Research and Publication Ethics (RPE)

Philosophy and Ethics

1. Introduction to philosophy: definition; nature & scope; concept; branches

2. Ethics: definition; moral philosophy; nature of moral judgements & reactions

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

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

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

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