1.
Introduction: Ethical codes are adopted by organizations to assist members in understanding
the difference between “right” and “wrong” and in applying that understanding
to their decisions. Research ethics
involves the application of fundamental ethical principles to research. The
aspect where research ethics applied include the design and implementation of
research involving human experimentation, animal experimentation, various
aspects of academic dishonesty or academic misconduct, including scientific
misconduct (such as fraud, fabrication of data and plagiarism), regulation of
research, etc.
2. Code of Conduct in Research: The following
are some of the code of conduct in research-
a) Self Reflective: The researcher should use only the techniques, tools to which they are
familiar.
b) Seek Permission to Undertake Research: In most
countries, the researchers have to take permission to conduct research or they
will be expelled from the field of study or the country as a whole.
c) Take Due Care of the Research
Participants: Participation is the voluntary contribution by the
people towards achieving the goal of the researcher and by this way a process
of involvement in their own development, their lives and environment. In case
of field study, the researcher should go with sufficient imagination, and care
to prevent spoiling the field for himself / herself or for the future
researcher. If the researcher makes some promise with the participants, then
he/she must try to keep them. The research participants should also be given
guarantees of confidentiality and anonymity, unless there are clear and
overriding researches to do otherwise.
i) Voluntary Participation: Participants should be voluntary in all types of research. No researcher
should bring the participants under some compulsion. If required the researcher
can also sign in consent form from the respondents.
ii) Confidentiality and Anonymity: There are a
number of ways in which participants can be harmed; it may be physical,
psychological, emotional, embarrassment and so on. So the research data should
be aggregated in such a manner where individuals cannot be identified, if it is
necessary to quote the respondents name, potential harm should be identified
and measures should be taken to overcome such harm and necessary permission
should be taken from the respondent to quote their name.
iii) Right of Review: The participants have every
right to review the data before going for publication. So for a researcher it
is good to communicate with them.
iv) Informed Consent: If a particular research may
harm participants, the participants should be informed and consent should be
taken in advance. In publicizing the result of research, personal data may lead
to mutual protection, political sensitivity, and private issues (family
affairs, tax avoidance, etc). So, the researcher should take the consent before
publicizing any data regarding research participants.
v) Risk Assessment: Science is certainty; research
is uncertainty. Science is supposed to be cold, straight and detached; research
is warm, involving and risky. Science solved the problems; research creates
controversies. So before publicizing data, the researcher should assess the
risk regarding psychological stress, legal liabilities, political, social etc.
of the research participants.
d) Acknowledging Others: The researcher should always acknowledge others who are associated with
their research work. But, including the names of persons, who had little or
nothing to do with the research is deception again.
e) Respect Intellectual
Ownership: Representing some one’s work as one’s own is called as plagiarism
and it may lead to expulsion from the institution. So, please deal with it
properly. “Unless otherwise stated, what you write will be regarded as your own
work; the ideas will be considered you own unless you say to the contrary”
(Walliman, 2005, p. 336). So, one should be honest, fair and respect other's
work and are expected to give same kind of treatment what he/she expects from
the readers of their own publication(s) and it will be good to use other's
text, diagram, table, data, picture with their permission only (generally for
academic work, author as well as publisher feels free to grant permission to
use their material in your work). The worst offence against this ethic is
called “Plagiarism” and in order to avoid the stigma and shame of being labeled
as one, acknowledging others work is always needed.
f) Avoid Academic Frauds: Academic fraud involves the intentional misrepresentation of what has been
done. Fabrication, falsification, omitting data and plagiarism constitutes
misconduct and academic fraud in any research practice. So, the researcher
should avoid it right from proposal to report of any research work. Making
misleading or deceptive statement also constitutes academic fraud.
g) Publicize Results for a Single
Time: Publicizing the same article in more than one
journal distorts citation indexes and is therefore a bad practice. It is also a
means to degrade your own contribution to the total human knowledge. It is
unethical to prepare a report that is the same, or basically similar, to a
report completed for another purpose.
3. Violation of Code of Conduct in Research: The violation
of the code of conduct in research leads to the following
a) Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the stealing and
publication of another author’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions and
the representation of them as one’s own original work. Plagiarism is considered
academic dishonesty and leads to penalties, suspension, and even expulsion.
b) Copyright Infringement: Copyright infringement is the use
of works protected by copyright law without permission, infringing certain
exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to
reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make
derivative works.
c) Fabrication: The falsification of data,
information, or citations in research or any formal academic exercise.
d) Deception: Deception is acts to propagate
beliefs of things that are not true, or not the whole truth.
e) Cheating: Any attempt to give or obtain assistance in a
formal academic exercise without due acknowledgment.
f) Bribery: Taking or giving money to get high score or good
result. For example taking money from a company to interpret it as a best one
among other companies in the research findings.
g) Sabotage: Acting to prevent others from completing their
research work. This includes cutting pages out of library books or willfully
disrupting the experiments of others.
4. Finding out Unethical Research Work: The following
are some of the ways through which unethical research works can be identified:-
a) Perfect Data: If a reader of some research work
finds some work within the documentation of the research work that reflects the
perfect correlation with other sets of data, with which he/she comes across in
his/her past reading then he/she tries to recall them and goes for searching
the possibility to find out who (present or past researcher) tries to hide
what. Such type of human behavior leads to finding out the unethical research
work. This type of unethical research identification frequently happens in case
when someone goes with the research work of their peer group’s research.
b) Plagiarized Text: Some times in going through the
text of a particular research work, the evaluator or the expert or other reader
is able to recall in the way that “I have read it earlier, is it the same
article I am reading it again?”. What he/she will do in the next step is he/she
tries to find out where is the problem? Such types of intuition for validity
also lead to identification of unethical research work.
c) More Subjects than What Really Exists: In the
process of falsification and fabrication of data, sometimes may lead to an
increase number of subjects than what really exist. If such types of things
happen then the readers who are alert with the field can easily identify the
work as unethical research work. Suppose there are 17 colleges in a city, and
one’s research study reveals it as 18 then the person who knows that only 17
colleges are there can easily identify the present work through which he/she
has gone recently as an unethical work.
d) Data not Supported by Methodologies: There may
be occasions when a researcher used methodology and data reflects opposite
direction. If such an occasion happens then the reader is easily able to guess
the work as unethical.
e) Time: If some research finding comes out to the surface
within a short amount of time than what it should consume, there may be
occasion where the falsification in the data may be there.
f) Researcher is Not Capable: The peers know
their professional friends and colleagues and their potentialities very well.
So, when one of their colleagues publish some research work, which according to
his/her friend is not capable of working in that level, he/she immediately goes
for evidence to justify his/her points or to identify from which he/she copied
the data. Such types of peer to peer competition also lead to identification of
unethical research work.
g) Missing Link: When there are missing links in the
data, the reader is easily able to guess that the researcher must hide
something to consider for publication in some other journals, or for other
purposes.
h) Plagiarize Text Checking Tools: Over the
web nowadays there are many plagiarize text checking tools are available that
check for text copied from other sources. If a reader of some research work
used such tools then within a minute he/she able to find out which sentences in
the present work is copied from which sources.
5. Course of Action against Unethical Research Work: Unethical research work includes loss of respect and recognition from the
peers, and society at large. To have some classic examples of course of action
against unethical research you can consult: Hart, Chris (2005). Doing your masters dissertation. New
Delhi: Vistaar Publication. 286-296. The course of action against unethical
research work includes the following.
The action
taken by school / department / university where research work are undertaken
includes dismissal from school / department / university, dismissal from
carrying out further research work, dismissal from supervising other research
work, making correctness to the research work, sending the scholar to ethical
training, and just warning.
Action from the
employer includes termination of employment / academic career, suspension with
pay, warning, etc.
Action
taken by research funding agencies includes repayment of grant / fund / award,
debarred from future research grant, etc.
6. Conclusion: Research ethics involves
systematizing, defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.
It is a set of concepts and principles that guide researcher in determining
what behaviour helps them or harms others. Some of well designed research codes
can be found in American Sociological Association (https://www.asanet.org/code-ethics),
American Psychological Association Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code
of Conduct (https://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index), Statement of Ethical
Practice for the British Sociological Association (March 2002) (https://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/23902/statementofethicalpractice.pdf),
British Educational Research Association
(https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-2018),
National Committee for Ethics in Social Science Research in Health (India),
Office of Research Integrity (ORI) (https://ori.hhs.gov/), Oxford Brookes
University (2003) code; etc.
How to Cite this
Article?
APA Citation, 7th Ed.: Barman, B. (2020). A comprehensive book on Library and Information Science. New
Publications.
Chicago 16th Ed.: Barman, Badan. A Comprehensive Book on Library and Information Science. Guwahati:
New Publications, 2020.
MLA Citation 8th Ed: Barman, Badan. A Comprehensive Book on Library and Information Science. New
Publications, 2020.

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