ACademic Integrity

Julie Morris, julie.morris@unb.ca

Cat Gracey, catherine.gracey@unb.ca

February 20th, 2025

Agenda

Scholarly Communications

The process by which scholars – academics, researchers, and students alike – publish or otherwise share the products of their research

• It's both about where you publish (the readership and reputation of journals can be key factors) and what you publish (the quality of your research)
• We'll discuss both of these sides today

Thinking about research integrity

• Is this a good journal/conference?
  • Does it have a good reputation in my field?
  • Will my community of practice read/see it?
  • Will it be well-cited?
  • Am I in good company?
  • Is this a publisher of good repute?

Considering where to publish

Your supervisor will know a great deal about this topic!

• You might be required to make your work OA (see next slide)

• You might want your work to be OA (for greater visibility or to reach a particular audience)

The open access factor

TRI-Agency OA policy

1. “Grant recipients are required to ensure that any peer-reviewed journal publications arising from Agency-supported research are freely accessible within 12 months of publication.”
2. “Grant recipients can publish in a journal that offers immediate open access or that offers open access on its website within 12 months.”
3. “Grant recipients can deposit their final, peer-reviewed manuscript [post-print] into an institutional or disciplinary repository that will make the manuscript freely accessible within 12 months of publication.”
4. If your work is not published in an open access venue, you are required to share it in an open access repository, be it “institutional” or “disciplinary”.

• Open Access?
  • Is this journal open access or not?
  • What does "hybrid OA" mean?
  • Am I under an OA mandate?
  • Why am I paying for publishing?
  • Do I actually need to pay for publishing?

Publishing with intention

When you think of Open Access, you might immediately associate this with 'Open Access Journals' that charge you money to publish your work.

maintaining financial viability via apc

Pre-OA, publishers traditionally made their money via subscriptions (from libraries, other organizations, or individuals). When they make access free, they need to make money another way.

A result of this is that you probably feel like open access requires you to spend money. Or that open access means having to pay an APC. This isn't true!

Some free/low cost OA Options

*Not free for readers on the original publisher site, but a free version is available

To learn more, come out to Mike Nason's talk next week!

*Not free for readers on the original publisher site, but a free version is available

In summarY:

The amount you spend is not directly correlated to the quality of the journal, and you don't have to spend lots money to get into a reputable journal

Cost (or lack thereof) is impacted by

• Business model of the publisher
• Geographical location of the publisher
• Disciplinary norms
• Saturation of the field

Before we move on... I have to leave you on a downer...

Some publishers know that they can charge authors for OA publishing, and they take advantage of this, without doing the expected associated work

Predatory/Bad-Faith Publishers

Lists exist, but they are not comprehensive/entirely accurate. Instead,

Look out for red flags:

• Solicitation
• Promise to publish
• Very short peer-review
• Lack of clear information on website
• Lots of previous retractions

You want to avoid publishing in Predatory journals

This can damage your reputation, or call into question the integrity of your research

• Ahead of your work being published, you'll be asked to sign a publication agreement (or copyright transfer)

• This will lay out who owns copyright - and other rights

• Do not just sign! Consider what rights matter to you, and feel free to connect with one of us about the agreement.

Author rights

〞

If publishers hold exclusive rights to your work, they have the authority to license it for various uses, including AI training, and financially benefit from these deals.

– Dede Dawson, 2024

• For access to their data to train their AI models with:

  • Microsoft paid Taylor & Francis $10 million

  • An unnamed company paid Wiley $23 million (with another $21 million coming soon)

• Authors did not explicitly consent to this, but most had signed their rights away
• Authors did not see compensation for this, and many likely paid to publish their works

Why this matters

Scholarly Profiles

Scholarly Profiles

• Kind of like a CV
• Facilitates collection/analysis of metrics and citations
• Connects researchers with other researchers, or research

Supports attribution and visibility of:

• Grants
• Research
• Scholarship
• Creative Works

Social Media

Research Impact Metrics

what are metrics?

• Speaks to reach, impact, and significance of research outputs
• Quantitative measures about research
• Available at the author level, article level, or journal level

Example use cases:

• Professional assessment
• Grant applications
• Institutional impact ratings

bibliographic databases

Examples

PUblish or Perish

Pressure on academics to publish quantity, not quality

Less intrinsic motivation

May contribute to more bad faith publishing

Fewer publications about negative results in science

Quantitative Approaches

Author Level

Number of publications

H-index, G-index, i10-Index, m-index, Py-index, etc.

h-index

Quantitative Approaches

Quantitative Approaches

Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

÷

=

Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

Responsible use of metrics

Leiden Manifesto

• Guides responsible use of metrics in bibliometrics

declaration on research assessment

• Recognizes the need to improve the ways in which the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated

Sociology of citations

• Gender bias
• Racial bias
• Self-citation

Why does it all matter?

Inspires intentional consumption of research and participation in the scholarly publishing ecosystem.

Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence

• Academic Integrity as a Student

  • UNB Policies on AI

  • Acknowledgement vs Citations

• Academic Integrity as a Researcher
  • Publisher/Funder Policies on AI

We'll briefly cover both of these points today:

The current Unb Academic Integrity policy doesn't mention ai

This is likely to change very soon (the new policy is going to Senate soon)

Academic Integrity policy

What does this mean for you?

1.

2.

3.

As a UNB student, you are subject to the processes outlined in the Academic Offenses Document, and penalties can include:

• A failing grade on the assignment
• A failing grade in the class
• Suspension 
• Withdrawal from the university

The exact penalty depends on the case, and whether it is a first, second or third offense. 

Repercussions of academic misconduct as a student

As we previously covered, where you publish matters for your reputation.

Additionally, what you publish is incredibly important. In addition to the peer-review process, your colleagues may read your work so you want to put your best foot forward. This requires both high-quality work and transparency about your process. You do not want your work to be put into question!

Reputation as a researcher

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

What is an author?

This is a little bit more complicated because you answer to funders, publishers and the greater research community, not just UNB. Consequences may include:

• Retraction of your articles
  • Drop in citations
  • Loss of reputation
• Removal of awards or funding opportunities
• Job loss
• Degrees revoked

Repercussions of Academic Misconduct as a Researcher

Accusations of Cheating

• Not 100% accurate (or even close to that)

• You should aim to protect yourself from false accusations of AI use

  • Keep previous versions of works

  • Turn on track changes

  • Utilize other tools to illustrate your work (Zotero)

  • Avoid inputting your work into GenAI tools 

AI Detection Tools