UGC, apex policy making body in higher education, with a serious concern to increase and develop research quality in India approved a course which shall give an aspiring research candidate full exposure to the research ethics and measures to be taken for writing research articles, dissertations and theses.This course will be of 2 credits and will be mandatory for those candidates who wish to undertake research leading to M Phil and PhD degree respectively.
"This course has total 6 units focusing on philosophy of science and ethics, research integrity, publication ethics. Hands-on-sessions are designed to identify research misconduct and predatory publications. Indexing and citation database, open access publication, research metrics (citations, h-index, Impact Factor, etc.) and plagiarism tools will be introduced in this course".
This course will be of 30 teaching hours and will have 6 modules comprising 3 modules for theory and 3 modules of practice respectively. Evaluation process of the course involves continuous assessment through tutorials, assignments and active participation in group discussions. It will also have final written examination to be conducted at the end of the course.
UGC had issued a letter to that effect on 26 December 2019 to the Vice Chancellors of all universities of India on its website.
UGC Letter reg.: Two Credit Courses for awareness about Publication Ethics and Publication Misconduct
Source: UGC website
