Publication Ethics and Graduate Students

This chapter provides an overview of key issues involved in publication ethics with a particular focus on the educational needs of graduate students to understand publication ethics and the relationship between ethical misconduct in research and ethical misconduct in scholarly publication. Publication ethics and its place on the continuum between research ethics and publication integrity are explored. For a number of years, universities and governments have introduced requirements for graduate students to learn research ethics and examples of violations of ethics prior to undertaking research. Such educational requirements are however generally lacking with respect to knowledge of publication ethics. Many graduate students do publish their initial scholarly research findings as part of their graduate education, and many go on to establish academic careers. It is consequently critical that graduate students also receive education about the nature and types of ethical violations of publication ethics. Also, it should be noted that even if graduate students do not intend to pursue an academic career, teaching them about both research ethics and publication ethics is a good end in itself.