RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS ETHICS (RPE)

Paper Code: 
MAT145
Credits: 
2
Contact Hours: 
2.00
Max. Marks: 
100.00
Unit I: 
I
Philosophy and Ethics :
 
1. Introduction to philosophy: definition; nature & scope; concept; branches
 
2. Ethics: definition; moral philosophy; nature of moral judgements & reactions
 
Unit II: 
II
Scientific Conduct :
 
1. Ethics with respect to science & research, group discussion on subject specific ethical issues
 
2.  Intellectual honesty & research integrity
 
3. Scientific misconducts: falsification, fabrication, & plagiarism (FPP), group discussion on subject specific FPP issues
 
4. Redundant publications: duplicate & overlapping publications, salami slicing
 
5. Selective reporting & misrepresentation of data
 
Unit III: 
III
Publication Ethics:
 
1. Publication ethics: definition, introduction & importance
 
2. Best practices/standard setting initiative & guidelines: COPE, WAME etc
 
3. Conflicts of interest, group discussions on conflicts of interest
 
4. Publication misconducts: definition, concept, problems that lead to unethical behaviour & vice versa, types
 
5. Violation of publication ethics, authorship & contributor-ship, group discussion on subject specific authorship issues 
 
6. Identification of publication misconduct, complaints & appeals, group discussion on examples and fraud from India & abroad
 
7. Predatory Publishers & journals
 
Unit IV: 
IV
Open Access Publishing :
 
1. Open access publications & initiatives SHERPA/RoMEO online resource to check publisher copyright & self-archiving policies
 
2.  Journal finder/journal suggestion tools viz. JANE, Elsevier Journal Finder, Springer Journal Suggester etc.
 
3. Software tools developed by SPPU to identify predatory publications
 
4. Software tools: use of plagiarism software like Turnitin, Urkund, and other open source software tools
 
Unit V: 
V
Databases & Research Metrics :
 
Databases (3 hrs)
 
1. Indexing databases
 
2. Citation databases: Web of Science, Scopus, etc.
 
Research Metrics (3 hrs)
 
1. Impact Factor of journal as per Journal Citation Report, SNIP, SJR, IPP, Cite Score
 
2. Metrics: h-index, g index, i10 index, altmetrics
Academic Year: