Full course description
Overview
This course is part of the “RCR@UMD” catalog, which houses the university’s Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training series. All UMD researchers are expected to complete RCR training, which was designed to accomplish the following:
- To broadly foster a culture of research integrity by aiding our research community in understanding the expectations for conducting all aspects of their research responsibly;
- To provide a foundation for acting in accordance with those expectations by offering guidance, best practices, and tools;
- To ensure appropriate stewardship of funds that support our important work;
- To help our researchers fulfill related training requirements.
Appropriate authorship and publication practices are vital to the responsible conduct of research and are a core component of fostering research integrity. Authorship and publication provide the means through which researchers and scholars memorialize their contributions to their discipline/field and share significant findings with the public. By sharing your research -- whether it be in a formal scholarly publication, in a conference presentation, or through another medium -- you have a responsibly to ensure the veracity and integrity of the work you are depositing into the research record, as other researchers may utilize your work to guide their own research endeavors. Similarly, you have a responsibility to abide by appropriate authorship criteria, thereby crediting others when credit is due and only when it is due.
Accordingly, all researchers at the University of Maryland are expected to: utilize standard authorship criteria; prepare publications accurately and completely; give appropriate credit and appropriately cite all sources; avoid predatory publishers; understand and follow standards, guidelines, policies, and regulations of the discipline, institution, funder, journal, and relevant government agencies to ensure the integrity of their authorship and publication practices; and utilize resources and RCR training to guide their authorship and publication practices.
To aid our researchers in fulfilling these obligations, this course was designed to:
- Introduce the general concept of authorship and publication and its specific application in the research setting;
- Explain how appropriate authorship and publication practices support research integrity;
- Provide an overview of common responsibilities of researchers as they relate to authoring and/or publishing scholarly works;
- Offer guidance on best practices related to authorship and publication;
- Provide you with resources, tools, and references to facilitate your engagement in those practices.
Course Outline
Section 1: What to Expect From This Module
Section 2: The Basics: Foundational Definitions and Concepts
Section 3: Why Responsible Authorship and Publication Practices Matter for Research Integrity and the Responsible Conduct of Research: Applying the Basics to the Research Setting
Section 4: Best Practices
Section 5: Applicable Regulations and/or Professional Standards
Section 6: Applicable UMD Guidance, Expectations, Policies, and/or Procedures
Section 7: Related Resources
At-A-Glance
For more information on the “RCR@UMD” program, including related modules, materials, and resources, visit: https://faculty.umd.edu/research-integrity/rcr-education.