UGC Makes Publication Ethics, Misconduct Mandatory for Ph.D Scholars
A senior UGC official said that it approved two credit programmes for awareness about publication misconduct and publication ethics which should be made mandatory for all the PhD candidates for pre-registration course work.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) recently made it mandatory for the PhD students to take up two new courses in misconduct for pre-registration course work and publication ethics.
A senior UGC official said that the decision was taken in a recent meeting by the Commission wherein it approved two credit programmes for awareness about publication misconduct and publication ethics. The subjects are to be made mandatory for all the PhD candidates for pre-registration course work.
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A letter was sent out by the Commission to the Vice-Chancellors of all the universities in order to make sure that the two credit courses are included in the PhD course work from the next academic session. The PhD coursework currently comprises of courses on research methodology. The same covers areas like computer applications, quantitative methods, review of published research in the field and concerned fieldwork.
M.Phil, PhD candidates and interested faculty members are eligible to take up these courses. The course would include six modules like Scientific Conduct, Publication Misconduct, Philosophy and Ethics, Publication Ethics, Open Access Publishing and Databases and Research Metrics. It would be a 2 credit course for a total of 30 hours.
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Hands-on sessions will also be given to the students to identify research misconduct and predatory publications. Open access publications, research metrics, plagiarism, indexing, and citation databases will also be incorporated in the programme.
The method and practice of teaching the subject would cover guest lectures, practical sessions, group discussions, and classroom teaching.
Students will be evaluated on the basis of their performance in tutorials, assignments, quizzes and group discussions and weightage will be awarded for active participation as well. The final written examination will be organised at the end of the programme.