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Research integrity guidelines in the academic environment: The context of Brazilian institutions with retracted publications in health and life sciences

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Rafaelly Stavale, Vanja Pupovac, Graziani Izidoro Ferreira, Dirce Bellezi Guilhem

Although research misconduct is responsible for most retractions in health and life sciences from authors affiliated with Brazilian institutions, there are few studies evaluating retraction notices and research misconduct in the country.

Understanding the form of research misconduct may share light on the weaknesses and strengths of individual, organizational, and structural factors toward the implementation of a research integrity culture.

This review on policies and practices aims to access the available information from research integrity offices and the guidelines from Brazilian funding institutions and universities who were involved in retractions in health and life science publications based on a previously published systematic review.

Additionally, we summarize the available guidelines and policies for research integrity in the country. Additionally, we searched publicly available guidelines and offices for research integrity.

In total, 15 institutions were analyzed: five funding agencies and 10 universities. Approximately 40% of the funding agencies promoted local research, and 60% promoted national research. Considering national funding agencies, 66% had the commission on research integrity. Approximately 30% of the universities do not have the official office for research integrity or any publicly available guidelines.

Most institutions involved in retractions due to some form of research misconduct. Brazilian institutions involved in publication retractions lack instruments to prevent, supervise, and sanction research misconduct. Institutions of the country have insufficiently developed a system to promote and sustain research integrity practices.

Nevertheless, there is a positive movement of researchers who are engaged in the investigation of research integrity, policy creation and training.

This study emphasizes increased influence of Brazilian scientific collaboration and production globally as well as the impact of retractions in medical sciences. In contrast, it addresses the need for clear research integrity policies to foster high-quality and trustworthy research.

URL : Research integrity guidelines in the academic environment: The context of Brazilian institutions with retracted publications in health and life sciences

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2022.991836

EN

Analysis of predatory emails in early career academia and attempts at prevention

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Owen W. Tomlinson

Predatory publishers—those who do not adhere to rigorous standards of academic practice such as peer review—are increasingly infiltrating biomedical databases, to the detriment of the wider scientific community. These publishers frequently send unsolicited ‘spam’ emails to generate submission to their journals, with early career researchers (ECR) particularly susceptible to these practices because of pressures such as securing employment and promotion.

This analysis sought to record and characterize the emails received over the course of a PhD and post-doctoral position (~8 years), as well as attempts to unsubscribe from such emails, using a progressive and step-wise manner. A total of 1,280 emails identified as academic spam were received (990 journal invitations, 220 conference invitations, 70 ‘other’).

The first email was received 3 months after registration for an international conference. Attempts at unsubscribing were somewhat effective, whereby implications of reporting to respective authorities resulted in a 43% decrease in emails, although did not eliminate them completely, and therefore alternative approaches to eliminating academic spam may be needed.

Ongoing education about predatory publishers, as well as action by key academic stakeholders, should look to reduce the impact these predatory publishers have upon the wider literature base.

URL : Analysis of predatory emails in early career academia and attempts at prevention

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1500

EN

Gender and country biases in Wikipedia citations to scholarly publications

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Xiang Zheng, Jiajing Chen, Erjia Yan, Chaoqun Ni

Ensuring Wikipedia cites scholarly publications based on quality and relevancy without biases is critical to credible and fair knowledge dissemination. We investigate gender- and country-based biases in Wikipedia citation practices using linked data from the Web of Science and a Wikipedia citation dataset.

Using coarsened exact matching, we show that publications by women are cited less by Wikipedia than expected, and publications by women are less likely to be cited than those by men. Scholarly publications by authors affiliated with non-Anglosphere countries are also disadvantaged in getting cited by Wikipedia, compared with those by authors affiliated with Anglosphere countries.

The level of gender- or country-based inequalities varies by research field, and the gender-country intersectional bias is prominent in math-intensive STEM fields. To ensure the credibility and equality of knowledge presentation, Wikipedia should consider strategies and guidelines to cite scholarly publications independent of the gender and country of authors.

URL : Gender and country biases in Wikipedia citations to scholarly publications

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24723

EN

Exploring scientists’ perceptions of citizen science for public engagement with science

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Stephanie A. Collins, Miriam Sullivan, Heather J. Bray

It is often assumed that citizen science is inherently participatory in nature. However, citizen science projects exist along a continuum from data contribution to full co-creation. We invited 19 biologists to explore their conceptions of citizen science. Almost all participants defined citizen science as involving non-scientists in data collection.

This definition acted as a barrier for scientists who did not see how citizen science could suit
their research objectives. While interviewees perceived many societal and experiential benefits of contributory citizen science, deliberate design is needed to realise the full potential of citizen science for public engagement.

URL : Exploring scientists’ perceptions of citizen science for public engagement with science

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/2.21070201

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Open Science in Africa: What policymakers should consider

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Elisha R. T. Chiware, Lara Skelly

As Open Science (OS) is being promoted as the best avenue to share and drive scientific discoveries at much lower costs and in transparent and credible ways, it is imperative that African governments and institutions take advantage of the momentum and build research infrastructures that are responsive to this movement.

This paper aims to provide useful insight into the importance and implementation of OS policy frameworks. The paper uses a systematic review approach to review existing literature and analyse global OS policy development documents. The approach includes a review of existing OS policy frameworks that can guide similar work by African governments and institutions.

This critical review also makes recommendations on key issues that Africa should consider in the process of OS policy development. These approaches can be widely used as further foundations for future developments in OS practices on the continent.

URL : Open Science in Africa: What policymakers should consider

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2022.950139

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Des voix plurielles dans l’écriture de la recherche : Pour une réflexivité incarnée

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Auteur/Author : Philippe Hert

L’approche qui est développée ici se situe entre les sciences de l’information et de la communication et les études de sciences. Elle met en dialogue une réflexion sur l’écriture d’un terrain que j’ai mené pendant plusieurs années sur le clown, avec la manière dont le terrain peut « prendre la parole » dans l’écriture.

Cet article est constitué de plusieurs voix : celle de la théorie, du chercheur, celle sur l’écriture qui est réflexive, celle du terrain et de l’expérience vécue. Ces trois voix sont apparues au fil de la rédaction de cet article. J’étais habitué à la première, une analyse à partir de lectures et d’expériences de terrain. La deuxième est apparue rapidement à partir du moment où je me suis demandé comment écrire sur l’écriture sans tomber dans un abyme de réflexivité. C’est la troisième qui a été plus surprenante : le terrain dont j’avais décidé de parler, le clown, faisait des apparitions soudaines, en venant défaire ce que j’essayais péniblement d’écrire.

Comme ce terrain n’est pas qu’un objet extérieur, mais que j’en fais partie, en tant qu’apprenti clown, j’ai bien dû lui laisser la parole. C’est de cette parole dont j’aimerais rendre compte, car elle porte selon moi la marque du désir.

La question que je pose est la suivante : comment articuler l’écriture scientifique avec le désir qui s’y manifeste. En effet, l’écriture scientifique est une pratique qui peut être angoissante, crispante, et qui n’est pas source de plaisir, alors même qu’elle est également alimentée par un désir d’écrire (avant de commencer…) et se nourrit de terrains de recherche qui sont souvent très engageants, passionnants et qui donnent envie d’en transmettre quelque chose par l’écriture.

Comment expliquer cette tension, et comment réintroduire du désir dans l’écriture des sciences. Ma contribution sera d’explorer ici, théoriquement et en pratique, la question de la réflexivité, ce qu’elle engage et ce qu’elle révèle du désir du chercheur, pour essayer de dégager quelques leçons pratiques.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/communication.16445

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ORCID coverage in research institutions—Readiness for partially automated research reporting

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Kathrin Schnieders, Sandra Mierz, Sabine Boccalini, Wibke Meyer zu Westerhausen, Christian Hauschke, Stephanie Hagemann-Wilholt, Sonja Schulze

Reporting and presentation of research activities and outcome for research institutions in official, normative standards are more and more important and are the basis to comply with reporting duties. Institutional Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) serve as important databases or data sources for external and internal reporting, which should ideally be connected with interfaces to the operational systems for automated loading routines to extract relevant research information.

This investigation evaluates whether (semi-) automated reporting using open, public research information collected via persistent identifiers (PIDs) for organizations (ROR), persons (ORCID), and research outputs (DOI) can reduce effort of reporting.

For this purpose, internally maintained lists of persons to whom an ORCID record could be assigned (internal ORCID person lists) of two different German research institutions—Osnabrück University (UOS) and the non-university research institution TIB—Leibniz Information Center for Science and Technology Hannover—are used to investigate ORCID coverage in external open data sources like FREYA PID Graph (developed by DataCite), OpenAlex and ORCID itself. Additionally, for UOS a detailed analysis of discipline specific ORCID coverage is conducted. Substantial differences can be found for ORCID coverage between both institutions and for each institution regarding the various external data sources.

A more detailed analysis of ORCID distribution by discipline for UOS reveals disparities by research area—internally and in external data sources. Recommendations for future actions can be derived from our results: Although the current level of coverage of researcher IDs which could automatically be mapped is still not sufficient to use persistent identifier-based extraction for standard (automated) reporting, it can already be a valuable input for institutional CRIS.

URL : ORCID coverage in research institutions—Readiness for partially automated research reporting

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2022.1010504