Code of Ethics for Research

Preface:

The Integral University is committed to promoting and maintaining high standards of integrity and accountability in the conduct of academic research and is keen to embed and endorse a culture of honesty and transparency in all its institutional activities. Towards this commitment, the University stresses that academic freedom is a core value to be safeguarded and sustained. The University is committed to ensure a free academic environment to conduct research, and to publish, subject to the norms and standards of scholarly inquiry for truth, knowledge, and scholarship. The University also supports the principle of Open Access and keen to facilitate the widespread dissemination of published research by reporting and depositing the publications with Integral information & Research Centre (IIRC) as Institutional Repository.

The University urges it teaching staff, research students, visiting fellows and support staff to abide by the highest standards of integrity in their conduct of academic research and/or support to academic research activities.

Academic Integrity and Responsibility:

Academic Integrity, accountability and responsibility in conducting academic research sets up the cornerstone of any academic establishment. Therefore, it is essential that the academic research follows the highest professional standards, comprising of truthful research framework, high levels of research ethics and abide the requirements set out by professional and regulatory agencies. Indeed, it includes the academic freedom to faculty and scholars to inquire into any subject that stimulates intellectual concern, to present findings, and publish data in a professionally appropriate manner as defined underneath: Academic integrity is defined in terms of the commitment to the values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, legality and dissemination.

Honesty:

To quest for truth, knowledge, scholarship and understanding with intellectual and personal honesty in learning, teaching and research.

Trust:

To foster an environment of mutual trust to encourage the free exchange of ideas and enable all to reach their highest potential.

Fairness:

To ensure fairness in institutional standards, practices and procedures as well as in interactions between members of the community.

Respect:

To promote respect among students, staff and faculty and to endorse scholarship and research for intellectual development.

Responsibility:

To uphold high standards of conduct in research with shared responsibility for promoting academic integrity among all members of the community.

Legality:

To observe legal norms related to the conduct and publication of research in terms of copyright, intellectual property rights of third parties, regulating access to research resources and the laws of libel.

Dissemination:

To make the results of its research as widely and as freely available as possible.

The Dean, Research and Development, Dean, Doctoral Studies, Dean Academics, Deans of the Schools, Directors, and Heads of Departments together with the teaching staff, are responsible for promoting and endorsing a transparent academic environment conducive to the application of the high professional and ethical criteria of good practice for academic research. Faculty and Research Supervisors are expected to create and sustain the climate of mutual co-operation that facilitates the open exchange of ideas and the development of academic research skills. They are also expected to ensure the provision of good supervision and direction for researchers, in accordance with the nature of the individual academic discipline and associated mode of research. Follow the Code of Practice for Doctoral Supervision as described in the Statutes, Ordinances and regulations of the Integral University, which delineates the supervisory relationship, and procedures and regulations for assessment and evaluation of research progress and related matters.

The Academic Departments should ensure that all researchers undertake appropriate training in research design, methodology, regulatory and ethics approvals and consents, equipment use, confidentiality, data management, record keeping, data protection and publication, the appropriate use of licensed research resources and respect for the intellectual property rights of third parties. The University is also committed to preparing its administrative and support staff involved in record keeping and the implementation of IU Data Protection Policy and expects them to fully respect the principles and rules of the Code of Ethics in Academic Research.

Publication Practice:

Authorship, Notification, Archiving and Depositing Copies of Research Publications with the Institutional Repository (IIRC) Centre

The Integral University encourages the publication and dissemination of results of high quality research. It also expects that researchers will engage in the process of publishing and dissemination of their work responsibly and with an awareness of the consequences of any such dissemination in the wider media. Results should be published in a form appropriate to the academic discipline. It is obligatory that all individuals listed as authors accept responsibility for the contents of the publication and identify their contribution to it. Authors should have participated sufficiently in the research to take public responsibility for the contents.

Open Access (OA) is the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as and when needed. The basic idea of OA is just to make research literature and outputs available online without price barriers and without most permission barriers. The Integral University supports the principle of Open Access and invites the academic community to facilitate the widespread dissemination of their published research by reporting and self-archiving their publications with IIRC. In this context, the faculty members and Research scholars/Researchers are required to deposit a full-text copy of their academic publications (articles, working papers, books, book chapters, and reports) with IIRC while respecting copyright law, thereby ensuring Open Access. Deposits should be made as early as possible, and no later than the date of formal publication. All other Integral university publications, such as books, working papers, lectures, policy papers, research reports, journals, must be made available with IIRC.

Integral faculty members and researchers are encouraged to publish their results, in high quality peer reviewed journal including those of Open Access journals. Thus, the authors who publish in subscription journals should deposit a full-text copy of their article at IIRC portal.

Identifiers:

Authors should be uniquely identifiable through identifiers which are persistent, non-proprietary, open and interoperable through existing sustainable initiatives such as ORCID author identifiers as Researcher ID/Scopus ID).

Appointment and Composition of the Ethics Committee:

The Ethics Committee is appointed by the Academic Council or Vice Chancellor on behalf of Academic Council.

1. Dean, Research & Development (Chairman)
2. Two Dean of Schools (on rotation, for a two-year term)
3. One faculty member (to be nominated by Vice Chancellor)
4. One external Professor (to be nominated by Vice Chancellor)
5. One Research Scholar (nominated by the Chairman)
6. One post-doc (from a one or more year post-doc fellowship programme, of Govt. of India or International, nominated by Vice Chancellor)
7. Legal advisor (from School of Law, IU, co-opted by the Chairman, if required) The term of the Committee shall be for a period of two years. In case of conflict of interests, members of the Ethics Committee shall be temporarily replaced by substitutes nominated by the Vice Chancellor.

1. To provide advice and guidance to the academic community on all matters pertaining to academic research ethics
2. To advise the Academic Council on compliance with the ‘Code of Ethics in Academic Research’ of the various academic activities at the Integral University.
3. To provide guidance and academic support to scholars on ethical issues in respect of teaching, research and other academic activities. On an entirely voluntary basis, researchers may ask the Ethics Committee for consultation on ethical aspects of their research.
4. To confirm to external agencies on behalf of the University compliance with ethical standards in respect of research projects undertaken by scholars at the Integral University.
5. To advise the Executive Committee and the Academic Council of any policies that may be required in relation to accepting funds from particular sponsors of research
6. To act as an investigative/consultative body for any disputed matter concerning research ethics and conduct
7. To make recommendations to the internal Disciplinary Committee on what action, if any, should be taken as a result of the investigations.

Misconduct in academic research implies fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or deception in proposing, carrying out or reporting results of research and deliberate dangerous or negligent deviations from accepted practice in carrying out research. It includes failure to follow an agreed protocol, if and when this failure results in unreasonable risk or harm to persons, the environment, and when it facilitates misconduct in research by collusion in, or concealment of, such actions by others. Misconduct also includes any plan or attempt to do any of the following acts.

Plagiarism:

The deliberate copying of ideas, text, data or other work (or any combination thereof) without due permission and acknowledgement.

Piracy:

The deliberate exploitation of ideas from others without proper acknowledgement

Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights:

Failure to observe legal norms regarding copyright and the moral rights of authors.

Abuse of Research Resources:

Failure to observe the terms and conditions of institutionally licensed research resources.

Defamation:

Failure to observe relevant legal norms governing libel and slander.

Misinterpretation:

The deliberate attempt to represent falsely or unfairly the ideas or work of others, whether or not for personal gain or enhancement.

Personation:

The situation where someone other than the person who has submitted any academic work has prepared (parts of) the work

Fabrication and Fraud:

The falsification or invention of qualifications, data, information or citations in any formal academic exercise.

Sabotage:

Acting to prevent others from completing their work. This includes stealing or cutting pages out of library books or otherwise damaging them; or willfully disrupting the experiments of others; or endangering institutional access to licensed research resources by willfully failing to observe their terms and conditions.

Denying access to information or material:

To deny others access arbitrarily to scholarly resources or to deliberately and groundlessly impede their progress.

Misconduct in formal examinations:

Includes having access, or attempting to gain access during an examination, to any books, memoranda, notes, unauthorized electronic devices or any other material, except such as may have been supplied by the invigilator or authorized by the Academic Department. It also includes aiding or attempting to aid another candidate or obtaining or attempting to obtain aid from another candidate or any other communication and conversations that could have an impact on the examination results.

However, the research misconduct does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretation or judgment in evaluating research methods or results, or misconduct unrelated to research processes.

Level of Violations of Good Academic Practice

Minor Violations:

Minor violations may occur because of inexperience or lack of knowledge of the principles of academic integrity and are often characterized by the absence of dishonest intent on the part of the person committing the violation.

Minor violations include:

• Minor plagiarism defined as a small amount of paraphrasing, quotation or use of diagrams, charts etc. without adequate citation. Minor plagiarism may result from poor scholarship (i.e. when a student, through inexperience or carelessness, fails to reference appropriately or adequately identify the source of the material which they use).
• Inaccurate claims to experience, qualifications or contributions in a context where the person committing the violation cannot expect major benefits (such as winning a competition for a prize or job)
• Inaccurate representation of findings without deliberate distortion
• Lack of diligence in declaring relevant conflicts of interest Such violations may present no risks to subjects, the wider community or the environment, but they may warrant some penalty or sanction at institutional level.

Major Violations:

Major violations are breaches of academic integrity that are more serious in nature or that affect a more significant aspect or portion of the academic work compared with minor violations.

Major violations includes:

• Major Plagiarism
• Willful destruction of data (except where required by the legitimate data provider or where norms of privacy might otherwise be endangered)
• Fabrication or falsification of data
• Falsification of ownership
• Defamation
• Systematic abuse of the terms and conditions of licensed research resources
• Other systematic violation of the intellectual property rights of third parties

Definition of Major Plagiarism:

• Extensive paraphrasing or quoting without proper citation of the source;
• Lifting directly from a text or other academic source without reference;
• Use of papers (or parts thereof) from essay banks, either downloaded from the internet or obtained from other sources;
• Presenting another’s designs or concepts as one’s own;
• Continued instances of what was initially regarded as minor plagiarism despite warnings having been given.

Integral University is committed to fully investigate serious violations of academic misconduct by any academic member of the University as per university rules and code of conduct for teachers.

Sanctions, as recommended by the Ethics Committee and as decided by the Disciplinary and/or Disciplinary Appeals Committee, may include (but are not limited to):

1. Resubmission of an assignment or academic work
2. A failing grade for the examination or specific assigned exercise; or a failing grade for the course as a whole, depending on the importance of the work to the overall course grade
3. A letter of reprimand, issued by the Chair of the Ethics/Disciplinary Committee, which may or may not be recorded on the scholar’s file
4. Suspension from the programme
5. Suspension of grant/contract
6. Revocation of a degree or certificate