Publication Ethics

American Chemical Society (ACS)

http://pubs.acs.org/instruct/ethic.html

    • Ethical guidelines for publications in chemical research. The site deals primarily with the process of publication, research, and conflict of interest in the chemical industry.

American Medical Writers Association (AMWA)

http://www.amwa.org/

    • “Code of Ethics” for biomedical communicators, education programs, and an on-site workshop program.

American Statistical Association

http://www.amstat.org/profession/ethicalstatistics.html

    • “Comprehensive Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice,” with a detailed section on responsibilities in publications and testimony.

BioMed Central (BNC) Medical Ethics*

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6939/

    • A collection of peer-reviewed original research papers on various ethics topics. The BioMed Central initiative is an online journal that maintains a high standard of peer review.

BMJ resources: *

http://bmj.com/cgi/collection/competing_interests

http://bmj.com/cgi/collection/authorship

http://bmj.com/cgi/collection/peer_review

http://bmj.com/cgi/collection/research_and_publication_ethics

    • All the above BMJ sites lead to their ‘Collected Resources.’

    • One of the several best collections of peer-reviewed articles on publication ethics available in full text on the web. British Healthcare Internet Association (BHIA)

    • http://www.bhia.org/reference/documents/recommend_webquality.htm

    • “Recommendations for Quality Standards for Medical Publishing on the Web;” not recently updated.

Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT)

http://www.cehat.org/initiatives1.html or

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/bioethics/guidelines/ethical.html

    • This site contains the “Ethical Guidelines for Social Science Research in Health,” the product of a non-governmental effort coordinated by CEHAT and representative discussion between researchers and institutions all over India.

    • Detailed suggestions are made on the reporting and publication of research, and the rights and responsibilities of peer reviewers, referees, editors and publishers.

Clinical Research Workshops

http://ethics.ucsd.edu/workshops/CRW/human.htm

    • “Human Subjects: An Introduction to Ethical and Practical Considerations; Publication and Authorship.”

    • This website provides material for workshops (with case studies) on various aspects of clinical research including publication and authorship— a collaborative effort by faculty members at the University of California, San Diego and the University of California, San Franscisco.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) *

http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/

    • An organization of British editors who review and discuss problem cases and promote guidelines on good publication practice. The best site for discussion of actual cases of fabricated data, plagiarism, authorship disputes, etc.

Council of Science Editors, Inc. (CSE)

http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/

Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty

http://www.forsk.dk/eng/uvvu/publ/index.htm

    • A site similar to that of COPE, for Danish research only.

European Association of Science Editors (EASE)

http://www.ease.org.uk/

    • The website provides a publications and resource guides from EASE, which is comprised of editors and publishing professionals.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), a.k.a. Vancouver Group

http://www.icmje.org

    • The “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” and statements related to biomedical publication practices, endorsed and cited by over 500 journals worldwide (but probably observed by a tiny fraction of that).

Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)*

http://jama.ama-assn.org/info/auinst.html

Journal of Medical Internet Research

http://www.jmir.org/instruction.htm

    • Detailed instructions for authors including “Conflict of Interest” section.

    • “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.”

    • Useful links.

Lay publication codes of conduct (listed by country and topic)

http://www.presswise.org.uk/display_page.php?id=40

    • A good source for finding publication ethics codes of various lay journalism organizations, in all areas of publication (not just health sciences). Recommendations for reporting on health issues specifically are listed at http://www.presswise.org.uk/display_page.php?id=74

Medical College Of Ohio*

http://www.mco.edu/lib/instr/libinsta.html

    • Lists links to Web sites that provide specific instructions to authors for over 3,000 journals in the health and life sciences. All links are to "primary sources," that is to publishers or organizations with editorial responsibilities for the titles.

National Library of Medicine (NLM)

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/

    • An opportunity to search databases such as Pubmed, MEDLINE, for publications on ethics. Few direct resources on publication ethics.

New England Journal of Medicine

http://www.nejm.org/hfa/policies.asp

    • A modest collection of policies of the New England Journal of Medicine on common publication ethics issues (including authorship, conflict of interest, prepublication publicity, etc.

Office of Research Integrity (ORI)*

http://ori.dhhs.gov/html/policies/introduction.asp

On-line Ethics Center for Engineering and Science at Case Western Reserve University

http://onlineethics.org/reseth/edu.html

    • Instructional resources and lectures in ethics (specifically for engineers and scientists) include discussions of the responsible collection, retention, sharing, and interpretation of data, responsible authorship, and responsibilities in the editing and reviewing of journals and grant applications.

On-Line Science Ethics Resources

http://www.chem.vt.edu/ethics/vinny/ethxonline.html#institutions

    • A thorough list of science-ethics centers and programs, as well as: “Ethics Policies at Institutions,” “Professional Societies and Organizations,” “Guidelines for Authors, Editors, and Reviewers.”

    • Publication-ethics policies of disciplines not often covered by WAME discussions (e.g. mathematics, chemistry, physicis, psychology, etc.) can be found here.

Pharmaceutical company good publication practices guidelines

http://www.gpp-guidelines.org/

Poynter Institute

http://poynter.org/

Society for Neuroscience

http://web.sfn.org/content/Publications/Guidelines2/index.html

    • Guidelines for responsible conduct regarding scientific communication, a useful set of principles.

Web Resources on Publication and Research Ethics is provided with special thanks to Alexei Brovko, who was responsible for creating most of the list.