IRED Codes of Ethics believe in respecting intellectual property. Plagiarism, wherein a person misrepresents words, ideas, computer codes or other innovative expression as his or her own, is an apparent violation of such ethical principles.
Plagiarism may also represent a violation of copyright law that is punishable by statute. Plagiarism establishes itself in different forms like verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying or purposely paraphrasing portions of paper of another author, Copying elements of the paper of another author, like equations or illustrations that maybe not common knowledge. It also includes copying or purposely paraphrasing sentences that too without citing the source. Similarly verbatim copying of patches of another author's paper with citing but not apparently differentiating what text has been copied like not applying quotation marks rightly) and/or not citing the source rightly. Talking about Self-plagiarism, it is a related issue. Here we talk about self-plagiarism as verbatim or near-verbatim reclaim of significant patches of one's own copyrighted work that too without citing the original source.
Please Note: Self-plagiarism does not apply to publications that are based on author's own previously copyrighted work Such a reuse does not need quotation marks to define the reused text but does demand that the source be cited.
All the authors are deemed to be both individually and collectively responsible for the content of the papers published by IRED. Hence, it is the accountability of each author to make sure that papers no matter research paper or any other ones submitted to IRED possess the highest ethical standards respecting plagiarism. IRED and IRED Publications Board conducts investigation of every claim of plagiarism at the highest priority to ensure action and resolution.
If you want to inform IRED about alleged plagiarism, send email to IRED Director of Publications. The following is the least information required for IRED to begin a plagiarism investigation:
All authors are deemed to be individually and collectively responsible for the content of papers published by IRED. Hence, it is the responsibility of each author to ensure that papers submitted to IRED attain the highest ethical standards with respect to plagiarism. IRED and the IRED Publications Board place the investigation of each claim of plagiarism at the highest priority for resolution and action.
Apart from this IRED encourages the submission of below given additional information to aid in investigation:
IRED can only process plagiarism claims linking material published under IRED Copyright or IRED Publishing Agreement License.
Once IRED receives an allegation of plagiarism, the Director of Publications shall inform appropriate IRED volunteers and the Senior Headquarters Staff. Thereafter Director will coordinate the investigation. Depending on details of claim, the investigation might involve, but not be restricted to, any or all of following steps:
Once the investigation is done, the IRED Publications Board, on the basis of a recommendation from IRED Director of Publications, will decide the penalties to be imposed. These will depend on the kind of plagiarism.
All the aspects of any investigation will be treated with the greatest regard for confidentiality. The names and contact details of the person(s) involved in the claim and their relationship to allegation (e.g., the author of plagiarized content, reviewer or editor of plagiarised work) shall be kept confidential and used just for purpose and duration of investigation.
However, to ensure timely and effective resolution, details of a claim shall be circulated to individuals on a need-to-know foundation. As part of investigation, it might be essential for IRED to contact present and/or past employers of authors. Apart from this, some institutions have particular requirements for their employees to reveal any pending legal/ethical issues.
IRED, at its discretion, might decide to tell the general IRED membership of plagiarism investigation. However, during the time of investigation, under no circumstances shall IRED reveal any individual author's name, referees, paper titles, ad hoc investigation committee members or any other personal or particular information concerning a plagiarism claim to the general membership.
Once a decision has been taken, it will be communicated to all the parties immediately by IRED Director of Publications. If plagiarism has been found, all the parties are going to be informed about the penalties and actions that shall be taken. Once the notification is received, the investigative phase shall be deemed to have ended and there would be no further communication with any party by IRED except there is an appeal to IRED President.
All the appeals must be made in writing to IRED President no more than thirty days from date of notification. Once a determination of plagiarism is made, there is no insurance that the author names and paper titles will continue to be kept secret. However, IRED shall not disclose an individual author's name, the referees, the paper title, the ad hoc investigation committee members or any other personal or particular information in a forum actively circulated to general membership.
Once plagiarism has been found to be there, IRED will take actions listed below as decided by the kind of plagiarism. Unless decided otherwise during investigation, all the authors are deemed to be individually and collectively responsible for the material of a plagiarizing paper.
If the authors refuse to comply with the above (e.g., in case they refuse to write a formal letter of apology) or if it is determined during the plagiarism search that there has been manifold violations of any of the above given forms of plagiarism by same authors, IRED retains the right to impose further sanctions like automatic rejection of all the current and future submissions for some extended period of time, appealing penalties prescribed by IRED Codes of Ethics and perhaps statutory/injunctive relief. U.S. Copyright law permits a copyright owner to seek an all-out of $150,000 in damages upon a determination of wilful infringement of copyright.