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)
“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/
The Council of Science Editors is a US-based, autonomous body serving the scientific, scientific publishing and information science communities. The CSE’s publications, including those on scientific style and format, are listed on the site and available on order.
The Editorial Policy Committee develops scientific editorial and publishing policies:
http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/services_DraftPolicies.shtml contains draft policies.
http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/services_DraftApproved.shtml contains editorial policy statements approved by the CSE board of directors.
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)
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
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
A complete set of excellent examples of instructions and guidelines for authors from JAMA.
Also hosts full text access to all the papers published in the Peer Review Congress issues since 1984 (http://www.ama-assn.org/public/peer/peerhome.htm#Issues and http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v287n21/toc.html), which contain many original research articles on publication ethics.
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)
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
This office of the US government has issued some of the most detailed guidelines, instructional programs, and investigation reports into research misconduct, including publication issues, and published a guide for editors on how to handle allegations of misconduct (http://ori.dhhs.gov/multimedia/acrobat/masm.pdf).
The website also provides details on funding for research into publication ethics (http://ori.dhhs.gov/html/programs/research.asp); and a list of key areas needing research (http://ori.hhs.gov/html/programs/potentialrestopics.asp).
Ethics of Peer Review Instructional Materials: A special collection of instructional materials created by Sara Rockwell, PhD, and commissioned by the ORI are available for anyone to use. The course materials consist of 4 elements:
Ethics of Peer Review: A Guide for Manuscript Reviewers, a didactic reading with references, designed to serve as a handout for participants in the course.
A PowerPoint presentation that can be used by the teacher to cover the material discussed in the handout.
A PowerPoint presentation with 12 case studies illustrating various ethical issues that might arise during the review of scientific manuscripts.
A Guide for the Discussion Leader that discusses each case and suggests points for discussion.
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
This institute provides training for lay journalists. Includes a collection of essays by journalists on journalism ethics (http://www.poynter.org/ethicsessays/) and (http://www.poynter.org/ethicsessays/), focussed on lay (not scientific) publication issues.
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.