Research and Publication Ethics (RPE)

Overview

The course may be useful for the Ph.D. students as they can earn 2-credit from the SWAYAM-MOOC. This course has total six modules focusing on basics of philosophy of science and ethics, research integrity, publication ethics, and identifying research misconduct and predatory publications. Indexing and citation database, open access publications, research metrics and plagiarism tools has been discussed in the course.In this online course (MOOC) recorded lectures, e-text, self assessment questions, quizzes will be the part of the pedagogy. There will term-end examination for certification.

Syllabus

Week

Module Name

Week 1

Module 1: Philosophy And Ethics

Introduction to philosophy- scope, concept, branches.
Ethics: definition-moral philosophy,
nature of moral judgments

Week 2

Module 2: Scientific Conduct

Ethics with respect to science and research; Intellectual honesty and research integrity
Scientific misconducts: Falsification- Fabrication, and Plagiarism -Redundant publications
Selective reporting and misrepresentation of data

Week 3

Module 3: Publication Ethics

Publication ethics: definition, introduction and importance
Best practices/ standards setting initiatives and guidelines: COPE, WAME etc.
Publication misconduct: definition, concept, problems etc.
Violation of publication ethics, authorship and contributorship; Identification of publication misconduct, complaints and appeals
Predatory publishers and journals

Week 4

Module 4: Open Access Publishing

Open access publications and initiatives
OER- Open licenses- types & uses
SHERPA/ ROMEO online resource to check publisher copyright & self- archiving policies etc.

Week 5

Module 5: Publication Misconduct

Subject-specific issues, FFP, authorship
Conflicts of interest
Complaints and appeals: examples and fraud from India and abroad
Software tools :Introduction- Turnitin, Urkund and other open source software tools

Week 6

Module 6: Databases and Research Metrics

Databases-Indexing databases
Citation databases: Web of Science, Scopus, etc.
Research Metrics-Impact Factor of journal as per Journal Citation Report, SNIP, SJR, IPP, Cite Score
Metrics: h-index, g index, etc.