Interés nominal

Journal editors and peer reviewers need to be conversant with the various interna- tional guidelines guiding publications ethics. Examples include the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), World Medical Association (WMA), Council of International Organizations for Medical Sciences (CIOMS), etc. The ethical issues in research publication can be broadly classified into two types: authorship and editorial. The common authorship ethical issues faced are failed authorship criteria; duplicate submission; duplicate publication; gift or ghost authorship; data being plagiarized, fabricated, or falsified; etc. The com- mon editorial ethical issues are improperly managed peer-review process, alleged scientific misconduct, expeditiousness, conflict of interest and confidentiality, etc. 18.3.1 Authorship Ethical Issues

Editors and peer reviewers of most journals frequently encounter these ethical issues. The commonest issue faced is the “authorship” itself, which is relatively dif- ficult to identify [5–9]. The ICMJE, which is also called the “Vancouver group” (since the first meeting was in “Vancouver”), has proposed criteria to consider a researcher as an author of the publication. The criteria include three parameters and all three needs to be fulfilled to claim an authorship. The criteria are as follows: (1) a substantial contribution to the concept, design of the study, or analysis of data, (2) critically revising or drafting a data, and (3) final approval for publication. Gift or ghost authorship are ethical issues where an author doesn’t meet the ICMJE criteria. In gift authorship, authors are included who don’t meet these criteria, and in ghost authorship, authors are excluded who would otherwise fit into the ICMJE criteria. Individuals with significant contributions to the publication but not fitting the ICMJE criteria need to be addressed in the acknowledgments. Examples include funding agencies, writers, illustrators, etc. Duplication of scientific content is another common author ethical issue faced by the journal editors or peer reviewers. This refers to submission of same research content to more than one journal at a time, thereby resulting in unnecessary peer-review process and copyright problems. Although nonmedical journals use prepublication posts of research content in pub- lic forums (e.g., arXiv) for maximal dissemination and critique, it has not been 18 Ethical Dilemmas and Etiquettes of Scientific Publication

practiced by medical journals, which usually follow the “Ingelfinger rule” of sole contribution [1]. Duplicate/redundant publication, also known as self-plagiarism, is the publication of multiple manuscripts with overlapping content. Another emerg- ing ethical issue is the “salami publication,” which has become a common practice adopted by authors in which they split the research content into multiple fragmented parts so as to maximize their number of publications. Plagiarism, although less common in the recent years due to introduction of plagiarism detection software (e.g., eTBLAST, iThenticate, Turnitin, etc.), had been a frequently encountered ethical issue in the past. Plagiarism is stealing and publishing someone’s idea, thought, expression, image, or language and claiming that as an original work. These issues can be prevented when the sources are acknowledged/cited or repro- duced with permission. Fabrication of data is yet another issue where authors manipulate research data to strengthen conclusions by adding or removing outliers. These issues can lead to falsified meta-analysis data that are considered the highest level of evidence for development of guidelines. Various checklists and flowcharts for journal editors have been provided by international guidelines like COPE, which have been beneficial when any of these ethical issues are encountered [2–4]. Figure 18.1 shows the steps in dealing with a plagiarised manuscript.

18.3.2 Editorial Ethical Issues

There is a definite lack of awareness about editorial process contributing to scien- tific misconduct in publication ethics. There should be no conflicts of interest in the editorial/peer-review processes as that may affect the decision-making. Self- assessment of expertise to review the content should be undertaken. Authors of sci- entific research deserve prompt review/expert opinion on their research content so that the novelty of the research content submitted for publication is preserved. When scientific misconduct is identified in a submitted article, it is important to maintain confidentiality and the matter should be communicated to the authors for rendering their explanations on the same. If the author/corresponding author does not respond to the repeated requests made by the editorial team/reviewers to reply to the queries or clarifications raised, then the matter should be communicated to the institute head where the authors are employed or to the necessary authority. If the study showing scientific misconduct has already been published, immediate attention should be drawn toward it without delay, and on a priority corrective measures like expression of concern, publication of errata or retraction of article should be undertaken. If financial aid is obtained by the journals, the financial contributions obtained shouldn’t interfere or bias the editorial decision-making process. According to the WAME, journals should adopt clear policies with the sponsors about their influenc- ing the editorial decision process [5–7,10, 11].

193 Suspected duplicate publication/plagiarism or data fabrication in a submitted/published manuscript Thank reader/reviewer for

intimation and collect evidence

Check for the extent of duplication/plagiarism

Major

Contact corresponding author or all authors with

evidence of duplication and copyright decision

undertaken

Discuss with the reviewer or reader and proceed

further

Inform the reviewer of the outcome

Inform author and reviewer of the outcome

and action undertaken Consider intimating the

author’s superior If fault accepted/ reply unsatisfactory reject the submitted article or retract

the published article

Contact corresponding author or all authors with expression of concern and request addition of missing reference or removal of duplication or plagirised content If no response, consider contacting author’s institution Minor None

Fig. 18.1 The steps in dealing with a plagiarised manuscript 18 Ethical Dilemmas and Etiquettes of Scientific Publication