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Research Process: Understand your responsibilities

Academic Integrity

                                    

Academic integrity and honesty are essential to upholding MBZUAI's educational mission and community standards. Academic community members are expected to demonstrate values of honesty, moral behavior, responsibility, and respect in their pursuit of knowledge and academic work.

Related to academic integrity are research ethics, and key in upholding these values and ensure high standards of rigor and transparency in the communication of all aspects of research.

Academic dishonesty in any form challenges the very foundations of higher education, and therefore graduate students, researchers, and faculty are required to abide by the highest standards of integrity and honesty.

What does acting with integrity mean?

  • Submit your own work
  • Submit work that reflects your voice and ability
  • Always acknowledge your sources 
  • Acknowledge ideas and information that have contributed to your work
  • Evaluate your sources 
  • Observe copyright and privacy laws
  • Follow research ethics 
  • Be familiar with the MBZUAI Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures.

Research Ethics

Review third-party content

Carefully review the content of your work and be sure to observe copyright law, and follow academic writing conventions. As the copyright owner of your thesis, you remain responsible for the review and use of third-party content.

Consider the following in reviewing your use of protected or copyrighted materials:

Is the work protected?

 A work is protected (copyrighted) the moment it is created and available in a tangible form, and:

  • Can be published or unpublished.
  • Open access or behind a paywall
  • Includes books, sound and video recordings, art and architectural works, music, images, photographs, source code, etc.
  • May be available in print, physical, electronic, or digital formats.
  • Enjoys a term of protection that usually includes a creator/author's lifetime and an additional period as determined by a country's copyright laws.
  • Gives the copyright owner (author, artist, publisher, organization, etc.) the exclusive right to reproduce or make copies of a work, distribute or sell copies to the public, create derivative works based on the original work, and, to perform and display a work in public.

Any use of a protected work must include attribution, but in addition to this, if your use exceeds an acceptable amount, and infringes the rights of the author, - or if you are simply not sure, consider the following:

  1. Fair use conventions 

  2. Permissive licenses

  3. The work is in the public domain

  4. Permission from copyright owner (if none of the above applies)

1. Does your use of the work fall under fair use?

 

 

If your use of a work is limited (small amount), and would not affect the moral and economic rights of the owner of a work, it may fall under fair use.

  • Fair Use, a legal concept, and exception to copyright law, allows for limited use of a protected material under certain conditions, and without first obtaining permission from the copyright owner.
  • This exception is intended for the advancement of knowledge, culture, and science, and is described in different national copyright laws (including UAE's copyright law), and is supported by international copyright conventions.
  • You are responsible for assessing fair use but there are tools available that can help you in this task.
    • Try the University of Columbia's fair use checklist.
      • This describes four factors for fair use that are part of the United States Copyright Act but are still very helpful for an assessment. Please note that all factors must be addressed in the evaluation of your use.
  1. The purpose and character of the use
  2. The nature of the copyrighted work
  3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
  4. The effect of the use on the potential market for the copyrighted work

Fair use is always decided on a case-by-case basis and requires an understanding of fair use and an assessment of your use. 

2. Is a public license available for the use of the work?

 Creators or authors may make their work available for use under more permissive types of licenses.

Examples of public licenses include:  

Review the terms of the license and use the work in a manner consistent with these terms.

3. Is it in the public domain?

Works in the public domain may be used, reproduced, and changed without permission

When the period of protection expires for a work, and is not renewed or renewable, the work may enter the public domain, but do note the following:

  • A work that is publicly available on the Internet does not mean it is in the public domain.
  • If the use of the public domain work is transformative then that transformation is usually protected by copyright. 
  • Unless expressly stated and verifiable (copyright owner), it may be difficult to assess whether a work is in the public domain.

Always assume the work is protected unless expressly stated as being in the public domain by the copyright owner.

4. Do you require permission from the copyright owner?

 

 If you are using the entire or substantial parts of a work, or reproducing a core part of a work, and your use is not supported by permissive licenses, or the work is not in the public domain, you will need to ask permission from the copyright owner.

  • If you are reusing content that you have authored and published elsewhere, you may need to review publishing contracts in case you have transferred some of your rights to the publisher, in which case you will need to request permission. 
    • Include a Statement of Contribution in your declaration and briefly describe which parts (chapters and page ranges) where previously published elsewhere, and if other authors contributed to the material. You will require permission from co-authors.
  • Most academic publishers include an option on their platforms to allow users to request permission for different types of use of a work. Look for the option: "Request Permission"
  • Purchase available permissions as above or through a third party - the Copyright Clearance Center. 
  • If these options are not available, search for contact details (organization, publisher, or author) and send an email describing your intended use, and request permission.

Be sure to include approvals and proof of permissions in an appendix at the end of your thesis.

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The information presented here is intended for informational purposes and is not legal advice.