Module 1

Introduction: Meaning of Research, Objectives of Engineering

Research, and Motivation in Engineering Research, Types of
Engineering Research, Finding and Solving a Worthwhile
Problem.
Ethics in Engineering Research, Ethics in Engineering
Research Practice, Types of Research Misconduct, Ethical
Issues Related to Authorship.
Meaning of Research
 Research is a careful, well-defined (or redefined), objective, and systematic
method of search for knowledge,
or
 Research is a formulation of a theory which is unknown knowledge that
makes an original contribution to expand the existing knowledge base.
 Research involves
o formulation of hypothesis or
o proposition of solutions,
o data analysis,
o Inference/conclusion;
o Establish whether the conclusions fit the hypothesis.
 Research is a process of creating, or formulating knowledge that does not yet
exist. Thus, research is an art of scientific investigation
 The purpose of research is to discover answers for a question by applying
scientific procedures.
 The main aim of research is to find out the truth which is hidden and not
been discovered as yet.

Grouping of Research Objectives

o Exploratory or Formulative research studies: To gain familiarity with a

phenomenon or to achieve new insights into it.
o Descriptive research studies: To portray accurately the characteristics of a
particular individual, situation or a group.
o Diagnostic research studies: To determine the frequency with which
something occurs or with which it is associated with something else.
o Hypothesis-testing research studies: To test a hypothesis of a causal
relationship between variables
Objectives of Engineering Research

 To solve new and important problems: Since the conclusion at the end of
one‘s research outcome has to be new, but when one starts, the
conclusion is unknown.
 Research objectives can: sometimes be complicated and difficult to
follow. Knowing where and how to find different types of information
helps one solve engineering problems, in both academic and professional
career.
 Lack of investigation: into engineering guidelines, standards, and best
practices result in failures with severe consequence. As an engineer, the
ability to conduct thorough and accurate research while clearly
communicating the results is extremely important in decision making.
 Main aim of the research should be to apply scientific approaches to seek
answers to open questions, and although each research study is
particularly suited for a certain approach
 The objectives of engineering research should be to develop new
theoretical or applied knowledge and not necessarily limited to obtaining
abilities to obtain the desired result.
 The objectives should be framed such that in the event of not being able
to achieve the desired result that is being sought, one can fall back to
understanding why it is not possible, because that is also a contribution
toward ongoing research in solving that problem.
Motivation in Engineering Research
Intrinsic motivations like interest, challenge, learning, meaning, purpose,
are linked to strong creative performance.

Extrinsic motivating : Expecting rewards for good work include money,

fame, awards, praise, and status are very strong motivators, but may block
creativity. For example: Research outcome may enable obtaining a patent
which is a good way to become rich and famous.

Influences from others like competition, collaboration, commitment, and

encouragement are also motivating factors in research. For example: my
friends are all doing research and so should I, or, a person that I dislike is doing
well and I want to do better.

Personal motivation in solving unsolved problems, intellectual joy, service

to community, and respectability are all driving factors.
Types of Engineering Research
Descriptive versus Analytical:

Descriptive research includes comparative and correlation

methods, and fact-finding inquiries, to effectively describe the
present state of art.
 The researcher holds no control over the variables; rather only
reports as it is. Descriptive research also includes attempts to
determine causes even though the variables cannot be
controlled.

Analytical research will help in critically evaluating already

available facts .
 Applied versus Fundamental
 Applied research seeks to solve an immediate problem facing the
organization.
 Research to identify social or economic trends, or those that find out whether
certain communications will be read and understood are examples of applied
research.
 The primary objective of applied research is to determine a solution for
compelling problems in actual practice,

 Fundamental research is concerned with generalizations and

formulation of a theory.
 Research concerning natural phenomena or relating to pure mathematics are
examples of fundamental research.
 Basic research is aimed at seeking information which could have a broad base of
applications in the medium to long term.
Quantitative versus Qualitative:

 Quantitative research uses statistical observations of a sufficiently large

number of representative cases to draw any conclusions

 Qualitative researchers rely on a few non-representative cases or verbal

narrative to make a proposition.

Finding and Solving a Worthwhile Problem
George Pólya (1887–1985) suggested a 4-step procedure for mathematical
problem-solving, which is relevant to engineering researchers also. The
recommended steps to solve a research problem are
(i) Understand the problem, restate it as if its your own, visualize the problem by
drawing figures, and determine if something more is needed.
(ii) One must start somewhere and systematically explore possible strategies to
solve the problem or a simpler version of it while looking for patterns.
(iii) Execute the plan to see if it works, and if it does not then start over with
another approach. Having delved into the problem and returned to it multiple
times, one might have a flash of insight or a new idea to solve the problem.
(iv) Looking back and reflecting helps in understanding and assimilating the
strategy, and is a sort of investment into the future.
Ethics in Engineering Research

1. Ethics generally refers to a set of rules distinguishing acceptable and unacceptable

conduct, distinguishing right from wrong as such
2. Most people learn such norms in their formative years, but moral development
continues through different stages of growth. Although everyone recognizes some
common ethical norms, but there is difference in interpretation and application.
3. Ethical principles can be used for evaluation, proposition or interpretation of
laws. Although ethics are not laws, but laws often follow ethics because ethics are
our shared values.
4. International norms for the ethical conduct of research have been there since the
adoption of the Nuremberg Code in 1947.
5. According to Whitbeck, the issues related to research credit dates back to the
establishment of the British Royal Society (BRS) in the seventeenth century to refine
the methods and practices of modern science. This event altered the timing and credit
issues on the release of research results since BRS gave priority to whoever first
submitted findings for publication, rather than trying to find out who had first
discovered.
6. Whitbeck raised two simple but significant questions to address the tricky issue of
authorship in research:
o Who should be included as an author and
o The appropriate order of listing of authors.
7. In an increasingly interconnected world, the issue of co-authorship is very relevant to
all researchers. There are issues around individuals who may be deeply involved during
the conduct of the research work, but may not contribute in the drafting phase
7. Government bodies and universities worldwide have adopted certain codes for
research ethics. Research ethics and the responsible conduct of research are often
erroneously used interchangeably.
8 Research ethics examines the appropriate application of research outcomes, while
responsible conduct of research deals with the way the work is undertaken.
Ethics in Engineering Research Practice
 Technological developments raise a whole range of ethical concerns
such as privacy issues and data related to surveillance systems, and so
engineering researchers need to make ethical decisions and are
answerable for the repercussions borne out of their research as
outcomes.
 The reason that ethics matter in data used in engineering research is
usually because there is impact on humans. Certain practices may be
acceptable to certain people in certain situations, and the reasons for
unacceptability may be perfectly valid.
 Engineering ethics gives us the rule book; tells us, how to decide what is
okay to do and what is not. Engineering research is not work in isolation
to the technological development taking place.
 Researchers have many choices like
 Setting the ethically right requirements to study the effects of the
developed technology
 During the design process, decision is to be made about the priority in
importance of the requirements taking ethical aspects into
consideration.
 Choose between different alternatives fulfilling similar functions.

 Research outcomes often have unintended side effects. It is the

responsibility of researchers to ensure that hazards/risks associated with the
technologies are minimized and alternative safer mechanisms are considered.
 The designs should be made inherently safe such that they avoid dangers,
or come with safety factors, and multiple independent safety barriers, or if
possible a supervisory mechanism to take control if the primary process fails.
Types of Research Misconduct

Engineering research should be conducted to improve the state-of-the-art of

technologies.
Always there must be Research integrity it means
 Honesty about the methods and results
 Replicating the results wherever possible so as to avoid errors
 Ensuring laboratory safety
 To prevent mistakes, peer reviews should take place before the research
output is published.
Different types of research misconduct are as follows
Fabrication (Illegitimate creation of data)

The act of conjuring data or experiments with a belief of knowledge about

what the conclusion of the analysis or experiments would be, but cannot wait
for the results possibly due to timeline pressures from supervisor or
customers.

Falsification (Inappropriate alteration of data):

Misrepresentation or misinterpretation, or illegitimate alteration of data or

experiments, even if partly, to support a desired hypothesis even when the
actual data received from experiments suggest otherwise.
Impact of Falsification
 Hamper engineering research,
 Cause false empirical data to percolate in the literature
 Destroy trustworthiness of individuals involved,
 Incur additional costs, impede research progress, and cause actual and
avoidable delays in technical advancement.
 Image of engineering researchers as objective truth seekers is often
jeopardized by the discovery of data related frauds.
 Misleading data can also crop up due to poor design of experiments or
incorrect measurement practices.
 Such misconduct can be thwarted by researchers by always trying to
reproduce the results independently whenever they are interested to do
further work in a published material which is likely to be part of their
literature survey.
Plagiarism

 When someone uses or reuses the work (including portions) of others (text,
data, tables, figures, illustrations or concepts) as if it were his/her own
without explicit acknowledgement.
 Reusing one’s own published work is termed as self-plagiarism is also an
unacceptable practice in scientific literature.
 Increasing availability of scientific content on the internet seems to
encourage plagiarism in certain cases,
 But could be detection of such practices through automated software
packages
How are supervisors, reviewers or editors alerted to plagiarism?
(i) Original author comes to know and informs everyone concerned.
(ii) Sometimes a reviewer finds out about it during the review process.
(iii) Or, readers who come across the article or book, while doing research.

Get a similarity score which is a metric that provides a score of the amount of
similarity
There are simple and ethical ways to avoid a high similarity
o Summarize the relevant content and naturally, the summary invariably would
use one‘s own words.
o Citing the original source
o Writing in such a way that the reader can recognize the difference between
the ideas or results of the authors and those that are from other sources.
Other Aspects of Research Misconduct

 Serious deviations from accepted conduct could be construed as research

misconduct.
 when mistakes are found in an article or any published content, they are
generally not reported for public access unless a researcher is driven
enough to build on that mistake and provide a correct version
Ethical Issues Related To Authorship

Credit for research contributions is attributed in three major ways in research

publications:
 By authorship (of the intended publication),
 Citation (of previously published or formally presented work),
 Acknowledgment (of some inputs to the present research).

 A person is expected to be listed as an author only when associated as a

significant contributor in research design, data interpretation, or writing of
the paper.
 Primary author dubiously bestows co-authorship on a junior faculty or a
student to boost their chances of employment or promotion, which can be
termed as Career-boost authorship
 Career-preservation authorship‖ wherein a head of the department,
a dean, a provost, or other administrators are added as Coauthors because
of quid pro quo arrangement wherein the principal author benefits from a
―good relation‖ with the superiors and the administrator benefits from
authorship without doing the required work for it.
 In another type of questionable authorship, some researchers list one
another as coauthors as a reciprocal gesture with no real collaboration.
 Sole-authored work, despite relying on significant contribution to the
research work from others, recognize that effort only by an
acknowledgment, thereby misrepresenting the contributions of the listed
authors.
 Double submission is an important ethical issue related to authorship,
which involves submission of a paper to two forums simultaneously.