Research Ethics

Dear Author,Thank you for your question, and I understand your confusion.Including your supervisor as a co-author is generally recommended when publishing a paper based on thesis work. However, such practices may vary depending on the target journal or the institution. Since your supervisor was involved during the thesis work, it is crucial to obtain their consent and involvement in the publication process, even if they have been unresponsive to your attempts to contact them.If you have been unable to reach your supervisor through emails, I would recommend exploring alternative means of communication such as phone calls or in-person meetings. If these don’t work, seek guidance from your department/institution's research ethics committee/or an academic advisor to understand the appropriate steps to take.While it may be an option to acknowledge your supervisor in the acknowledgement section of the paper, it is essential to adhere to the ethical standards of the journal. 

Dear Author,Thank you for your question! As long as the target journal and author permit you to use a translated version of the scale (with a citation and a note that you've used a translated version), and the translation retains the intended meaning, this should be fine. All the best!

Dear Author,Thank you for writing to us. As long as the research question is different, it is acceptable to publish studies that have similar or overlapping study groups. For more details, you may also refer to the following link: https://www.editage.com/insights/can-two-papers-with-same-data-but-different-analysis-be-considered-duplicate-publication.Please let us know if you’d like clarity in any other regard. We’d be happy to help. 

Dear Author,Thank you for your question. A study published on preliminary research is certainly not considered a salami publication when it is conducted for scale development. However, please do ensure that you cross-reference your previous publication (preliminary research) when publishing the paper on scale development.

Requests for changes to an accepted manuscript are not uncommon. In fact, it is easier to make changes at this stage than after publication. As in your case, such requests might be for changes in authorship (e.g., addition and/or removal of authors, changes to the order of authorship, and changes to the corresponding author of a manuscript) and minor changes to the text, labeling of display items, etc. Changes in authorship, such as the addition of a new coauthor, is permitted as long as the new author fulfils all the criteria for authorship. If they have not contributed sufficiently to qualify being a coauthor, you may acknowledge them in the Acknowledgments section instead. Second, you might need to attach a signed declaration by all the current coauthors that they have no objection to the change, as well as a declaration from the added author that they approve of this version of the manuscript and take responsibility for the content of the manuscript.As for changes to the text, they are permitted as long as they do not alter the basis for your conclusions. From your question, we cannot gauge how the “relatively new quote” affects your findings, interpretation, discussion, and conclusion....

Dear Author,Thank you for asking this question.The question seems to be little tricky. I’ll respond to this assuming—the authors have transferred the rights of their article content to the journal. Now, another group publishes article reusing the content without seeking permission from the publisher of existing article. This is certainly an ethical misconduct – copyright violation. Copyright infringement is a legal matter and will give rise to legal sanctions. In such cases, the publishers having rights of the article can sue the other publisher who have allowed reuse without taking permission.This was a straight answer to the question; however, one needs to know in-detail—what is copyright? Journals undertake different copyright policies. Authors should carefully read about this while submitting their work to the journal. The Creative Commons allow users to copy, distribute and transmit an article, adapt the article as long as the author is attributed. There are three commonly used licenses by the academic publishers: CC BY (permits commercial and non-commercial reuse), CC BY-NC (article is not used for commercial purposes), and CC BY-NC-ND (article is not used for commercial purposes, and the work is not modified or adapted in any way). Depending on the publisher’s copyright policy, the...

Thank you for your question. If your manuscript is already submitted, you should contact the editor-in-chief of the journal. As per COPE guidelines, Editors must take all allegations of misconduct seriously and are required to look into the case. If there is any evidence of misconduct, the editors may need to inform the accused author’s employer who will then start an internal investigation if needed.If you have not yet submitted to the journal, you can consider approaching your University’s ethics committee directly. You can also try contacting The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to see if your case can be processed. The Office of Research Integrity oversees and directs U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) research integrity activities on behalf of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This includes oversight of research misconduct inquiries and investigations, as well as of institutional compliance.We wish you good luck, and hope that this issue is resolved as soon as possible.

Photography and videography of human subjects can have ethical and legal implications.There are ethics bodies to oversee ethical conduct of studies on humans. Social and behavioral studies involving humans need to be reviewed by an institutional review board or a relevant ethics body. Most studies are expected be conducted with the fully informed consent of each participant. Note that in the case of studies on children, consent from their parents or primary caregivers and assent from the children themselves (where possible, i.e., depending on the age) should be obtained prior to the study. However, there are exceptions, e.g., consent is not required for observation of behavior in public situations, as long as no identities are recorded. In some cases, signed consent may be waived with the justification that it is not feasible to obtain signed consent from all involved and that the risks are minimal.From your question, it appears that the recording location is a room and not a public space, where there may be limited control over the participants. If you are still at the planning stage and can control subject participation, we recommend that you record videos of participants from whom consent and assent have been obtained. However,...

Welcome to the Editage Insights Q&A Forum, and thanks for your question on writing the study background.   We have quite a few resources on writing the study background on the forum, site, and a related platform, R Upskill (which provides learning programs for researchers/academics). We have linked a few of these below. For more, you can search the forum/site and the platform using the relevant keywords.  How to write the background of your study  What is the best way of stating the background of a study?  How To Write Background Of The Study In Research?  Hope that helps. All the best for your study! 

Yes, it makes sense to cite your previous paper if you are expanding upon it or referencing it in the current study. Regarding where it should be cited, that would depend on what part of your study you are citing. If you are talking about the aims of your previous research or summarizing what was done under that, you can cite it in the Introduction section, and if you are talking about the methodology used, you can do that under the Methods section and cite it there. The idea is that the citation should be placed right next to the part of your previous paper that you discuss in the current study.Hope that helped. All the best with your submission!