Within this page, some fundamentals of publication ethics are introduced.
On this page:
"Publication ethics is a key part of keeping research honest and trustworthy. It helps make sure research is reliable and advances knowledge. This benefits the whole research community and, in turn, helps society progress."
At the University of Essex, we take a holistic approach to responsible research practice. Publication ethics are just one part of this, and work alongside research ethics and research integrity to ensure that research is conducted and shared to the highest standards.
Research ethics focus on how research is carried out. Research ethics ensure that participants are treated respectfully and that projects meet legal and ethical requirements. This includes: protecting participants’ rights and wellbeing, obtaining informed consent, maintaining confidentiality, and assessing and minimising potential risks.
Ethical approval is a vital step in ensuring that research is conducted responsibly and with care. The University of Essex Ethical Approval pages provide further information, including resources for applicants.
Research integrity promotes honesty, rigour, transparency, and accountability at every stage of the research process: from project design to reporting results. Research integrity underpins the trustworthiness and credibility of research.
You can find further guidance and examples of good practice from the UK Research Integrity Office, and can complete a free online training course on Research Integrity developed by Springer Nature.
Essex-specific advice, policies, and codes are available via the University Research Integrity pages.
Publication ethics form an essential part of research integrity. Here we focus on the responsible communication of research findings to maintain trust in the academic record. This includes:
This page will explore themes of publication ethics in further depth, and you can also find more information and guidance via the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) webpages.
Good authorship practice enhances the visibility of your work, ensures proper recognition within your academic community, and maintains clear accountability for the research you publish.
However, assigning authorship can be challenging, as contributions evolve, teams grow, and expectations may not always align. To prevent misunderstandings and maintain research integrity, it’s essential to agree early and revisit authorship decisions throughout the research lifecycle. A key takeaway when it comes to considering why authorship matters, is that authorship disputes are easier to prevent than resolve. This is especially true in the case of large research teams, as has been explored through Faulkes (2018).
This following tabs provide information intended to support those conversations, clarify roles, and provide frameworks for fair attribution.
While originating from biomedical publishing, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for defining authorship provide a good place to start when considering who should be considered an author. Their criteria are:
When you're publishing work, you'll need to check whether you target journal has their own standards, and adapt the authorship of your paper accordingly. Practices also differ by discipline, but the above criteria provide a basic understanding.
Contributors who do not algin with standards for authorship status still deserve recognition. This could be through acknowledgement, or contribution statements, for example. Read onto the next tab to find out more about giving credit transparently.
Using CRediT (Contributor Role Taxonomy) allows you to provide publication venues like journals information about different contributions to publications. CRediT provides 14 contributor roles, including conceptualisation, data curation, writing (original draft), supervision, and others. These statements allow for clarification on how each person contributed to an individual publication.
Including a CRediT statement in your manuscript helps to promote transparency in who did what, supports fair attribution, and makes your work more discoverable. Many journals and submission systems support CRediT, and even if your target journal does not, you can still include the breakdown in your cover letter or contribution section.
By adopting this taxonomy, you can ensure that contributions, from software development to project administration, are clearly recognised, reducing ambiguity and enabling better credit for all team members.
Best practice in authorship is important throughout the publication process. Discussing who is taking which role at the start of the project and revisiting this throughout, therefore helps to make sure everyone is on the same page. Some key practical steps are:
By embedding authorship discussions into your project management, you are able to reduce misunderstandings whilst reflecting contributions fairly.
In some situations, authorship disputes can arise even where preparation has happened. Examples could include disagreements about the order of authors, whether or not authors are included, or perceived contribution. UKRIO provides a Model Authorship Dispute Procedure which has been designed to help researchers resolve authorship disputes. Some initial key tips include:
Use a written agreement: at the outset, use a template (such as the UKRIO “Authorship Strategy Agreement”) to formalise expectations. These tools help anticipate areas of contention.
Mediation and escalation: if disagreements arise, appoint a neutral person (e.g., a supervisor, departmental research lead, or ethics officer) to mediate using an agreed procedure. UKRIO’s dispute process provides guidance on how to do this impartially.
Reflect and learn: once a dispute is resolved, record the outcome and lessons learned. Consider integrating those lessons into your next project’s authorship plan.
By having transparent procedures and open communication, authorship issues can be managed proactively, preserving both relationships and the integrity of the research.
To support ethical authorship practices, here are practical steps:
By embedding these practices, all contributors can be properly recognised, and accountability is shared.
For further information on authorship, we'd recommend the following resources that have helped to inform the content of this page.
Research data is broad in scope. It can be quantitative or qualitative, and can be in a variety of formats. This includes text, numbers, pictures, videos, codes, and more. Whatever form your research data may take, sharing this data contributes to the impact of your research, and increases its visibility. Additionally, it reinforces open enquiry, and allows results to be independently tested, thus improving the overall quality of research.
Many funders now require, as part of their data policy, that a data management and sharing plan is submitted as part of each research grant application. A data management and sharing plan helps you consider, at the project design and planning stage, how research data will be managed during the research process and shared afterwards with the wider research community. The university webpages have further information and guidance on research data management plans, and you can contact the Research Development Manager for your faculty for additional advice.
For a range of additional information and resources on the importance of managing and sharing data, head to the UK Data Service's dedicated webpages.
The University of Essex Research Data Repository is an online repository where data resulting from research undertaken within the University can be deposited, published and made accessible to the research community.
Plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct that falls under the university's definition of misconduct in research as it would be a breach against the university's Code of Good Research Practice. There is further information on both research misconduct and the University Code of Good Research Practice on the University Research Integrity page. For Postgraduate Researchers, there is also specific guidance on research misconduct and university expectations for PGRs available via the Student Directory.
When publishing, in addition to familiarising yourself with institutional policies, it's important to be aware of the specific plagiarism policy of the journal to which you're submitting. As many publishers are members of Crossref's Similarity Check service, which uses iThenticate to check for potential plagiarism, it's important to make sure your work does not plagiarise before submitting. In many situations plagiarism is not intentional, so it is always worth double checking.
Avoiding plagiarism is not just a consideration when reusing others' work, it's also important to be aware of self-plagiarism. When submitting a work for publication, make sure you have properly cited and acknowledged any of your previous work. Additionally, be aware that submitting the same work to different outlets at the same time may also lead to reports of self-plagiarism.
This page provides at introduction to some of the key ethical principles involved with publishing your work. For further guidance, take a look at the following pages:
If you have any questions, or would like some support that isn't on our webpages, feel free to contact the Research Services Team.
Except where otherwise noted, this work by University of Essex Library and Cultural Services is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
