Ethics for Authors Dr. Bahaty

Introduction Research misconduct—fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism—is an insidious problem in the scientific community today with the capacity to harm science, scientists, and the public.“(1) The percentage of scientific articles retracted because of fraud has increased ∼10-fold since 1975.(2)

Quiz A shopkeeper cleverly changes the "sell by" or expiry date on food items so they can be kept longer on the shelf.   A student copies paragraphs from a textbook to answer questions in an assignment, because she thinks it is fine to do so.    A student has not studied for his examination and copies the writing of his neighbor in the exam hall when no-one is looking.    A professor is on the selection committee for a scholarship for which her nephew is applying. A) data falsification B) intentional plagiarism c) unintentional plagiarism D) conflict of interest

Ethical violations in research A researcher presents ideas or findings from other published papers as his own, instead of citing those papers. A researcher investigating the health effects of a pharmaceutical drug owns stock in the company that manufactures the drug.  A researcher is extensively referencing past works and accidentally uses too much of the original text from those works in her own paper.   A) Unintentional plagiarism, b)conflict of interest c)duplicate publication d) intentional plagiarism e)data falsification f) data fabrication

Ethical violation in research A researcher changes the data obtained from his experiments so that the research question is answered favourably A researcher invents data for an experiment without actually conducting that experiment.   A researcher makes minor modifications to a paper he has already published and tries to get the modified paper published. A) Unintentional plagiarism, b)conflict of interest c)duplicate publication d) intentional plagiarism e)data falsification f) data fabrication

Consequences of Ethical Violation Rejected –if under peer review, Retraction- once published

Research Approvals IRB / ERB Institutional, local/regional or international Stated in the manuscript Evidence of documentation “All studies submitted for publication must include a letter indicating IRB approval or approval by a similar ethics board, and such approval must be noted in the manuscript….” Annals of African surgery

Duplicate publication Republishing conference articles Submitting to more than one journal at the same time

Duplicate Publication Binti has just written up a research paper, and she wants to submit it to the BMJ. But she is not sure if they will accept her paper. To be on the safe side, she has submitted to annals of African surgery a regional journal which will probably accept her paper. What should she do? Submit the paper to one of the two journals first. If the first journal rejects her paper, she could submit it to the other journal. Submit the paper to both the journals at the same time. Once it’s accepted by any of them, she should ask the other journal to cancel their review of her paper. Submit the paper to the top journal first. If he is asked to act upon comments from the peer reviewers, she should do that and resubmit her paper. Then to be on the safe side, she should also submit the paper to the other journal.

Authorship International committee of medical journal editors has guidelines Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND Final approval of the version to be published; AND Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved."

Order of authors Imagine that there are five authors of a research paper. In which order do you think they should ideally be listed? The order is not important In alphabetical order From greatest contributions to the least From the most senior person to the most junior person http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140- 6736(18)30001-1.pdf

Supervisor authorship Dr. Omari is a professor and the head of a research group. He has supervised a project done by his students. The student who has played the most important role in the project has written up a paper for a journal. Ahmed is not sure where his own name should appear in the list of authors. Can you help him? Dr. Juma’s name should appear last in the list of authors. Dr. Juma’s name should come first. After all, he is the research supervisor. The student who has done the most work should have his name appear first, followed by Dr. Juma’s name, and then the names of the other students.

Acknowledgement INASP Ravi Murugesan,, Dr Barbara Gastel INASP Associates, Dr Anne Riederer, an environmental health scientist and technical advisor to Blacksmith Institute. AuthorAID workshops facilitated by Dr Gastel.

References Kornfeld, Donald S. "Research misconduct: The search for a remedy." Academic Medicine 87.7 (2012): 877-882. Web link Fang, Ferric C., R. Grant Steen, and Arturo Casadevall. "Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109.42 (2012): 17028-17033. Web link http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and- responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and- contributors.html