Publication Ethics

Publication ethics are rules of conduct generally agreed upon when publishing results of
scientific research or other scholarly work. Generally it is a standard that protects intellectual
property and forbids the re-publication of another's work without proper credit. It also forbids
the use of plagiarism of another's efforts.

There are organizations which give recommendations and develop guidelines to assist
authors, editors, and reviewers. The purpose is to create and disseminate accurate, clear,
reproducible, unbiased research papers. The organizations involved with publication ethics
are
1. International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE).
2. World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
3. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
The ICMJE was established in 1978, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, by a group of
medical journal editors. ICMJE developed recommendations which are primarily for authors
who want to submit their work in ICMJE member journals. These recommendations discuss
the role and responsibilities of the authors, contributors, reviewers, and editors. Steps of
manuscript preparation, submission, and editorial issues related to publication in medical
journals are also discussed and drafted. The uniform requirements for manuscript submitted
to biomedical journals, which most of the journals are following were drafted by ICMJE.
The WAME is a non-profit voluntary association, which was established in 1995 by a
group of members of the ICMJE. The goal was to improve editorial standards, promote
professionalism in medical editing, and encourage research on the principals and practice of
medical editing. The role of WAME is to facilitate worldwide cooperation and
communication among editors of peer-reviewed medical journal. Membership in WAME is
free and all decision-making editors of peer-reviewed journals are eligible to join. WAME
has more than 1830 members representing more than 1000 journals from 92 countries.
The COPE also helps in ethical publication. COPE was founded in 1997 by a
small number of UK medical editors as a self-help group to discuss troubling ethical cases in
the publication process. It provides paid membership and currently has more than 7000
members in various disciplines from all parts of the world. The purpose of COPE is to find
the practical ways to deal with the misconduct cases and to develop codes of conduct for
good publication practice. It also generates the funding for the research based on the issues
related to publication misconduct.
Publication Misconduct
Publication misconduct includes plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate
authorship, duplicate submission/multiple submissions, overlapping publication, and salami
publication.
1 Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's thoughts, ideas, data,
figures, research methods, or words without giving appropriate credit, or the over-citation of
another person's published work.
2 Fabrication: Fabrication is the practice of making up data or results without having
performed relevant research.
3 Falsification: Falsification is the practice of changing data or results intentionally such that
misleading conclusion is drawn.
4 Inappropriate authorships: Authorship is not appropriately assigned based on the author's
contributions.
5 Duplicate submission/multiple submissions: Duplicate submission/multiple submissions
refer to practice of submitting the same manuscript or several manuscripts with minor
differences (e.g., differences only in title, keywords, abstract, author order, author affiliations,
or a small amount of text) to two or more journals at the same time, or submitting to another
journal within an agreed or stipulated period.
6 Overlapping publication: Overlapping publication refers to the practice of publishing a
paper overlaps substantially with one already published.
7 Salami publication: Salami publication refers to the practice of slicing data from a large
study, could have been reported in a single paper, into different pieces and publishing them in
two or more articles, all of which cover the same population, methods, and question.
8 Inappropriate authorships: Authorship is not appropriately assigned based on the author's
contributions.

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Authorship confers credit for the work that has been carried out to resultinto a publication.
This has many important academic, social, andfinancial implications. It is implicit that
authorship entails responsibilityand accountability for the published work. As advised by
COPE, an authorshould have contributed to the manuscript in at least one or more of the
following ways:
 Significant contributions to conception and/or design of the work
  Acquisition, analysis, and/or interpretation of data generated/collected during the
work
 Drafting/editing the work or revising it critically and thus contributingimportant
intellectual content.

In multi-authored publications, however, itbecomes necessary to clearly identify

contributions of each author so thattheir responsibilities can be defined. In such publications,
all the authors,however, have following collective responsibilities.
 To be accountable for all aspects of the work to ensure that questionsrelated to the
accuracy or integrity of any part of the work areappropriately investigated and
resolved;
 Final approval of the version to be published;
 Each author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsiblefor which
specific part of the work.

PREDATORY JOURNAL
Predatory journals are a phrase (now in wider usage) coined by Jeffrey Beall, scholarly
communications librarian at the University of Colorado at Denver, that refers to journals (and
journal publishers) whose main purpose seems to be to exploit ("prey on") scholars and
academics and their need to publish the results of their research.A predatory journal is a
publication that actively asks researchers for manuscripts. They have no peer review system
and no true editorial board and are often found to publish mediocre or even worthless papers.
They also ask for huge publication charges.

Why do academics publish in such journals?

• In research environments, there is usually more value for quantity over quality.
• Hiring and promotion of academics is based largely on their number of publications.
Predatory journals have helped many pseudo-researchers to prosper.

What is the harm caused by predatory journals?

• Predatory and low-quality journals corrupt the literature.
• Medical science has been particularly hit hard, with journals now devoted to unscientific
medicine.
• “Peer review is at the heart of academic [Link] without peer review [while
pretending that peer review was done] gives poor and mediocre academics a chance for jobs
and promotions which should go to better qualified researchers,”

Characteristics of Predatory Journals

 Claims to be a peer reviewed open access publication but does not provide adequate
peer review or the level of peer review promised (some predatory journals repeatedly
use a template as their peer review report).6
 Advertises a Journal Impact Factor or other citation metric on the website that is
incorrect or cannot be verified.7,8
 May advertise an unrealistic timeline for publication.8,9
 Publishes all articles for which authors pay an APC even if the article is low quality,
unrelated to the topic of the journal, or nonsensical.6
 Publishes articles that have many grammar mistakes (little or no copyediting). 7
 Editorial board includes people who do not exist, do not have credentials relevant to
the topic of the journal, have affiliations that cannot be verified, or are real people
who are not aware that they are listed as members.7,10,11
 Mimics name or website of other well-known, legitimate journals.6
 Aggressively targets potential authors through emails.7,12,13
 May state that offices are in one country but contact details are in another.6
 Solicitation emails contain grammatical errors of phishing scams.13
 Lack of transparency about acceptance process or APCs, so that authors do not how
much they will be charged until their article is accepted.6
 Requires authors sign away their copyright to the article at the time of submission,
making it impossible for the author to submit the article to another publisher.14
 Publishes articles submitted before the authors have signed the publishing agreement,
then refuses to take the article down if the author withdraws the submission.15
 Removes articles or entire journals from the web without warning or informing
authors.16
Predatory Open Access Publishing
Predatory open-access publishing is an exploitative open-access academic publishing
business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the
editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not).

The following points describe the main ethical issues posed by predatory journals
 Misrepresentation
Predatory journals misrepresent who they are and what services they offer, including not
providing peer review, editing and indexing [Link] websites often lack an editorial
office address or even contact information. They lack information about the academic
appointments and locations of the editor and Editorial Board (if one is provided at all). they
misrepresent their standards, services, and identities to readers, and often to authors.

 Lack of editorial and publishing standards and best practices

Predatory journals lack the standards and best practices established by the scholarly
publishing community, which evaluate the research and improve the quality of the published
work. These standards and practices include publishing corrections and retractions as needed,
processes to deal with alleged research misconduct (to ensure allegations of research
misconduct are appropriately addressed), screening for plagiarized content, reviewing ethics
of research conduct, requiring authorship statements to attempt to exclude ghost and guest
authors, and requiring funding and conflicts of interest disclosures.

 Academic deception

Authors may knowingly publish in predatory journals and list those publications on their CVs
as if they were published in legitimate peer-reviewed journals (16). Citing the articles as
legitimate publications misrepresents authors’ scholarly effort. These authors cheat the
system, harming authors who play by the rules and adhere to the standards of academic
practice without shortcutting the peer review system.

 Research and funding wasted

Whether or not authors are aware they are submitting their research to a predatory journal,
when others discover that their research has been published in a predatory journal, the
legitimacy of their research will be questioned. The authors will have to either attempt to
retract their research from the predatory journal and have it evaluated and published in a
legitimate journal, or accept that their research may never be considered legitimate. Such an
outcome wastes research, funding, and the involvement of human study participants or
animals.

 Lack of archived content

Predatory journals do not archive their content in third party sites such as CLOCKSS
(Controlled Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe: a community-governed archive) or PubMed
Central. Since the journals are founded solely for financial reasons, they are likely to cease
publication when profits decline or investors turn their attention elsewhere. If authors have
not pursued republishing in a legitimate journal, their research will disappear.

Before you submit your article there are steps you can take to ensure you select a high-quality
journal and avoid predatory publishers:

 Check to see if the journal is indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed (use filter "currently

indexed in MEDLINE") or another reputable literature database such as Web of
Science, CINAHL, etc.

 When searching for a high-quality journal use the criteria described in the following
blog post: "Submitting to a journal commits you to it for six weeks to six months (or
longer)- so choose your journal carefully".

 Find reputable journals in one or more of the following lists and directories

o The Web of Science Journal Citation Reports (UVA only) - A

multidisciplinary index to journals with impact factors. Resource for journal
evaluation, using citation data drawn from over 11,000 indexed journals in
nearly 250 disciplines. Coverage is both multidisciplinary and international
and incorporates journals from over 3,000 publishers in 81 countries/regions.
o The Ulrich’s Web Global Serials Directory - Bibliographic and access
information about serials published throughout the world, covering all
subjects. Can be limited to peer-reviewed journals (open access or
subscription–based). To determine if a publication is peer-reviewed, utilize the
library's subscription to Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory. Search the
journal by name, then look for the "refereed" symbol next to the name to
indicate it is refereed, aka peer reviewed.

o The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - An online directory that

indexes high quality, peer-reviewed Open Access research journals,
periodicals, and their articles' metadata. DOAJ's Seal of Approval is awarded
to journals that achieve a high level of openness, adhere to Best Practice, and
high publishing standards.

o Check to see if the journal is in the: Stop Predatory Journals list, a list of
potential or possible predatory journals and publishers. This is not a
comprehensive list of predatory publishers.