scholarly journals Research integrity and misconduct: a clarification of the concepts

Curationis ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
TD Khanyile ◽  
S Duma ◽  
LP Fakude ◽  
N Mbombo ◽  
F Daniels ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Research Misconduct ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Concept Analysis ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Developmental Perspective ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
Scientific Ethics ◽  
Scientific Environment

The commercialization of research and the ever changing scientific environment has led scholars to shift the focus from promoting research integrity to regulating misconduct. As a result, most literature explains research integrity in terms of avoidance of misconduct. The purpose of the paper is to stimulate reflection and discussion on research integrity and research misconduct. This article explores the meaning of research integrity and research misconduct, and how research integrity can be promoted to ensure safer research and scholarship. We believe that the discussion can help clarify some hazy areas in the research and publication processes, and appreciate some crucial aspects that they may have seen taken for granted. The purpose of this article is to share with the readers some clarification or analysis of the two concepts namely: research integrity and misconduct. The objectives are: (1) To explore and analyse the concepts of research integrity and research misconduct from the educational or developmental perspective and not the legal perspective as others in literature have done. (2) To stimulate the reflection and discussion on strategies to promote research integrity and thus prevent research misconduct Literature review and concept analysis was undertaken to clarify the two concepts. We argue that the two concepts can be viewed along a continuum, i.e. where research integrity ends, research misconduct starts. We also argue that it is the responsibility of the research community at large to always ensure that the scientific ethics balance is maintained throughout the research process to ensure research integrity and avoid research misconduct. We also argue that research integrity is interlinked with morality while misconduct is interlinked with immorality.

Integrity in Research

2018 ◽  
pp. 397-416
Author(s):  
Sandra Carvalho ◽  
Gustavo Rivara ◽  
Andre Brunoni ◽  
Felipe Fregni
Keyword(s):  
Human Subjects ◽  
Research Misconduct ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Research Process ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
Belmont Report ◽  
Subject Selection ◽  
Scientific Report ◽  
Ethics In Research

This chapter discusses authorship, ethics in research, plagiarism, and misconduct. It summarizes the general criteria for scientific report authorship according to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and Ethics in Research. It discusses ethics in research, based on the famous Tuskegee syphilis study, and the Belmont Report that followed it. Three basic ethical principles derived from the Belmont Report—respect for persons, beneficence, and justice—and their impact on research with human subjects are discussed, along with the direct applications of these three ethical principles: informed consent, risk/benefit ratio, and subject selection. Finally, the chapter reviews the main aspects of research misconduct and presents some examples. Research integrity requires that the research process is governed by honesty, objectivity, and verifiable methods, instead of preconceived ideas and expectations. It is an important topic to be reviewed and discussed before anyone decides to pursue the field of clinical research.

scholarly journals Research practices and assessment of research misconduct

2016 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris H.J. Hartgerink ◽  
Jelte M. Wicherts
Keyword(s):  
White Collar Crime ◽  
Research Misconduct ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Responsible Conduct Of Research ◽  
List Type ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Responsible Conduct ◽  
Legal Perspective

Abstract This article discusses the responsible conduct of research, questionable research practices, and research misconduct. Responsible conduct of research is often defined in terms of a set of abstract, normative principles, professional standards, and ethics in doing research. In order to accommodate the normative principles of scientific research, the professional standards, and a researcher’s moral principles, transparent research practices can serve as a framework for responsible conduct of research. We suggest a “prune-and-add” project structure to enhance transparency and, by extension, responsible conduct of research. Questionable research practices are defined as practices that are detrimental to the research process. The prevalence of questionable research practices remains largely unknown, and reproducibility of findings has been shown to be problematic. Questionable practices are discouraged by transparent practices because practices that arise from them will become more apparent to scientific peers. Most effective might be preregistrations of research design, hypotheses, and analyses, which reduce particularism of results by providing an a priori research scheme. Research misconduct has been defined as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (FFP), which is clearly the worst type of research practice. Despite it being clearly wrong, it can be approached from a scientific and legal perspective. The legal perspective sees research misconduct as a form of white-collar crime. The scientific perspective seeks to answer the following question: “Were results invalidated because of the misconduct?” We review how misconduct is typically detected, how its detection can be improved, and how prevalent it might be. Institutions could facilitate detection of data fabrication and falsification by implementing data auditing. Nonetheless, the effect of misconduct is pervasive: many retracted articles are still cited after the retraction has been issued. Main points Researchers systematically evaluate their own conduct as more responsible than colleagues, but not as responsible as they would like. Transparent practices, facilitated by the Open Science Framework, help embody scientific norms that promote responsible conduct. Questionable research practices harm the research process and work counter to the generally accepted scientific norms, but are hard to detect. Research misconduct requires active scrutiny of the research community because editors and peer-reviewers do not pay adequate attention to detecting this. Tips are given on how to improve your detection of potential problems.

Psychological Research Literature Review Canvas

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quang Ngoc Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Chaotic Process ◽  
Psychological Construct ◽  
The Status ◽  
Guiding Questions

Without a guideline or structure, conducting a literature review on a psychological construct might become a chaotic process . This canvas was built based on the author's experience in order to help psychological researchers classify, organize, and summarize the information relating to the psychological construct of interest into several essential aspects including definition, classification, measurement, sample, predictors and outcomes, mediators and moderators, interventions, and theories. For each aspect, there are some guiding questions which are expected to help researcher decice which information should be focused while examining scientific documents. The completely filled canvas should depict the status quo of the research on the psychological construct of interest, facilitating the research process.

A Literature Review of “ Parenting Styles and Emotional Intelligence of X Class Students”

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (36) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Bhavani ◽  
T. G. Amuthavally
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Parenting Styles ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Related Literature

The research for the review of literature is one of the first and foremost important steps in the research process. The search for related literature is a time consuming but fruitful phase of any research programme. In this article, the researcher was made an attempt to present findings from the collected related literature on parenting styles and emotional intelligence of adolescents. The main motto behind this article is to review of related literature from 1990 to till date. The paper also summarizes the findings of the studies on Emotional Intelligence and Parenting Styles giving a direction for future research.

scholarly journals Rethinking success, integrity, and culture in research (part 2) — a multi-actor qualitative study on problems of science

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noémie Aubert Bonn ◽  
Wim Pinxten
Keyword(s):  
Research Misconduct ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Research Culture ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Research Problems ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Research Students ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background Research misconduct and questionable research practices have been the subject of increasing attention in the past few years. But despite the rich body of research available, few empirical works also include the perspectives of non-researcher stakeholders. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science. We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting. Results Given the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series with the current paper focusing on the problems that affect the integrity and research culture. We first found that different actors have different perspectives on the problems that affect the integrity and culture of research. Problems were either linked to personalities and attitudes, or to the climates in which researchers operate. Elements that were described as essential for success (in the associate paper) were often thought to accentuate the problems of research climates by disrupting research culture and research integrity. Even though all participants agreed that current research climates need to be addressed, participants generally did not feel responsible nor capable of initiating change. Instead, respondents revealed a circle of blame and mistrust between actor groups. Conclusions Our findings resonate with recent debates, and extrapolate a few action points which might help advance the discussion. First, the research integrity debate must revisit and tackle the way in which researchers are assessed. Second, approaches to promote better science need to address the impact that research climates have on research integrity and research culture rather than to capitalize on individual researchers’ compliance. Finally, inter-actor dialogues and shared decision making must be given priority to ensure that the perspectives of the full research system are captured. Understanding the relations and interdependency between these perspectives is key to be able to address the problems of science. Study registration https://osf.io/33v3m

Family-centred care in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A concept analysis and literature review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Larocque ◽  
Wendy E. Peterson ◽  
Janet E. Squires ◽  
Martha Mason-Ward ◽  
Kelli Mayhew ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Concept Analysis

scholarly journals Rethinking success, integrity, and culture in research (Part 2) — A multi-actor qualitative study on problems of science

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noémie Aubert Bonn ◽  
Wim Pinxten
Keyword(s):  
Research Misconduct ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Research Students ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACTBackgroundResearch misconduct and questionable research practices have been the subject of increasing attention in the past few years. But despite the rich body of research available, few empirical works provide the perspectives of non-researcher stakeholders.MethodsTo capture some of the forgotten voices, we conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science. We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting.ResultsGiven the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series with the current paper focusing on the problems that affect the quality and integrity of science. We first discovered that perspectives on misconduct, including the core reasons for condemning misconduct, differed between individuals and actor groups. Beyond misconduct, interviewees also identified numerous problems which affect the integrity of research. Issues related to personalities and attitudes, lack of knowledge of good practices, and research climate were mentioned. Elements that were described as essential for success (in the associate paper) were often thought to accentuate the problems of research climates by disrupting research cultures and research environments. Even though everyone agreed that current research climates need to be addressed, no one felt responsible nor capable of initiating change. Instead, respondents revealed a circle of blame and mistrust between actor groups.ConclusionsOur findings resonate with recent debates, and extrapolate a few action points which might help advance the discussion. First, we must tackle how research is assessed. Second, approaches to promote better science should be revisited: not only should they directly address the impact of climates on research practices, but they should also redefine their objective to empower and support researchers rather than to capitalize on their compliance. Finally, inter-actor dialogues and shared decision making are crucial to building joint objectives for change.Trial registrationosf.io/33v3m

scholarly journals Peer Review in Law Journals

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jadranka Stojanovski ◽  
Elías Sanz-Casado ◽  
Tommaso Agnoloni ◽  
Ginevra Peruginelli
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Research Misconduct ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Publication Type ◽  
Chi Square

The field of law has retained its distinctiveness regarding peer review to this day, and reviews are often conducted without following standardized rules and principles. External and independent evaluation of submissions has recently become adopted by European law journals, and peer review procedures are still poorly defined, investigated, and attuned to the legal science publishing landscape. The aim of our study was to gain a better insight into current editorial policies on peer review in law journals by exploring editorial documents (instructions, guidelines, policies) issued by 119 Croatian, Italian, and Spanish law journals. We relied on automatic content analysis of 135 publicly available documents collected from the journal websites to analyze the basic features of the peer review processes, manuscript evaluation criteria, and related ethical issues using WordStat8. Differences in covered topics between the countries were compared using the chi-square test. Our findings reveal that most law journals have adopted a traditional approach, in which the editorial board manages mostly anonymized peer review (104, 77%) engaging independent/external reviewers (65, 48%). Submissions are evaluated according to their originality and relevance (113, 84%), quality of writing and presentation (94, 70%), comprehensiveness of literature references (93, 69%), and adequacy of methods (57, 42%). The main ethical issues related to peer review addressed by these journals are reviewer’s competing interests (42, 31%), plagiarism (35, 26%), and biases (30, 22%). We observed statistically significant differences between countries in mentioning key concepts such as “Peer review ethics”, “Reviewer”, “Transparency of identities”, “Publication type”, and “Research misconduct”. Spanish journals favor reviewers’ “Independence” and “Competence” and “Anonymized” peer review process. Also, some manuscript types popular in one country are rarely mentioned in other countries. Even though peer review is equally conventional in all three countries, high transparency in Croatian law journals, respect for research integrity in Spanish ones, and diversity and inclusion in Italian are promising indicators of future development.

scholarly journals Let’s do better: public representations of COVID-19 science

FACETS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 403-423
Author(s):  
Timothy Caulfield ◽  
Tania Bubela ◽  
Jonathan Kimmelman ◽  
Vardit Ravitsky
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research Communities ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Bad Data

COVID science is being both done and circulated at a furious pace. While it is inspiring to see the research community responding so vigorously to the pandemic crisis, all this activity has also created a churning sea of bad data, conflicting results, and exaggerated headlines. With representations of science becoming increasingly polarized, twisted, and hyped, there is growing concern that the relevant science is being represented to the public in a manner that may cause confusion, inappropriate expectations, and the erosion of public trust. Here we explore some of the key issues associated with the representations of science in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these issues are not new. But the COVID-19 pandemic has placed a spotlight on the biomedical research process and amplified the adverse ramifications of poor public communication. We need to do better. As such, we conclude with 10 recommendations aimed at key actors involved in the communication of COVID-19 science, including government, funders, universities, publishers, media, and the research communities.

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