Authorship Ethics in Research (Part 3)

Deception in Research

Deception is any breach or deviation from the ethics of writing and publication of scientific-research works that include the following examples:

1. Fabrication of the data or results that are not based on actual research

Fabrication of the data means the presentation of false material, data, or laboratory results as the results of one’s own experimental studies and personal findings. Untruthful recording of what has not happened or exchanging the results of various studies are examples of this violation.

2. Manipulation of the collected data from research

Distortion of the collected data means manipulation of the materials, tools and research processes and modifying or deleting data so that the results presented in the research are different from the actual results. Also, it includes any action that may result in biased test results. Such practices should be reported transparently whether or not they lead to changes regarding the results and methods.

3. Plagiarism

Plagiarism refers to the use of all or part of the published or unpublished ideas of other individuals without proper reference to that material or obtaining permission in special cases.(Check for Plagiarism)

4. Untruthful affiliation or academic theft

It refers to the untruthful affiliation of the author(s) to an institute, center, or educational research group that did not play a role in the contribution of the original research. Moreover, academic theft refers to hiring an author(s) to do the research, and publishing it under one’s own name with the real authors going unrecognized.

5. Avoid mentioning the undesirable side effects in clinical trials

6. If a form, table, questionnaire, or significant part of a text or its translation is used, it is necessary to get permission from the author of the text, besides making a reference to the original text.

7. When using another text or its translation as a quotation, conclusion, or inspiration, the author should mention the source in the references.

8. All the researchers are required to report any case of deception to the research institute or the head of the affiliated center of the authors.

9. The chief editor can search for the possible occurrence of fraud in the received manuscripts. But if she/he is sure of the fraud, then it is a duty to report it to the affiliated center of the authors with the utmost confidentiality. Thus they can find out or remedy its occurrence. The investigation will be in accordance with the relevant regulations and guidelines.

• If the chief editor confirms that fraud has occurred, he/she must take one or more of the following actions, depending on the severity of the fraud:

1. Rejection of the manuscript (if it has not been published yet)
2. Reclamation of the article if it is published and attaching a notice to the article
3. Publication of an amendment or disclaimer in the next issue (in case of the publication of the article)
4. Rejection of the future articles of that author(s) for a specified period of time
5. Removal of the previous articles of that author(s) from the website or the database of the journal
6. Informing the publisher about the fraud
7. Submission of evidential documents to the Deputy Research of the affiliated university(s) of the authors

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Publication Ethics-(Part 2)