Archives des mots-clés : research integrity

Metascience as a scientific social movement

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Authors : David Peterson, Aaron Panofsky

Emerging out of the “reproducibility crisis” in science, metascientists have become central players in debates about research integrity, scholarly communication, and science policy. The goal of this article is to introduce metascience to STS scholars, detail the scientific ideology that is apparent in its articles, strategy statements, and research projects, and discuss its institutional and intellectual future.

Put simply, metascience is a scientific social movement that seeks to use the tools of science- especially, quantification and experimentation- to diagnose problems in research practice and improve efficiency.

It draws together data scientists, experimental and statistical methodologists, and open science activists into a project with both intellectual and policy dimensions. Metascientists have been remarkably successful at winning grants, motivating news coverage, and changing policies at science agencies, journals, and universities.

Moreover, metascience represents the apotheosis of several trends in research practice, scientific communication, and science governance including increased attention to methodological and statistical criticism of scientific practice, the promotion of “open science” by science funders and journals, the growing importance of both preprint and data repositories for scientific communication, and the new prominence of data scientists as research makes a turn toward Big Science.

URL : Metascience as a scientific social movement

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/4dsqa

Research Integrity Among PhD Students at the Faculty of Medicine: A Comparison of Three Scandinavian Universities

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Authors : Bjørn Hofmann, Lone Bredahl Jensen, Mette Brandt Eriksen, Gert Helgesson, Niklas Juth, Søren Holm

This study investigates research integrity among PhD students in health sciences at three universities in Scandinavia (Stockholm, Oslo, Odense). A questionnaire with questions on knowledge, attitudes, experiences, and behavior was distributed to PhD students and obtained a response rate of 77.7%.

About 10% of the respondents agreed that research misconduct strictly defined (such as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism, FFP) is common in their area of research, while slightly more agreed that other forms of misconduct is common.

A nonnegligible segment of the respondents was willing to fabricate, falsify, or omit contradicting data if they believe that they are right in their overall conclusions. Up to one third reported to have added one or more authors unmerited.

Results showed a negative correlation between “good attitudes” and self-reported misconduct and a positive correlation between how frequent respondents thought that misconduct occurs and whether they reported misconduct themselves.

This reveals that existing educational and research systems partly fail to foster research integrity.

URL : Research Integrity Among PhD Students at the Faculty of Medicine: A Comparison of Three Scandinavian Universities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/1556264620929230

Unconsented acknowledgments as a form of authorship abuse: What can be done about it?

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Author : Mladen Koljatic

Unwelcome or unconsented acknowledgments is an unethical practice seldom addressed. It constitutes a form of authorship abuse perpetrated in the acknowledgments section of published research, where the victim is credited as having made a contribution to the paper, without having given their consent, and often without having seen a draft of the paper.

The acknowledgment may be written in such a way as to imply endorsement of the study’s data and conclusions. Through a real-life case, this paper explores the issue of unconsented acknowledgments and makes recommendations to prevent its occurrence, thereby promoting research integrity.

URL : Unconsented acknowledgments as a form of authorship abuse: What can be done about it?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120952516

On the Willingness to Report and the Consequences of Reporting Research Misconduct: The Role of Power Relations

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Authors : Serge P. J. M. Horbach, Eric Breit, Willem Halffman, Svenn-Erik Mamelund

While attention to research integrity has been growing over the past decades, the processes of signalling and denouncing cases of research misconduct remain largely unstudied.

In this article, we develop a theoretically and empirically informed understanding of the causes and consequences of reporting research misconduct in terms of power relations.

We study the reporting process based on a multinational survey at eight European universities (N = 1126). Using qualitative data that witnesses of research misconduct or of questionable research practices provided, we aim to examine actors’ rationales for reporting and not reporting misconduct, how they report it and the perceived consequences of reporting.

In particular we study how research seniority, the temporality of work appointments, and gender could impact the likelihood of cases being reported and of reporting leading to constructive organisational changes.

Our findings suggest that these aspects of power relations play a role in the reporting of research misconduct. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of research misconduct in an academic context.

Specifically, we elucidate the processes that affect researchers’ ability and willingness to report research misconduct, and the likelihood of universities taking action.

Based on our findings, we outline specific propositions that future research can test as well as provide recommendations for policy improvement.

URL : On the Willingness to Report and the Consequences of Reporting Research Misconduct: The Role of Power Relations

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-020-00202-8

Towards a Research Integrity Culture at Universities: From Recommendations to Implementation

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Authors : Inge Lerouge, Ton Hol

This advice paper identifies ways in which universities can develop a research integrity culture within their institutions. At a time when public trust in information is increasingly challenged by misinformation, the need for sound and trustworthy research has never been so important.

Universities have a key role in supporting research integrity as this maintains and strengthens confidence in their researchers’ work. This paper shows how this could be achieved.

The paper first examines how universities can tackle the issues of ‘sloppy science’ or ‘questionable research practices’ by improving research design, conduct and reporting, then identifies how researchers could be educated about research integrity.

It then gives ideas on the internal structures that could be put in place to deal with research integrity and incidents of research misconduct. It highlights the benefits of transparency and accountability at universities, and what universities can do to instil a culture of research integrity within their institutions.

The paper includes a section giving examples of how LERU universities are developing research integrity policies which may act as inspiration for other universities wishing to develop or further strengthen their own research integrity practices.

A summary of recommendations is included, this can be used by readers to identify elements of the paper which they may be particularly interested in, or act as a quick check list by which an individual university’s research integrity strategy can be assessed.

The paper’s key message is that research integrity is a vital issue for universities and that there are a number of ways in which this could be realised. The options employed by universities will differ based on their individual circumstances.

URL : Towards a Research Integrity Culture at Universities: From Recommendations to Implementation

Original location : https://www.leru.org/publications/towards-a-research-integrity-culture-at-universities-from-recommendations-to-implementation

Should research misconduct be criminalized?

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Authors : Rafael Dal-Ré, Lex M Bouter, Pim Cuijpers, Pim Cuijpers, Christian Gluud, Søren Holm

For more than 25 years, research misconduct (research fraud) is defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism (FFP)—although other research misbehaviors have been also added in codes of conduct and legislations.

A critical issue in deciding whether research misconduct should be subject to criminal law is its definition, because not all behaviors labeled as research misconduct qualifies as serious crime. But assuming that all FFP is fraud and all non-FFP not is far from obvious.

In addition, new research misbehaviors have recently been described, such as prolific authorship, and fake peer review, or boosted such as duplication of images. The scientific community has been largely successful in keeping criminal law away from the cases of research misconduct.

Alleged cases of research misconduct are usually looked into by committees of scientists usually from the same institution or university of the suspected offender in a process that often lacks transparency.

Few countries have or plan to introduce independent bodies to address research misconduct; so for the coming years, most universities and research institutions will continue handling alleged research misconduct cases with their own procedures. A global operationalization of research misconduct with clear boundaries and clear criteria would be helpful.

There is room for improvement in reaching global clarity on what research misconduct is, how allegations should be handled, and which sanctions are appropriate.

URL : Should research misconduct be criminalized?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016119898400

Research integrity: environment, experience, or ethos?

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Authors : Bjørn Hofmann, Søren Holm

Background

Research integrity has gained attention in the general public as well as in the
research community. We wanted to investigate knowledge, attitudes, and practices amongst researchers that have recently finished their PhD and compare this to their responses during their PhD fellowship. In particular, we wanted to investigate whether their attitudes are related to their experiences of their immediate research environment.

Material and method

Researchers (n = 86) awarded the PhD degree at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oslo in 2016 were invited to answer a questionnaire about knowledge, attitudes, and actions related to scientific dishonesty. Seventy-two responded (83.7%). The results were compared with results among first-year doctoral students who responded to the same questionnaire during 2010–2017.

Results

Overall, 13% of PhDs reported that they knew of people in their immediate research environment who had committed serious forms of scientific dishonesty. A small percentage of PhDs (1.4%) indicated that they themselves had committed such acts. About 3% of the candidates had experienced pressure to commit serious forms of dishonesty and nearly a third of respondents had experienced unethical pressure with respect to authorship during the course of their fellowship.

Thirteen percent reported that they had experienced unethical pressure in relation to other forms of dishonesty and 11% had experienced the consequences of some form of scientific dishonesty. Eighteen percent of the respondents believed that one or more actions, which in the literature were perceived as scientific misconduct, were not wrong. We find a connection between attitudes and the perceived research integrity of their research environment.

The results also show a difference between PhD students and graduated PhDs in terms of scientific dishonesty. In some areas, the PhDs’ norms are stricter, such as for the use of statistical analysis methods, while there is little change in others, such as in misconduct in order to expedite publications.

Conclusion

Many PhDs knew about serious forms of scientific misconduct from the research environment in which they are trained, and some also report misconduct themselves.

Some experienced pressure to serious forms of misconduct and a large proportion of the respondents had experienced unethical pressure with respect to authorship during their fellowship. Attitudes change during the PhD studies, but ambiguously. Scientific misconduct seems to be an environmental issue as much as a matter of personal integrity.

URL : Research integrity: environment, experience, or ethos?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1747016119880844