off money from the authors, who also focus on publishing by hook or crook and are willing to pay for it rather putting their all efforts on valuable work. This seems only applicable to newly flourishing journals who are trapping the researchers by cloning the journal name of highly reputed journals, without Scopus indexed.............
Interesting question my dear colleague,
All that Ganaie Tawseef said might be true of course, I tend to think about research ethics from the perspective of the human 'ethos', i.e. the distinguishing character of a researcher that guides behaviour. I decided to become a researcher and enjoy if I can publish results that deepens scientific debates I am involved in. Of course, there are external - career, funding etc. - pressures as well, but basically, I see the publication of results as one of the ways to engage in discussions with colleagues. hope this helps, vincent
Yes, I feel that the ethical values the researcher inherits have a great impact on his/her overall personality and the same gets reflected in the research work. I wish that being a part of elite humanity, we as a researcher must set our own standards in contributing quality research for the betterment of our society and tranquality in life.
https://www.academia.edu/9418437/Th_Deterioration_of_Ethical_aspects_in_Higher_Education
Dear Bodh R Sharma:
Thank you for the invitation to this discussion and following my discussion:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Exists_the_next_situation_when_an_outsider_researcher_who_has_achieved_a_very_encouraging_result_in_earthquake_forecasting_is_not_supported
You know well my response from it... Any nice words about it are far from reality ... I don't want to talk about a negative tone ...
Regards, Laszlo
Some researchers ignore legal issues pertaining to regulatory bodies. Various regulatory bodies have been constituted to uphold the safety of subjects involved in research. It is imperative to obtain approval from the appropriate regulatory authorities before proceeding to any research. The constitution and the types of these bodies vary nation-wise. The researchers are expected to be aware of these authorities and the list of various bodies pertinent to India are listed in the article “Research methodology II” of this issue. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5037952/
Overlapping publications. Duplicate publications violate international copyright laws and waste valuable resources. Such publications can distort evidence-based medicine by double-counting of data when inadvertently included in meta-analyses.[16] This practice could artificially enlarge one's scientific work, distorting apparent productivity and may give an undue advantage when competing for research funding or career advancement.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5037952/
Salami publication. Slicing of data from a single research process into different pieces creating individual manuscripts from each piece to artificially increase the publication volume. Such misconduct may lead to retraction of articles. Transparent disclosure is important when submitting papers to journals to declare if the manuscript or related material has been published or submitted elsewhere, so that the editor can decide how to handle the submission or to seek further clarification. Further information on acceptable secondary publication can be found in the ICMJE ‘Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publishing of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals’.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5037952/
Bodh R Sharma
Dear Researcher,
Thank you for such a relevant question.
This is the age when everything is measured in terms of numbers. A few months ago, I came to know about a research guide who claimed to have written 92 publications. I am sorry for my rudeness, but it is a fact that out of those 92 publications, I thought 91.5 were pure unnecessary material. I thought a lot about this incident and then realized that we are obsessed with numbers. Quality seems to be a forbidden concept because it is difficult to measure it. It is rather easy to maintain quantity. So every human being in this planet is running after quantity. But to maintain quantity is also challenging from some angles. We need to be physically fit, have perseverance and patience and find adventure and excitement in the same boring job everyday. But acceptance of unethical means helps to mitigate with those challenges. That's why researchers are compromising with ethics.
Naresh Kumar Sharma and Chinaza Godswill Awuchi also opined in the same line.
I agree with them. Vincent Blok brought in a significant point here. He said that he wanted enjoyment in research. Today most researchers do not enjoy what they are doing and so they are forced to accept unethical means to keep pace.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Anamitra.
I appreciate your valuable eye opening insights. All must read it foredeveloping ethical orientation I n research by unravelling unethical acts in research. Good research is pulled by publishers and never pushed through the money power or social influences.
De novo data invention (fabrication) and manipulation of data (falsification) constitute serious scientific misconduct. The true prevalence of scientific fraud is difficult to measure (2%–14%).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5037952/
The importance of evaluating studies numerically in the academic environment is a negative development in terms of ethics.
Der Prof. Sharma!
This is a very important issue you target. Especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic:
1) van der Graaf, R., Hoogerwerf, M. & de Vries, M.C. The ethics of deferred consent in times of pandemics. Nature Medicine 26, 1328–1330 (2020). Open Access © 2020 Springer Nature Limited, Available at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0999-9
2) Maissa Safieddine & Radwan Kassier (2020). "COVID 19 and the race to publish: an ethical issue" BJS, Volume 107, Issue 11, October 2020, Citation: "Publishers are overwhelmed by an avalanche of articles, some of which are of average quality. In 5 months, the number of publications related to COVID‐19 is already more than triple that of the number of publications on HIV in the last 20 years. This overproduction of average quality papers is currently polluting the overall medical knowledge on the subject and could lead to a prolongation of the pandemic by slowing down the publication of more relevant articles and diluting the information pool." Open Access © 2020 BJS Society Ltd. Available at:
https://bjssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bjs.11966
3) Seema K. Shah et al. (2020). "Ethics of controlled human infection to address COVID-19" Policy Forum Science 22 May 2020: Vol. 368, Issue 6493 Open Access © 2020 American Association for the Advancement of Science, Available at: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6493/832
4) Urs Gasser PhD (2020). "Digital tools against COVID-19: taxonomy, ethical challenges, and navigation aid" Citation: "Given the magnitude of this pandemic and the ever-evolving nature of these technological solutions, the continuous monitoring and flexible adaptation of the aid to specific contexts might be required." The Lancet Digital Health Volume 2, Issue 8, August 2020, Open Access © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd., Available at:
Article Digital tools against COVID-19: taxonomy, ethical challenges...
I conclude that the growing instability of global economic & policy environment as a result of spreading of coronavirus might force in some cases to make further compromises when conducting scientific research to save as many human lives as possible. Yours sincerely, Bulcsu Szekely
Dear Bodh R Sharma,
A very good and timely discussion. In an effort to publish papers, and the quest for the young researchers to publish in more reputable and high impact factor journals, the ethics of research conducts are abused and grossly violated. The violation of research ethics cut across all levels of researchers including highly professionals and experienced scholars.
Carefully analysing cases of research malpractice and retraction of publications in (https://retractionwatch.com/) will show you the levels of deteriorating research ethics.
The ultimate goal of research is to apply one's findings to improve standards of living in some way, for the benefit of people at large. But nowadays what we mean by research is mostly to publish a paper in a journal. That is because of the progress of our academic careers where publications are taken to be a measure of our competence. Because of this commercial aspect, some people are adopting unfair means to stay "one step ahead of the rest" !
Excellent insights. THANK YOU. Kindly recommend wisely so that more people can add their opinion and experience.
Sincerely Yours
BRS
kGood question that you ask Bodh R Sharma . Quantity has overtaken quality!
Dear Bodh R Sharma , maybe because of the advancement of times and technology that makes all kinds of work easy, sometimes this makes people lazy to work (often looking for easy ways) in getting things done, apologize if there are any wrong words, i'm sorry and best regards.
Research reflects also the general tendency in society, that is over-competition.
Over-competition always leads to cross the red lines and to ignore ethical principles for a personal gain. The difference betwenn good and bad is ethics, in scientific research and life.
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