(14 May 2025) Poll of 5,000 researchers finds contrasting views on when it’s acceptable to involve AI and what needs to be disclosed. The survey results suggest that researchers are sharply divided on what they feel are appropriate practices. Whereas academics generally feel it’s acceptable to use AI chatbots to help to prepare manuscripts,…
Higher education institutions are uniquely positioned to evaluate AI ethics and explore safeguards to promote responsible use at colleges and universities. (18 Mar 2025) When it comes to the ethical issues raised by artificial intelligence, colleges and universities are out in front. Many schools already look to AI to support teaching, learning, research, back-office functions…
(19 Jul 2024) China’s science and technology ministry has prohibited all clinical research involving germline genome editing, describing the approach as ‘irresponsible’. Germline genome editing involves making edits to DNA in egg, sperm or early embryos to introduce changes that can be inherited by future generations. The South China Morning Post reports that the new Ethical Guideline…
(14 Mar 2023) The rules are set out in the first AI ethics policy from Cambridge University Press and apply to research papers, books and other scholarly works. They include a ban on AI being treated as an ‘author’ of academic papers and books we publish. The move provides clarity to academics amid concerns…
(27 Apr 2022) China’s powerful State Council is calling on research institutions to expand and improve their ethics training. The directive, one of several detailed in a comprehensive ethics statement, is intended to address gaps in oversight exposed when Chinese researcher He Jiankui shocked the world by creating the first babies with edited genomes in 2018.…
Researchers need to observe ethical standards during a pandemic, say Ben Kasstan Rishita Nandagiri and Siyane Aniley, and journals should hold them to these standards. (8 Mar 2022) The pandemic has changed academic research. It has led to gender gaps in authorship, questions about the quality of scientific publishing, and shifts in peer review processes. As the effects — short and long…
(29 Mar 2021) Historically the single authored paper has been a mainstay of social scientific and humanistic research writing. However, co-authorship is now for many social science disciplines the default mode of academic authorship. Reflecting on this, Helen Kara, provides some key insights and advice for authors looking to co-write and co-publish in an ethical…
(27 March 2018) Get inspired by the path taken by the Sri Lanka Library Association (SLLA) in strengthening their library and information sector! Questions and answers by the project team and the Sri Lanka Library Association. The story about Building Strong Library Associations is here.
(5 March 2018) A recent study has revealed widespread unethical behaviour in academic research. Allen Wilhite focuses on two activities in particular; the addition to funding proposals of investigators not expected to contribute to the research, and editors who coerce authors to add citations to manuscripts even though those citations were not part of the scholars’ reference…
(29 January 2018) Some 82 cases of professors listing their secondary school offspring as co-authors in academic papers have been unearthed by an investigation by South Korea’s ministry of education, writes Aimee Chung. The discovery has prompted referrals to ethics committees at 29 universities – including some of the country’s top institutions – where the…