DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology

Integrity in Education and Research

Manorama Tripathi — 2019-03-11

Universities and higher educational institutions, in the country or across the globe create new knowledge through their study of the existing ecosystems along with the constraints and challenges that lie therein. The most crucial tool in the box towards solving these gaping issues happens to be academic research. The knowledge generated at these epicentres address the problems, related to health, climate change, sustainability among many others. The findings of the research offer substantial breakthroughs to enhance the living standards of the people, better utilization of the limited resources and preservation of the planet.

With the changing and ever-growing role of the institutions of higher learning and universities in particular research has become all the more crucial. There is hardly any domain where universities and the scholars don’t have a role to play. With spectacularly arrayed disciplines coming under the ambit of education, the researchers have a ringside view of the world problems. If we pick up any instance of authorities dealing with contemporary issues, we are sure to find a few academics in the core team. Academics and particularly the hard research has emerged as the new go-to guy.

With so much riding on the research, any dilution of its sanctity would bring down the entire edifice of progress and development. Any laxity on the rigorous methodologies or standards procedures may prove very catastrophic for all the stakeholders and the community as a whole.

Sadly it has been observed worldwide that researchers often indulge in misconduct while pursuing their education and research enterprises. Misconduct refers to a gamut of wrong practices like plagiarizing, fabricating or falsifying data, manipulating images or pictures to substantiate their finding; reporting selectively to support their research objectives. The menace of gift and ghost authorship is also prevalent across academic and research intelligence. Any of this dilutes the quality of research and questions the authenticity of the resulting knowledge.

Finding Facets of Academic Integrity and Plagiarism through the Prism of a Citation Database

Swapan Kumar Patra — 2019-03-11

With the recent growth of university education and the increasing amount of literature available on the web, there is concern among the academician and other interested about the research ethics and academic integrity. The Government of India, through the University Grant Commission (UGC), India has recently adopted policy document with a clear definition of the subject and policy measure to control the various issues that arise from it. This paper is an attempt to map the global publication and research trends in the Academic Integrity and Plagiarism issues. The paper uses different bibliometrics scientometrics and social network tools to map the literature growth pattern, subject areas and so on. The study is also trying to situate India’s position and its research trends in the global landscape in terms of literature growth, publication outlets, and keyword analysis. The study observed that the Indian scholarly literature in these areas are increasing in recent years. Although it is not at par with the global literature growth. The keyword analysis observed that Indian literature is more towards computer and ICT related literature rather than the global research in the medical subject (human is the second most occurring keywords). The study recommends more focusses and integrated research approach in other university and institutes in India.

Regulations to Prevent Plagiarism in Higher Education in India A Critical Appraisal

Ramesh K Pandita — 2019-03-11

The undergoing discussion presents a critical view about the various measures taken by the different governing bodies, especially by the UGC to prevent the practice of plagiarism in Higher Education Institutions in India. The discussion highlights the grey areas of the measures taken by these governing bodies to curb the practice of plagiarism and also focuses on the reasons, which more or less can be seen as a reason for triggering the practice of plagiarism across the academic and the research circles of the country, along with some other undesirable practices of publishing. The study deliberates threadbare about the misunderstandings and the mal-understandings about the plagiarism, whereby academicians and researchers are not yet able to draw a fine line to understand as what amounts to plagiarism and what not and the ways and means to overcome this practice. These and many other aspects have been touched, whereby measures taken lack rationality and how actually the forced researchers are vitiating the otherwise healthy research atmosphere of the country.

A cross sectional study of retraction notices of scholarly journals of science

Manorama Tripathi — 2019-03-11

Retraction is the withdrawal of published article after it is found that the authors did not ensure integrity in conducting and reporting their research activities. The bibliometric information of 4716 document categorised as retractions in Science Citation Index, Web of Science was downloaded and analysed to understand trend, pattern and reasons of retraction. The results showed that retractions had increased during the ten-year period, 2008-2017. The main reasons for retractions were plagiarism, falsified data, manipulation of images and figures. It was also found that just 40 out of 4716 retraction notices had explicitly stated reasons for retracting the published articles. The open access journals had more number of retractions as compared to subscription based journals. The study will guide library professionals and research scholars towards a better comprehension of the reasons behind retractions in science discipline in the ten-year period. They would be better equipped to steer clear of inauthentic publications in their citations and references.

Research Integrity in the Context of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Framework

Anup Kumar Das — 2019-03-11

In April 2017 the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), in collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, organized a national consultation on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Five key issues aligning in the RRI framework were discussed in the meeting, which are namely public engagement, open access, gender equality, science education, and ethics. As pointed out by the expert panelists, the aspects of ethics in research and academia include the research integrity, minimization of research misconduct and plagiarism, besides a few others. Recently launched “RRI-Practice Report from National Case Study: India”, extensively analyzed the public policy instruments facilitating the governance of responsible research in India. The fundamental tenets of responsibility in research and innovation are to be based on the ideas of Access, Equity, and Inclusion (AEI), as identified by the said country case study. On the other hand, the idea of Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR) was advocated by the Prime Minister of India in lines with the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) during the 104th Indian Science Congress, 2017. RRI framework addresses many of the critical issues related to SSR. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges in the RRI Framework while ensuring the research integrity in India. This paper includes the highlights from the INSA Policy Statement on "Dissemination and Evaluation of Research Output in India" (2018), UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations (2018), and RRI-Practice’s “Report from National Case Study: India” (2018).

Plagiarism An Essay in Terminology

MP Satija — 2019-03-11

The terminology on plagiarism is not hard and fast. It is fluid, a bit ambiguous, and still emerging. It may take some time to settle the terms more clearly, concretely and exhaustively. This paper aims to provide a terminological discussion of some important and current concepts related to plagiarism. It discusses key terms/concepts such as copyright, citation cartels, citing vs. quoting, compulsive thief, cryptomnesia, data fakery, ignorance of laws and codes of ethics, information literacy, lack of training, misattribution, fair use clause, paraphrasing, plagiarism, plagiarism detection software, publish or perish syndrome, PubPeer, retraction, retraction vs. correction, retraction watch, salami publication, similarity score, Society for Scientific Values, and source attribution. The explanation and definition of these terms/concepts can be useful for LIS scholars and professionals in their efforts to fight plagiarism. We expect this terminology can be referred in future discussions on the topic and also used to improve the communications between the actors involved.

Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct A Systematic Review

Shipra Awasthi — 2019-03-11

The present study focuses on previous studies conducted on plagiarism and academic misconduct during 2009- 2018. This study highlights earlier studies that dealt with the concepts of plagiarism and academic misconduct, factors of plagiarism, types of plagiarism, strategies to avoid plagiarism, anti-plagiarism software/ tools and need for anti-plagiarism software. The study is based on 408 sample records collected from the Scopus database. From the study, it is found that the abundance of literature is available on plagiarism and academic misconduct, which implies that the majority of users are aware of the concept of plagiarism and academic integrity. It is also found that in academics, a vigilant approach is required to tackle the problem related to plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct and accordingly measures must be implemented to control them. The libraries play a very significant role in creating awareness among the users by organizing training programmes. This study is beneficial for the researchers in comprehending the concept and building up the research keeping in mind the repercussions of different forms of plagiarism and academic misconduct.

Information Literacy Competency Level of Social Science Researchers with Respect to Information Use Ethics A Study

Rajesh Singh — 2019-03-12

Assessment of information literacy competency (ILC) is a process and method to find out whether a person possesses ILC and if so, to what level. The present study is an attempt to gauge the ILC level of social science researchers with respect to information use ethics. On the competency scale overall 79.62 per cent of the respondents, consisting maximum 16.54 per cent from economics followed by 15 per cent from political science, 13.08 per cent from history, 12.69 per cent from sociology, 11.35 per cent from law and 10.96 per cent from geography, were found competent in information literacy (IL) to use information ethically and legally. The rest 20.38 per cent of the respondents, consisting of maximum 4.42 per cent respondents from law 4.04 per cent from geography, 3.46 per cent from history, political science and sociology and minimum of 1.54 per cent from economics were found lacking competency in information literacy to use information ethically and legally. IL skills to deal with information abundance and manage information in the ICT age having multiple similarity detection software and stringent legal provisions are highly important. The study findings have clearly established that a good part of researchers are far behind competency level and possess only baseline or below IL skills on ‘Information Use Ethics’. The findings are supposed to be of great help to all the stakeholders to plan, organise and participate in various information literacy activities and ultimately enhance the ILC of researchers on ‘information use ethics’.

Analysis of Segmentation Methods for Brahmi Script

Ajay Pratap Singh — 2019-03-11

Segmentation is an important step for developing any optical character recognition (OCR) system, which has to be redesigned for each script having, non-uniform nature/property. It is used to decompose the image into its sub-units, which act as a basis for character recognition. Brahmi is a non-cursive ancient script, in which characters are not attached to each other and have some spacing between them. This study analyses various segmentation methods for different scripts to develop the best suitable segmentation method for Brahmi. MATLAB software was used for segmentation purpose in the experiment. The sample data belongs to Brahmi script-based ‘Rumandei inscription’. In this paper, we discuss a segmentation methodology for distinct components, namely text lines, words and characters of Rumandei inscription, written in Brahmi script. For segmenting distinct components of inscription different approach were used like horizontal projection profile, vertical projection profile and Relative minima approach. This is fundamental research on an inscription based on Brahmi script, which acts as a foundation for developing a segmentation module of an OCR solution/system of similar scripts in future. Information search and retrieval is an important activity of a library. So, to ensure this support for digitised documents written in ancient script, their character recognition is mandatory through the OCR system.

Scholarly output on Drone Research A Bibliometric Study

Suresh Kumar Chauhan — 2019-03-11

Drones have key applications in surveillance and security, especially in defence. In recent years, drones are also being used in photography, disaster management, traffic tracking, logistics etc. Use of drones in delivery businesses is seen as a progressive opportunity and library system is also not spared from it. A few libraries and book houses are trying to boost their book delivery service by keeping drone as an important mode of delivery, particularly in the remote areas. The time is not far behind when we may find drone as an essential part of our life. Through this study, an effort has made to quantify the research productivity on drone at the global level. The study accommodated publications on drones published from 1968 to 2017 (50 year). The publications related data were retrieved from the Scopus citation index and computed in MS – Excel. Various bibliometric techniques were used to find out the growth rate of publications (16.00 % annually), citation analysis (58.33 % cited rate), authorship pattern and most productive countries etc.

E Resources vs Prints Usages and Preferences by Undergraduates in a Private University Nigeria

Jerome Idiegbeyan-ose — 2019-03-11

Electronic and print resources usages and preferences among undergraduates of Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Kwara State, Nigeria has been examined. The study population consist of all undergraduates of the University, from which a sample of 250 that is 10 percent of the population was selected. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire. 231 copies of the questionnaire were completed and returned, representing 92.45 per cent response rate. Results from the study revealed that 110 (47.6 %) of the respondents preferred print resources, while interestingly, the same number 110 (47.6 %) preferred electronic resources; 11(4.8 %) of the participants did not provide any response to the question. It therefore implies that both print and electronic resources are complementary in meeting the information needs of undergraduates. However, majority of the respondents indicated that they usually supplement print materials with electronic resources or vice versa. The test of hypotheses revealed that user preferences were influenced by demographic factors such as age, course and level of study. Libraries should maintain hybrid collections, as both resources were found to be relevant sources of information for teaching, learning and research is recommended.

Development of Online Legal Information System Lawyers Perceptions

Raj Kumar Bhardwaj — 2019-03-11

The study ascertains the perception of academic and practicing lawyers about awareness of legal information resources and problems faced by them in accessing legal information resources. Their perceptions about the development of open access legal information system were identified in developing an open-access online legal information system. A structured open-ended questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents. Researcher collected 216 filled questionnaire from academic lawyers and 181 questionnaire from practicing lawyers working in eight institutions in Delhi (India). Data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and results are presented in tables and figures. The study found significant difference in the responses of academic and practicing lawyers. 28 (13.0 %) academic lawyers and 28 (15.5 %) practicing lawyers rated online legal information resources poor. More academic lawyers were very satisfied compared to practicing lawyers in using commercial resources. It was ascertained that more number of practicing lawyers expressed ‘somewhat satisfied’ in using open access resources. Academic lawyers, 51 (28.7 %), expressed ‘completely dissatisfied’ and 33 (21.9 %) practicing lawyers stated ‘completely dissatisfied’ in using the open access resources. Practicing lawyers have highlighted that poor details on online legal information is a major hindrance in using legal information resources while academic lawyers mentioned several login requisites as one of the major problems. The outcome of the study can be used to develop suitable online legal information resources.