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

Data Science Tools for Monitoring the Global Repository Eco-System and its Lines of Evolution

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Authors : Friedrich Summann, Andreas Czerniak, Jochen Schirrwagen, Dirk Pieper

The global network of scholarly repositories for the publication and dissemination of scientific publications and related materials can already look back on a history of more than twenty years.

During this period, there have been many developments in terms of technical optimization and the increase of content. It is crucial to observe and analyze this evolution in order to draw conclusions for the further development of repositories.

The basis for such an analysis is data. The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) service provider Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) started indexing repositories in 2004 and has collected metadata also on repositories.

This paper presents the main features of a planned repository monitoring system. Data have been collected since 2004 and includes basic repository metadata as well as publication metadata of a repository.

This information allows an in-depth analysis of many indicators in different logical combinations. This paper outlines the systems approach and the integration of data science techniques. It describes the intended monitoring system and shows the first results.

URL : Data Science Tools for Monitoring the Global Repository Eco-System and its Lines of Evolution

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020035

Built to last! Embedding open science principles and practice into European universities

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Authors : Tiberius Ignat, Paul Ayris

The purpose of this article is to examine the cultural change needed by universities, as identified by LERU in its report Open Science and its role in universities: a roadmap for cultural change.

It begins by illustrating the nature of that cultural change. Linked to that transformation is a necessary management change to the way in which organizations perform research. Competition is not the only, or necessarily the best, way to conduct this transformation.

Open science brings to the fore the values of collaboration and sharing. Building on a number of Focus on Open Science Workshops held over five years across Europe, the article identifies best practice in changing current research practices, which will then contribute to the culture change necessary to deliver open science.

Four case studies, delivered at Focus on Open Science Workshops or other conferences in Europe, illustrate the advances that are being made: the findings of a Workshop on Collaboration and Competition at the OAI 11 meeting in Geneva in June 2019; alternative publishing platforms, exemplified by UCL Press; open data, FAIR data and reproducibility; and a Citizen Science Workshop held at the LIBER Conference in Dublin in June 2019.

URL : Built to last! Embedding open science principles and practice into European universities

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.501

Information School academics and the value of their personal digital archives

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Authors : Loukia Drosopoulou, Andrew M. Cox

Introduction

This paper explores the value that academics in an information school assign to their digital files and how this relates to their personal information management and personal digital archiving practices.

Method

An interpretivist qualitative approach was adopted with data from in-depth interviews and participant-led tours of their digital storage space.

Analysis

The approach taken was thematic analysis.

Results

Participants placed little value on their digital material beyond the value of its immediate use. They did not attach worth to their digital files for reuse by others, for sentiment, to project their identity or for the study of the development of the discipline or the study of the creative process.

This was reflected in storage and file-naming practices, and the lack of curatorial activity.

Conclusions

This paper is one of the first to investigate academics’ personal information management and personal digital archiving practices, especially to focus on the value of digital possessions.

The paper begins to uncover the importance of wider contextual factors in shaping such practices. Institutions need to do more to encourage academics to recognise the diverse types of value in the digital material they create.

URL : http://www.informationr.net/ir/25-3/paper872.html

Research transparency promotion by surgical journals publishing randomised controlled trials: a survey

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Authors : Nicolas Lombard, A. Gasmi, L. Sulpice, K. Boudjema, Damien Bergeat

Objective

To describe surgical journals’ position statements on data-sharing policies (primary objective) and to describe key features of their research transparency promotion.

Methods

Only “SURGICAL” journals with an impact factor higher than 2 (Web of Science) were eligible for the study. They were included, if there were explicit instructions for clinical trial publication in the official instructions for authors (OIA) or if they had published randomised controlled trial (RCT) between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2018.

The primary outcome was the existence of a data-sharing policy included in the instructions for authors. Data-sharing policies were grouped into 3 categories, inclusion of data-sharing policy mandatory, optional, or not available.

Details on research transparency promotion were also collected, namely the existence of a “prospective registration of clinical trials requirement policy”, a conflict of interests (COIs) disclosure requirement, and a specific reference to reporting guidelines, such as CONSORT for RCT.

Results

Among the 87 surgical journals identified, 82 were included in the study: 67 (82%) had explicit instructions for RCT and the remaining 15 (18%) had published at least one RCT. The median impact factor was 2.98 [IQR = 2.48–3.77], and in 2016 and 2017, the journals published a median of 11.5 RCT [IQR = 5–20.75].

The OIA of four journals (5%) stated that the inclusion of a data-sharing statement was mandatory, optional in 45% (n = 37), and not included in 50% (n = 41).

No association was found between journal characteristics and the existence of data-sharing policies (mandatory or optional). A “prospective registration of clinical trials requirement” was associated with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) allusion or affiliation and higher impact factors.

Journals with specific RCT instructions in their OIA and journals referenced on the ICMJE website more frequently mandated the use of CONSORT guidelines.

Conclusion

Research transparency promotion is still limited in surgical journals. Standardisation of journal requirements according to ICMJE guidelines could be a first step forward for research transparency promotion in surgery.

URL : Research transparency promotion by surgical journals publishing randomised controlled trials: a survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-020-04756-7

Characteristics of academic publications, preprints, and registered clinical trials on the COVID-19 pandemic

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Authors : Silvia Gianola, Tiago S. Jesus, Silvia Bargeri, Greta Castellini

The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a deluge of publications. For this cross-sectional study we compared the amount and reporting characteristics of COVID-19-related academic articles and preprints and the number of ongoing clinical trials and systematic reviews.

To do this, we searched the PubMed database of citations and abstracts for published life science journals by using appropriate combinations of medical subject headings (MeSH terms), and the COVID-19 section of the MedRxiv and BioRxiv archives up to 20 May 2020 (21 weeks).

In addition, we searched Clinicaltrial.gov, Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, EU Clinical Trials Register, and 15 other trial registers, as well as PROSPERO, the international prospective register of systematic reviews.

The characteristics of each publication were extracted. Regression analyses and Z tests were used to detect publication trends and their relative proportions. A total of 3635 academic publications and 3805 preprints were retrieved. Only 8.6% (n = 329) of the preprints were already published in indexed journals. The number of academic and preprint publications increased significantly over time (p<0.001).

Case reports (6% academic vs 0.9% preprints; p<0.001) and letters (17.4% academic vs 0.5% preprints; p<0.001) accounted for a greater share of academic compared to preprint publications. Differently, randomized controlled trials (0.22% vs 0.63%; p<0.001) and systematic reviews (0.08% vs 5%) made up a greater share of the preprints.

The relative proportion of clinical studies registered at Clinicaltrials.gov, Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, and EU Clinical Trials Register was 57.9%, 49.5%, and 98.9%, respectively, most of which were still “recruiting”.

PROSPERO listed 962 systematic review protocols. Preprints were slightly more prevalent than academic articles but both were increasing in number.

The void left by the lack of primary studies was filled by an outpour of immediate opinions (i.e., letters to the editor) published in PubMed-indexed journals. Summarizing, preprints have gained traction as a publishing response to the demand for prompt access to empirical, albeit not peer-reviewed, findings during the present pandemic.

URL : Characteristics of academic publications, preprints, and registered clinical trials on the COVID-19 pandemic

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240123

Purposes of peer review: A qualitative study of stakeholder expectations and perceptions

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Authors : Anna Severin, Joanna Chataway

Stakeholders might have diverging or conflicting expectations about the functions that peer review should fulfil. We aimed to explore how stakeholder groups perceive peer review and what they expect from it. We conducted qualitative focus group workshops with early‐, mid‐, and senior career scholars, editors, and publishers.

We recruited participants following a purposive maximum variation sampling approach. To identify purposes of peer review, we conducted a thematic analysis. Stakeholders expected peer review (1) to assess the contributions of a manuscript, (2) to conduct quality control, (3) to improve manuscripts, (4) to assess the suitability of manuscripts for a journal, (5) to provide a decision‐making tool for editors, (6) to provide feedback by peers, (7) to curate a community, and (8) to provide a seal of accreditation for published articles.

Stakeholders with different roles and tasks in the peer review process differed in the value they attached to the functions of peer review. Early‐ and mid‐career researchers valued social and feedback functions of peer review, while senior career researchers and editors expected it to instead perform a technical assessment of manuscripts and serve as a decision‐making tool.

Publishers expected peer review to assess the suitability of manuscripts for their journals and to provide a seal of accreditation. This revealed a potential tension between functions of peer review. Stakeholder expectations are shaped by how stakeholders perceive their own roles both in relation to the peer review process and within their scientific community.

URL : Purposes of peer review: A qualitative study of stakeholder expectations and perceptions

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1336