CODE OF ETHICS TO CHECK MALPRACTICE AND PLAGIARISM IN RESEARCH

1. Interpretation

• "Article" means an academic writing of wholesome nature on a specific aspect of a broader theme of research.
• "Book" means a set of written or printed pages containing literary work fastened along one side and encased between protective covers or maintained in electronic form.
• "Chapter in a book" means an ordinarily understood chapter, distinctly identifiable from the other chapters and contents of a book as defined in clause (1) (b) of these regulations.
• "Copying" means transcription or reproduction of others works in any form, proportion, and by any means.
• "Copyright" means a right to reproduce a literary work or any portion of thereof under the applicable laws in India.
• "Data" means any information stored in a medium, electronic or otherwise, retrievable for use and possible to process.
• "Infringement of copyright" means any unauthorized use of a copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder or without giving a complete citation of the source of the material.
• "Plagiarism" means copying transcription, reproduction, retrieval, transmission, misappropriation, any other unauthorized use of other's literary work/research data or making an unsubstantiated claim of originality about some work as one's own in a publication, presentation or any other form of projection, resulting into the infringement of a copyright, violation of academic values, standards of research ethics or code of conduct for teachers/staff defined in the University Statutes.
• "Primary research" includes carrying out of basic or preliminary tests to acquire primary data and creation of formulations and expressions which do not exist."Research Paper" means an academic writing an essay in which a scholar presents his findings of his research in his own analysis, assessment and line of reasoning.
• "Secondary research" includes the already existing research and may include interpretation thereof in a new form.
• "College" means "Tagore Dental College & Hospital," Vandalur, Chennai.

2. Application

these regulations shall apply to every student and staff member of Tagore dental College & hospital.

3. Removal of doubts

if any doubt arises with the interpretation of any of the provisions of these regulations, the matter shall be referred to the Principal or such Authority/Committee as may be specified by the Principal for the general or special purpose. The final deciding authority shall be the Principal.

4. The charge of plagiarism.

• A charge of plagiarism shall lie only on receiving a complaint about one's-
• commission of an act of copying transcription, reproduction, retrieval, transmission, theft, fraud, misappropriation, any other unauthorized use of other's literary work or research data
• making an unsubstantiated claim of originality about others work as his own
• commission of such an act or making such a claim amounting to plagiarism as defined in Clause of these regulations in a publication, presentation or any other form projection
• Such a publication, presentation or any other form of projection results into the infringement of a copyright, academic dishonesty or violation of academic values and standards of research ethics.
• The charge of plagiarism shall be considered as cheating, fraud, malpractice, misconduct, and as a violation of the code of the code of conduct for teachers/staff/students
• Plagiarism occurs when one makes even marginal changes in the material of someone else or his own (of which he has transferred the copyright to some other person or agency) and includes it without citation in his/her publications; or copies any materials/data presented in from other's publication, website or reports as his own; or uses data obtained by any other researcher claiming that as his own; or does any kind of falsification/fabrication of data; or prepares a document based substantially on other's work; or make a factual misrepresentation in his publication a book/paper or presentation at a conference or other relevant information; or denies authorship or the correct order of authorship to a contributor.

5. Mechanism for dealing with complaints of plagiarism

• Receiving of complaint. - No complaint of plagiarism shall be received unless it is
1. addressed to the Principal of the college;
2. signed by the complainant with complete name and address, and
3. accompanied by appropriate documents authenticating the complaint.
• Non-publicizing of complaints. -the complainant shall not publicize the matter until the College takes a final decision otherwise, it will be treated as misconduct.
• Committee to handle complaints. -the Principal may refer any complaint for investigation to a Standing Complaint Committee, constituted by the Principal for the purpose. The constitution of the committee shall be:
1. Head of Department from Tagore dental College & hospital (Chairman)
2. Two Professors of the College
3. One External Expert in the field concerned to be nominated by the Principal, provided that the committee may co-opt one or two members, as an expert member depending upon the gravity of the complaint.
• after the receipt of the complaint, the Principal may refer it to the standing Complaint Committee within a week from the date of receipt.
• the Chairman of the Committee shall obtain necessary information from the complainant including relevant documents relating to the complaint and, if satisfied, initiate the formal fact-finding proceedings in the matter.
• the Committee shall submit its fact-finding report to the Principal in 30 to 45 days of initiation of the fact-finding. No such report shall be submitted before giving the person accused of plagiarism an opportunity of being heard in accordance with the principles of natural justice.

6. Censorship:

Where a complaint is found factually correct; an appropriate action in the form of academic censorship or administrative action may be taken against the person found guilty of plagiarism depending on the gravity of guilt.

• Academic censorship may be in any of the following forms:
1. obtaining sincere repentance from the person and an undertaking not to repeat it.
2. Verbal warning
3. Written warnings
4. Advisory note by the Principal
5. Name and Shame
6. Disqualification from doing a study, publishing an article fortwo years
• administrative action may be
1. giving more teaching load
2. Non-assignment of examinership for three years
3. Disqualification for any grant from the College for a minimum 3 years
4. No promotions and salary hike for three years

7. False and malafide complaints

Any complainant who has made a false or mala fide complaint shall be liable for:

1. name and shame
2. written warning
3. appropriate administrative action

If any / or more such penalty shall be imposed only after the approval of the Academic Council of the college.

8. Guidelines to prevent Plagiarism

• Materials on the ethical code of conduct, copyrights, and referencing system shall be developed and made available to the academic community by an ethical standing committee to be constituted by the Principal.
• All students shall be made to declare that the materials they are submitting for class works, projects dissertations, thesis etc. are their own, that they have not resorted to any unethical means in getting the results or reporting them, and that they have adequately acknowledged the sources wherever they have used other's works.
• All submissions that are suspected to contain copied passages, figures, tables, and code (concerning computer programs) without acknowledgement of sources shall be tested for plagiarism with the help of software packages that are specifically meant to detect plagiarism.
• Acknowledgement of sources of materials by scholars should be encouraged and approved modes of citation should be duly inculcated in their minds by staffs.
• Copyright norms should be taught to students, to make them aware of the consequences of copyright infringement.
• Researchers must be taught the doctrine permitted the extent as "fair use."
• Every research publications should acknowledge the standard software package (from the public domain or otherwise) which it has used in the work.
• Where a researcher is tempted to include the same material in more than one paper/publication so as to increase their number of publications; he should refer to the relevant past publications explicitly and mention how the current publication is related to them. In addition, the basic idea(s) published in a communication/letter form may be expanded in the subsequent full paper(s) with due citation, as per convention.
• It is worth noting that software packages are available nowadays in public domain. Our college uses software from www.quetext.com for identifying similarity in the materials contained in separate publications. This is a paid software which subscribes to full text sources and use them to scan for plagiarism, with a better rate of detection.
• In case of co-authorship, the principal/corresponding author will be responsible for deciding the list of authors and the order of appearance of the names of the authors in the publication. By merely providing workspace, standard experimental or computational facility, administrative support or advice on merely trivial and uncorrelated aspect of a research, one does not automatically become eligible for authorship in a publication. The person must make a significant intellectual contribution to the research work to deserve authorship.
• Concerning sponsored projects, the principal investigator is primarily responsible for formulating the project and defining the outcome of the project. Therefore, every research paper arising out of a sponsored project must have the name of the principal investigator as a co-author, unless there are co-investigators who played the principal investigator for the contents of a particular publication.
• In case of multiple-authored publications, obtaining informed consent is extremely important. A co-author in such a publication is entitled to include only that portion of the work that he has contributed to getting the written consent of the principal author to that effect. A second co-author of the same publication cannot claim ownership of the aforesaid portion of work. He can include that portion of work in his thesis or publication with proper citation. Verbatim presentation of a large portion of a co-authored publication(s) in the thesis should be avoided. The principal author remains responsible to declare the extent and level of contribution made by the co-authors if the Research/Ethics Committee seeks such information. Informed consent is also important for participants in his share of market surveys, and other interviews/surveys etc. as per relevant laws/conventions.
• Each author of a co-authored document is responsible for the findings, interpretations, and conclusions reported in a research document and must accept the full responsibility of the results reported, in case of any dispute concerning the publication. The corresponding author has the full and final responsibility for the scientific/scholarly accuracy and ethical compliance, including all the authorships(given or not given) in each and every publication.
• Civic sense and decorum make it mandatory that a research work complies with the law of the country and is not intentionally offensive. Not to exercise "due care" where harmful consequences for the researcher or for others are foreseeable is an offence. While working at high hazardous materials, such as toxic or sharps, or drugs an investigator must take all possible precautionary measures to ensure the safety of humans and assets around the workspace.
• Decency demands that due respect should be shown to all concerned, including the members of the research group, colleagues, and guide(s). Impertinent discriminatory remarks on caste, creed, gender, racial origin or age are highly objectionable and should be avoided in any research document.
• All human achievement must take the responsibility to ensure the social well-being and must strive to avert or to mitigate foreseeable risks to the society.
• Before submission for publication, the researcher should do the checking and certify to that effect. If the software rejects the materials on the ground of plagiarism, copyright infringement or copying, its publication should be ordered to be stopped forthwith.
• Many faculty members act as reviewers for manuscripts submitted for publication as well as project proposals submitted for financial support and get access to information and ideas which have not yet been published. It is important for them to ensure that they do not use this advance access for their own benefit.

9. Supervision

The faculty has a role to teach and transfer his knowledge, skill, and research tools to the student and grooming them to develop original thinking and carry out independent research work. To play the roles effectively, a harmonious relationship needs to be maintained between the two. The period a student spends with the guide should be pleasant, academically stimulating, productive, and mutually satisfying. In case of co-guide, they should earn authorship by contribution and not by status or situation of the other going on leave or leaving the organization or the project.
Incompatibility between the faculty may hamper the student's progress. It is necessary that they are also guided by certain ethical principles to ensure that the student's research progress is not compromised. Research Committee of the college may entertain complaints on such issues and arbitrate on such matters as needed.

10. Conduct for students and guides

A student should follow the ethical code of conduct in these regulations and acknowledge the contribution of the guide. He should submit a declaration that he shall not indulge (or has not indulged) in any form of research misconduct and shall not refrain from fouling with other students' equipment, data, and results.
A guide should-

1. guide students in areas where they are proficient
2. spend adequate time on the research work of their students
3. provide sufficient laboratory, computational, and library facilities to the students
4. ensure the veracity of data, the validity of the analysis, and the interpretation of results
5. give enough freedom to the students to use their own ideas and approaches and motivate them to come out with something innovative
6. insist on communicating research results - interim and final - in conferences and journals
7. advise the students on the University regulations and guidelines pertaining to research and to the research ethics outlined in this document and other related documents of the College
8. ensure that the students do not adopt any unfair means in their research work
9. instil in students the ideas of research honesty, integrity, and rigour
10. refrain from exploiting the students intellectually, (by publishing a student's work in one's own name without the student as a co-author), emotionally or in any other manner
11. maintain a cordial and harmonious relationship with the research students and co-guides (if any)

11. Administrative Bodies of the College

• The members of the Research Committees should:
1. advise students on new ways of looking at the research problems and their solution methods
2. critically scrutinize the work of students and ensure the conformance of the research work to the ethical code of conduct followed by the College and the research community at large
3. report the cases of research misconduct to the Principal of the College and provide necessary subject expertise to ascertain the truth.
• Research Committee should
1. take periodic stock of the progress of the research work and ensure that the research students/faculty benefit from the constructive suggestions of the Research Committee members
2. provide adequate facilities and ensure that every guide/student maintains research data and results (duly indexed and securely stored) for the specified period time after a research work comes to an end
• The Research Committee should:
1. take periodic stock of the publicize contents of this and other related documents widely. To enhance awareness of research ethics among the research community of the College
2. provide necessary support to the College so as to inquire and investigate into the reported cases of research misconduct (as per University rules) and implement the decisions, and bring these cases to the notice of the research community while keeping the names of the concerned individuals confidential (maintain statistics).
• The College administration should
1. Develop laboratories and libraries to make the research environment self-sustaining
2. promote technical and presentational skills of students
3. properly deal with reported cases of research misconduct and unethical research practices
4. make available the Research Policy Documents of various bodies and various other guidelines on referencing, copyrights, etc. for consultation by students and faculty.

12. Miscellaneous

1. These regulations will be applicable to published articles and online publications.
2. every article/research paper should be cleared for plagiarism from the authorized anti-plagiarism software, available inthe College.
3. only written warning may be issued, If an article has been published and detected at a later stage and the author gets the articles RETRACTED and the same has been accepted by the publisher.
4. Magazine/Newspaper/ Published Articles, if found plagiarized, on detection later be retracted and verbal warning be issued.