Ethics in Publishing [Publication Activities]

In this issue\´s column the author addresses the problem of ethics in publishing. The IEEE statement on originality of content in publishing is summarized in the following statement: "Authors should only submit original work that has neither appeared elsewhere for publication, nor which is under review for another publication." On the whole, our Society has relatively few problems with actual plagiarism, defined in Merriam-Webster Dictionary as the act of stealing and passing off the ideas or words of another as one\´s own. In his six years as editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, he only handled two or three plagiarism cases, and in the last two years as VP for Publications, he was only aware of one case stemming from one of our conferences. The scarcity of plagiarism cases is a healthy sign. However, there is a more subtle form of \´recycle\´ that is problematic and, until recently, has been more difficult to detect. That involves the reuse of the author\´s own previously published material. The author hopes his discussion clarifies The society\´s policies and procedures on topics in the broad area of ethics in publishing.