The Ethics Committee is appointed by the Academic Council upon nomination by the Principal.
| S.No. | Name | Designation | Department | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dr. M. Jayaraman | Professor & Principal | Mechanical Engg. | Chairman |
| 2 | Dr.K.R.Valluvan | Professor & CoE | ECE | Member |
| 3 | Dr.S.Jabeen Begum | Professor & Head | CSE | Member |
| 4 | Dr.P.Sakthivel | Professor & Head | EEE | Member |
| 5 | Dr.Deepa Jananakumar | Professor & Head | Physics | Member |
| 6 | Dr.V.Chandrasekaran | Professor & R&D Coordinator | MDE | Member |
The nomination of faculty members of the Committee should endeavor to cover all the disciplines of the Institute.
In case of conflict of interests, members of the Ethics Committee shall be temporarily replaced by substitutes nominated by the Principal.
Misconduct in academic research implies (and is not limited to) fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or deception in proposing, carrying out or reporting results of research and deliberate, dangerous or negligent deviations from accepted practice in carrying out research. It includes failure to follow an agreed protocol if and when this failure results in unreasonable risk or harm to persons, the environment, and when it facilitates misconduct in research by collusion in, or concealment of, such actions by others.
Misconduct also includes any plan or attempt to do any of these things. It does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretation or judgment in evaluating research methods or results, or misconduct unrelated to research processes.
Misconduct includes (and is not limited to) the following acts:
Plagiarism: The deliberate copying of ideas, text, data or other work (or any combination thereof) without due permission and acknowledgement.
Piracy: The deliberate exploitation of ideas from others without proper acknowledgement.
Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights: Failure to observe legal norms regarding copyright and the moral rights of authors.
Abuse of Research Resources: Failure to observe the terms and conditions of institutionally licensed research resources. Defamation: Failure to observe relevant legal norms governing libel and slander.
Misinterpretation: The deliberate attempt to represent falsely or unfairly the ideas or work of others, whether or not for personal gain or enhancement.
Personation: The situation where someone other than the person who has submitted any academic work has prepared (parts of) the work.
Fabrication and Fraud: The falsification or invention of qualifications, data, information or citations in any formal academic exercise.
Sabotage: Acting to prevent others from completing their work. This includes stealing or cutting pages out of library books or otherwise damaging them; or wilfully disrupting the experiments of others; or endangering institutional access to licensed research resources by wilfully failing to observe their terms and conditions.
Professorial misconduct: Professorial acts that are arbitrary, biased or exploitative.
Denying access to information or material: To deny others access arbitrarily to scholarly resources or to deliberately and groundlessly impede their progress.
Misconduct in formal examinations: Includes having access, or attempting to gain access during an examination, to any books, memoranda, notes, unauthorized electronic devices or any other material, except such as may have been supplied by the invigilator or authorized by the Academic Department. It also includes aiding or attempting to aid another candidate or obtaining or attempting to obtain aid from another candidate or any other communication and conversations that could have an impact on the examination results.
Two levels of violations of good academic practice can be distinguished.
1. Minor Violations:
Minor violations may occur because of inexperience or lack of knowledge of the principles of academic integrity and are often characterized by the absence of dishonest intent on the part of the person committing the violation.
They may result from:
On the whole, these minor violations can be seen as failings which may reflect only poor, rather than unacceptable practices and therefore mainly require further training and development rather than any formal disciplinary action.
2. Major Violations: Major violations are breaches of academic integrity that are more serious in nature or that affect a more significant aspect or portion of the academic work compared with minor violations.
Key examples are:
Plagiarism: Plagiarism represents unethical scientific behavior which is never acceptable. Proper acknowledgement of the work of other used in a research work must always be given. Further, it is the obligatory on part of each author to provide prompt corrections or errors in published work.
Degrees of Plagiarism:
1. Invalid source 2. Secondary source 3. Duplication 4. Paraphrasing 5. Repetitive research 6. Replication 7. Misleading attribution 8. Unethical collaboration 9. Verbatim plagiarism 10. Complete plagiarism
Plagiarism Checker Software:
1. Urkund
Action/Penalty against defaulters: Any violation of the rule and other issue, complaints regarding plagiarism attracts disciplinary action to be imposed by committee within one month from the day of complaint. Depending on the type of acts and violation of code of ethics, suitable penalty or punishment against defaulters shall be recommended by the review committee.
1. Investigation of proceedings
Without prejudice to the right and duty of Departments to address and assess issues of plagiarism in the course of the regular assessment of a paper presented by a researcher, any person may submit a complaint about academic misconduct to the Principal. Such complaints need to be supported by sufficient evidence.
The Principal will decide whether the allegation is serious enough to warrant an investigation by the Ethics Committee. If the allegation concerns a PhD researcher, the Principal may also delegate this task to the Head of the department (s). The initiator of the allegation shall be asked to set out in writing the basis of the allegation.
The Ethics Committee may carry out:
2. Investigation
Where possible, the investigation will include examination of all relevant documentation, including, but not limited to: relevant research data; laboratory notebooks; computer files; other materials; proposals; publications; correspondence; and memoranda, insofar as this is necessary for the investigation and compatible with the Institute Data Protection Policy.
The Chair of the Ethics Committee may invite internal or external experts who are not involved in the disputed matter and who are not members of the Committee to attend meetings. Interviews shall be conducted with the complainant and the respondent. Other individuals involved in making the allegations and individuals who might have information regarding key aspects of the allegations may also be heard by the Committee.
The respondent has the right to be assisted or represented by a member of the Institute of his/her own choice. Details of the allegations and the investigation will be made available only to the Ethics Committee. All individuals interviewed during the investigation will be asked to respect the confidential nature of the investigation.
3. Investigation report and recommendations
The Ethics Committee will produce a report stating: the procedures under which the formal investigation was conducted; how and, where appropriate, from whom information was obtained; the findings of the committee and the basis for these; a summary of the views of the respondent; and a description of any recommendations made by the committee.
The respondent will receive a copy of the investigation report and have an opportunity to comment on it. Comments may be submitted to the Ethics Committee and will be attached as an addendum to the investigation report. If disciplinary actions are recommended, the Ethics Committee will communicate to the internal Disciplinary Committee what action, if any, should be taken as a result of the investigation.
Based on the investigation report and recommendations of the Ethics Committee, the Disciplinary Committee may decide on sanctions (when considered appropriate).
Sanctions, as recommended by the Ethics Committee and as decided by the Disciplinary and/or Disciplinary Appeals Committee, may include (but are not limited to):
1. Resubmission of an assignment or academic work.
2. A failing grade for the examination or specific assigned exercise; or a failing grade for the course as a whole, depending on the importance of the work to the overall course grade.
3. A letter of reprimand, issued by the chair of the Disciplinary Committee, which may or may not be recorded on the scholar’s file.
4. Suspension from the programme.
5. Suspension of grant/contract.
6. Revocation of a degree or certificate.
Any sanctions, or decisions not to resort to them, are without prejudice to the academic assessment of a researcher’s paper by the Department in question, and to the decisions by the Entrance Board.