Research Ethics
Table of Contents
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Definition
Research ethics are the guidelines followed while conducting a
research. These ethics guide and monitor the scientist involved in the
research so that a level of the research is maintained.
Objectives of Research Ethics
We need to follow ethics when we conduct research for three main
reasons. We are obliged to honor the trust of our supervisors, mentors
and fellow graduates. We must conduct research responsibly to reach our
goals. And finally, we need to conduct research that clearly benefits
the public.
We conduct our research mainly to extend our knowledge about a
particular subject or problem. This new scientific knowledge should be
shared with others via research publication, authorship and
collaboration. Therefore, it is considered as unethical to withhold such
valuable information from interested parties. On the other hand, it is
also unethical to publish results that were hand-picked.
Unfortunately,
many researchers prefer to publish their positive results while ignoring
their negative results.This results in misleading information.
Once one publishes his or her own work, others can get the
opportunity to criticize the work, reproduce it thus confirming the
results, or to dispute the results. Different forms exist for sharing
scientific knowledge obtained from research such as presentations,
publications in peer reviewed journals, thesis writing and publication.
Many people in fact have argued that if your research cannot produce a
publishable paper, then your research was simply never done.
When we publish our results in the form of a scientific paper, we
usually present a list of authors who may or may not have contributed
equally to the work in hand. It is considered unethical to include
people in the authors’ list if they did not contribute substantially to
the design, interpretation or drafting of the manuscript. Therefore,
people who once helped you in a completely informal way and were not
directly involved in your research should be thanked in the
acknowledgment section.
Additionally, once the paper is published, it is
unethical to cite this work and to do any changes to the order of the
authors say in your resume. Usually, the first author is the graduate
student who did most of the work related to designing the experiments,
running them and writing the manuscript.
Second authors might have also contributed significantly to the work.
The last author is usually your main supervisor and the one before your
supervisor might be your co-supervisor. These people, the supervisors,
usually guide you through your research career, choose the topic that
you should work in, and in many cases help you design the experiments.
Authors between the supervisors and the first and second authors are
usually people who contributed to the interpretation of the data, did
some statistical analysis or helped you acquire a substantial amount of
the data but did not contribute ‘intellectually’ substantially to the
work. Whether you should put their names in the acknowledgement section
or in the authorship list is always debatable.
In order for us to understand who is a true author and who is simply
someone who offered help but should not be considered as an author, we
should remember the responsibilities of the author. The author should
ensure that the work is new and original, hence research the literature.
Authors usually are aware of the submission and choose the journal
together. Authors usually have used parts of the work previously in
conferences and presentations, while someone who offered you informal
help will unlikely use any part of the work.
Before you start working on a research project, you should know
whether your results might be publishable or not. Findings that are
original, significant, reproducible, well presented to the reader,
concise, specific and complete are usually easy to publish. If your work
involves any plagiarism of others’ work, or if you perform questionable
unethical research practices, you will most likely end up with
non-publishable data that could also cause legal harm to you.
Research Misconduct
Definition
Research misconduct includes falsification, fabrication and
plagiarism in research projects. It is unethical to fabricate data,
fabrication means making of untruthful data. Falsification means
manipulating the research materials, omitting certain data and present
your findings in a way that would trick the reader. Plagiarism is using
others results, words and ideas without proper citation.
Additionally, it is not acceptable to submit the work to multiple
journals with little changes. Related works should be mentioned to the
editor of the journal you are submitting to. Selectively choosing your
results in favor of your hypothesis is another discouraged unethical
research practice.
Many authors cite papers without fully reading and understanding
them. By doing so, you can incorrectly cite papers that do not fully
agree with your findings, or in fact oppose them! Therefore, one should
always read the paper intended to be cited before citation and determine
whether it fits in the context or not.
Journals, if they detect any form of research misconduct, might
withdraw the published paper. They can ban the authors from publication
for up to 5 years in the journal and any other related journals. In less
severe cases of research misconduct, they can put the author on a watch
list. Being on a watch list means that any future papers submitted for
publication will undergo careful examination and delays before being
submitted to the reviewers.
Some Advice for a Successful Research Career
You should understand that your work is done mainly for your benefit,
the patient’s benefit and you should honor your colleagues by following
ethical research practices. You should develop goals that are clear and
you should have deadlines for yourself. When you are at work, you
should use the internet mainly for scientific reading and literature
research related to your work. Finally, you should invest at least eight
hours per day in the lab for you to have good results that are accurate
and possibly publishable.
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