Abstract:
The Polytechnics in Ghana are currently in transition of upgrading to Technical University status. In view of this, academic research and for that matter compliance to research ethics has become key. The study explored the awareness of academic research ethics among Senior Polytechnic Librarians across the ten regions of Ghana by looking at the librarians’ role in support to academic research, impact of Information and Communication Technology on research ethics, components of ethical dilemmas, importance of ethical compliance in scholarship, control of the menace of misconducts, and some of the tools and applications for assessing compliance with research ethics. As behavioural attitudes, the adoption of the ‘‘duty-based theory which complements the need for compliance to academic research policies, rules, code of conducts and committees was adopted.
This was an exploratory study that adopted the quantitative method. Thirty-seven (37) Senior Polytechnic librarians were the population surveyed. Questionnaire was the instrument used for the data collection. The questions were emailed to majority of the respondents, whilst the researcher personally distributed that of Accra, Cape Coast and Koforidua Polytechnics. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to analyse the data.
The study revealed research author aid services, development of institutional repositories, information literacy and digitisation as roles undertaken to support research in the Polytechnic. The study discovered plagiarism, copyright abuse, fabrication, encroachment on privacy, poor record keeping and abuse of fair use policy as some of the common ethical misconducts. Dilemmas such as honorary authorship, conflict of interest, ghost authorship and salami publications received minimal awareness among the respondents. Other delinquencies which came to light were data insecurity, social network abuse and e-waste.
Academic integrity, reputation building, institutions’ ranking, competition for grants, standardisation in research, transparency, accountability and openness leading to continuity of research were indicated as some of the benefits. Ethical awareness and compliance additionally served as sources of funding in meeting sponsors and funders criteria.
Recommendations identified included the use of innovative applications such as plagiarism detectors, reference managers, learning and content management systems. Interactive approaches such as practice of Personal Information Management (PIM), establishment of academic writing centres, information literacy, establishment of ethical committees coupled with vigorous accreditation standards were indicated. Teaching of ethics in Library and Information Science (LIS) schools was also recommended.
