Presentation "Challenges in research ethics" by Milica Ševkušić, Re@WBC ERASMUS + Project, Training for trainers, April 5–7, 2017, University of Belgrade

1. Challenges in
Research Ethics
Milica Ševkušić
Institute of Technical Sciences of SASA
biblioteka@itn.sanu.ac.rs

2. RESEARCH ETHICS
Phases of research
▸ Planning and designing research
▸ Research implementation
▸ Reviewing research
▸ Reporting research results
Participants
▸ Researchers
▸ Research subjects
▸ Public
Dimensions of research
▸ Data collection, use, and interpretation
▸ Relationships among researchers
▸ Relationships between researchers and those
that will be affected by their research
▸ Reporting methods
▸ Responding to disputes or misconduct
▸ Promoting ethical integrity in research
the application of ethical principles to scientific research

3. Ethical standards
Integrity Quality control

4. PRINCIPLES
▸ Honesty (valid interpretations and justifiable
claims)
▸ Reliability (in performing and reporting
research)
▸ Objectivity (transparency and verifiability)
▸ Impartiality and independence (from
pressures and interests)
▸ Open communication (ensuring availability
and accessibility)
▸ Duty of care (for research subjects – e.g.
human subjects, experimental animals)
▸ Fairness (referencing, crediting, relationship
with colleagues)
▸ Responsibility for future science generations
(mentorship)

5. MISCONDUCT
“Scientific misconduct includes (negligent or
intended) fabrication (making up data or
results), falsification (changing or misreporting
research data or improper manipulation of
experiments) and plagiarism (using ideas or
words without accurate reference).
These practices go against all scientific values
and can undermine the scientific progress.
Even more, it can cause harm.”
Science Europe. ‘Research Integrity Practices in
Science Europe Member Organisations: Survey
Report’. Science Europe, July 2016.

6. Major causes of research misconduct
▸the lack of personal and professional integrity
▸pressures in the working environment
▸Publish or Perish
▸failure to sanction misconduct

7. RULES AND
REGULATIONS
▸Code of ethics (values and general
principles)
▸Code of conduct (norms, rules,
responsibilities, proper practices)
▸Code of practice and procedure
▸Policy (statement of intent, general
concepts, responsibilities)
▸Rule on procedures

8. Singapore Statement on Research Integrity (2010)
▸Integrity
▸Adherence to regulations
▸Research Methods
▸Research Records
▸Research Findings
▸Authorship
▸Publication acknowledgement
▸Peer review
▸Conflict of Interest
▸Public communication
▸Reporting irresponsible Research
practices
▸Responding to irresponsible
research practices
▸Research environments
▸Societal considerations
global guide to the responsible conduct of research
http://www.singaporestatement.org/statement.html
Responsibilities

9. University of Belgrade
▸Code of Professional Ethics at the University of Belgrade
(http://bg.ac.rs/files/sr/univerzitet/univ-propisi/Kodeks-
profesionalne-etike.pdf)
▸Rules on the Procedure of Establishing Non-academic
Conduct in Writing University Theses
(http://bg.ac.rs/files/sr/univerzitet/univ-propisi/Pravilnik-
neakademsko-pisanih-radova.pdf)

10. European Science Foundation and
ALLEA (All European Academies)
▸The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity
(http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020
/other/hi/h2020-ethics_code-of-conduct_en.pdf)

11. “
“
Ethics is given the highest priority in EU funded research:
all the activities carried out under Horizon 2020 must
comply with ethical principles and relevant national, EU
and international legislation, for example the Charter of
Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the
European Convention on Human Rights.
https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/ethics

12. European Commission – Policy – Research Ethics
▸ethics is an integral part of research from beginning to end
▸ethical compliance is seen as pivotal to achieve research
excellence
▸application of fundamental ethical principles and legislation
to scientific research in all possible domains of research
Ethics Appraisal Procedure in Horizon 2020
▸Ethics Self-Assessment (project preparation)
▸Ethics Review Procedure (before the start of the project)
▸Ethics Checks and Audits (throughout the project)

13. European Commission – Policy – Research Ethics
Ethical issues:
▸the involvement of children, patients, vulnerable populations,
▸the use of human embryonic stem cells,
▸privacy and data protection issues
▸research on animals and non-human primates
▸misuse/malevolent use
▸impact on the environment
▸the avoidance of any breach of research integrity (avoiding
fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or other research
misconduct)

14. ▸ National Institute of Health
(https://grants.nih.gov/policy/research_integrity/index.htm)
▸The Office of Research Integrity (https://ori.hhs.gov/ori-policies)
▸National Science Foundation (https://www.nsf.gov/about/)
▸Academic Integrity in Research: Code of Practice and Procedure
of the University of Oxford

15. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
▸nonprofit organization established in 1997 by a group of medical journals
▸assistance to editors and publishers on publication ethics
▸guidelines on handling cases of research and publication misconduct
Codes of conduct
▸Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors
▸Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers
International standards for editors and authors
(http://publicationethics.org/node/11184)
Guidelines
▸http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines (authorship disputes,
text recycling, informed consent, peer review, retractions)
best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing

16. http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts

17. COPE – Cases
• a searchable database
• more than 500 cases +
advice given by COPE
• follow-up and outcomes
(for some cases)
• not for the purposes of
court proceedings

18. MISCONDUCT
▸Data fabrication
▸Data falsification
▸ Plagiarism

19. Data manipulation
Falsification
▸changing or omission of
research results (data) to
support claims, hypotheses,
other data, etc.
▸manipulation of research
instrumentation, materials,
or processes.
▸manipulation of images
Fabrication
▸construction (inventing)
and/or addition of data that
have never occurred in the
research process
▸claims made based on
incomplete data
One of the causes: positive-results bias (“file drawer effect”)
One of the results: irreproducible data
‘The Hi-Tech War on Science Fraud’. The Guardian, 1 February 2017, sec. Science.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/01/high-tech-war-on-science.

20. Plagiarism
▸assuming another's ideas, words, or other creative expression as one's own
▸a clear violation of scientific ethics;
▸may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action.
Plagiarism includes the following:
▸Word for word, or almost word for word copying, or purposely
paraphrasing portions of another author's work without clearly indicating
the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation
marks);
▸Copying equations, figures or tables from someone else's paper without
properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original
author or the copyright holder.

21. Self-plagiarism
“when authors reuse their own previously written work or data in a ‘new’ written
product without letting the reader know that this material has appeared
elsewhere”
▸ republishing the same paper that is published elsewhere without notifying the
reader nor publisher of the journal (duplicate publication)
▸ publishing a significant study as smaller studies to increase the number of
publications rather than publishing one large study
▸ reusing portions of a previously written (published or unpublished text)
Roig, Miguel. (2006). Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide
to ethical writing. Retrieved from http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm/plagiarism.doc
Smith, Eldon R. ‘Plagiarism, Self-Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication’. The Canadian Journal of Cardiology
23, no. 2 (February 2007): 146–47. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2650652/
https://www.ithenticate.com/hs-fs/hub/92785/file-5414624-pdf/media/ith-selfplagiarism-whitepaper.pdf

22. Plagiarism detection
▸manual (usually during the peer review process)
▸software-assisted (iThenticate, Turnitin, etc.)
▹comparing new documents with a reference collection
▹similarity criteria
▹detection efficiency depends on the scope and size of the
reference collection , but also on the language of the paper
▹unable to detect the plagiarism of ideas
▹software-assisted screening for plagiarism is just the beginning
of an investigation.

23. Plagiarism – problems and disputes
▸similarity percentage
▸“collage technique” but sources are cited
(http://retractionwatch.com/2014/05/13/the-sins-and-virtues-of-authors-
span-a-rather-colorful-palette-new-editor-yanks-plagiarized/)
▸the problem of “duplicative methodologies”
(http://www.ithenticate.com/plagiarism-detection-blog/bid/94140/The-
Challenge-of-Repeating-Methods-While-Avoiding-
Plagiarism#.WOP_uGclGUk)
Wager, Elizabeth. ‘How Should Editors Respond to Plagiarism?: COPE Discussion Paper’. COPE, 26 April
2011. https://publicationethics.org/files/COPE_plagiarism_discussion_%20doc_26%20Apr%2011.pdf.

24. BREACHES OF
SCIENTIFIC ETHICS
▸Questionable research practices
(QRPs)
▸Misuse of research data
▸Authorship-related misconduct
▸Failure to disclose a conflict of interest
▸Inadequate personal behaviour

25. Questionable research practices (QRPs)
▸QRPs vs. fraud
▸exclusion of data that are inconsistent with a theoretical hypothesis;
▸sometimes used for legitimate purposes;
▸creating overly positive picture
▸false impressions about the replicability of empirical results and
misleading evidence about the size of an effect
▸e.g. selective reporting of variables, failing to disclose experimental
conditions, reporting selectively studies that worked, etc.
R, Dr. ‘Questionable Research Practices: Definition, Detect, and Recommendations for Better
Practices’. Replicability-Index, 24 January 2015.
https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/questionable-research-practices-
definition-detect-and-recommendations-for-better-practices/.

26. Misuse of research data
▸ Intentional misinterpretation
▸ Data loss
▸ Data theft
▸ Allowing access to unauthorized users
▸ Not allowing access to those who should have access to
data (e.g. research group members)
▸ Pseudo-anonymization

27. Authorship-related misconduct
▸Bogus claims of authorship
▸Not crediting an author
▸Gift/honorary authorship (crediting as an author a person
who was not involved as an author )
▸Ghost authorship
▸Conflict of interest
Nature journals:
each new manuscript must include a statement of
responsibility that specifies the contribution of every author
Last

28. ICMJE authorship criteria
▸ Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the
acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
AND
▸ Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
AND
▸ Final approval of the version to be published;
AND
▸ Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that
questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are
appropriately investigated and resolved.
▸An author should be able to take public responsibility for the work!
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-
authors-and-contributors.html

29. Conflict of interest
▸ actual, apparent, or potential
▸ a situation in which financial or other personal interest
have the potential to compromise or bias professional
judgment and objectivity
▸ exists whether or not decisions are affected by a personal
interest
▸ tangible (financial) or intangible
▸ potential conflict of interest must be disclosed

30. Inadequate personal behaviour
▸Discrimination
▸Harrasment
▸Abuse
▸Violence

31. MAJOR
MANIFESTATIONS OF
RESEARCH-RELATED
MISCONDUCT
▸replication crisis
▸the crisis of peer review
▸an increasing number of retractions
▸predatory publishers
▸copyright issues

32. Replication crisis
▸Positive-results bias
▸Difficult to publish results that
demonstrate the inability to replicate
already published results
▸Insufficient details in the ‘Methods’
section
▸Replication experiments are expensive
Used by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Yong, Ed. 2012. “Replication
Studies: Bad Copy.” Nature News 485 (7398): 298. doi:10.1038/485298a.

33. Reproducibility testing
▸ Reproducibility Project: Psychology
▸ Statcheck – software for checking PDF or HTML files for
statistical errors (http://statcheck.io/)
“Here’s Why More than 50,000 Psychology Studies Are
about to Have PubPeer Entries.” 2016. Retraction Watch.
September 2.
http://retractionwatch.com/2016/09/02/heres-why-
more-than-50000-psychology-studies-are-about-to-have-
pubpeer-entries/.
▸
the process of validating that the reported research results can be
obtained in an independent experiment
Used by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Baker, Monya. 2017. “First
Results from Psychology’s Largest Reproducibility Test.” Nature News. Accessed April
5. doi:10.1038/nature.2015.17433.

34. The crisis of peer review
Purpose of peer review
Experts critically examine
and evaluate a paper prior
to publication
▹ to eliminate papers of a
poor quality
▹ to help improve the
quality of the paper
Problems
▸ Time-consuming
process
▸ Reviewers are not paid
for their work
(motivation)
▸ Flaws are possible
(incorrect conclusions,
omitted references,
irreproducible results,
etc.)
Negative consequences
▸ Publishing irreproducible
results
▸ Retracted papers
▸ Fake reviews
▸ Predatory publishers

35. Sting operations against bad practices in journals
▸Bohannon, John. ‘Who’s Afraid of Peer Review?’ Science 342, no. 6154 (4
October 2013): 60–65. doi:10.1126/science.342.6154.60.
▸Bohannon, John. ‘I Fooled Millions into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight
Loss. Here’s How.’ io9. Accessed 5 April 2017. http://io9.gizmodo.com/i-
fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800.
▸Sorokowski, Piotr, Emanuel Kulczycki, Agnieszka Sorokowska, and Katarzyna
Pisanski. ‘Predatory Journals Recruit Fake Editor’. Nature News 543, no. 7646
(23 March 2017): 481. doi:10.1038/543481a.

36. Fake peer reviews
▸ Reviewers recommended by authors
▸ Reviewers selected by a guest editor
▸ Non-institutional (forged) email addresses for reviewers
▸ Reviews are completed quickly (within 24–48 hours).
▸ All reviews are positive.
▸ Agencies involved (sold positive reviews to authors)
Cohen, Adam, Smita Pattanaik, Praveen Kumar, Robert R. Bies, Anthonius de Boer, Albert Ferro, Annette Gilchrist,
Geoffrey K. Isbister, Sarah Ross, and Andrew J. Webb. ‘Organised Crime against the Academic Peer Review System’.
British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 81, no. 6 (1 June 2016): 1012–17. doi:10.1111/bcp.12992.
Haug, Charlotte J. ‘Peer-Review Fraud — Hacking the Scientific Publication Process’. New England Journal of Medicine
373, no. 25 (17 December 2015): 2393–95. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1512330.
Callaway, Ewen. ‘Faked Peer Reviews Prompt 64 Retractions’. Nature, 18 August 2015. doi:10.1038/nature.2015.18202.

37. Retraction
Reasons for retraction
▸infringements of professional ethical codes
▸multiple submissions
▸bogus claims of authorship
▸plagiarism
▸fraudulent use of data
▸major misconduct in general
Retracted articles MUST NOT be deleted. In the electronic version of the retraction notice, a link
is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to
the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original
article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is
“retracted.”
a formal notice declaring invalid a published paper

38. http://retractionwatch.com/

40. ▸ Publishing business model that involves charging publication
fees to authors without providing regular peer review
▸ Exploits and misuses
▸ the concept and mechanisms of Open Access
▸ information technologies
▸ Aim: financial gain
Predatory publishing

41. o superficial peer review or no peer review
o no editorial board
o missing affiliation information (for the editor and the editorial board)
o lack of transparency in publishing operations
o information about author fees is not transparent
o boastful language
o false claims about the IF
o spam emails sent to potential authors
o spam requests for peer reviews
o inconsistent licensing policy
o minimal or no copyediting or proofreading of submissions
Beall, Jeffrey. 2015. “Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers (3rd Edition).”
Scholarly Open Access. January.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150320190303/https://scholarlyoa.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/
criteria-2015.pdf.
Recognizing predatory journals

42. Beall’s lists – archived
▸Predatory journals: https://archive.fo/9MAAD |
https://web.archive.org/web/20170112125427/https://scholarlyoa.com/pu
blishers/
▸Predatory publishers: https://archive.fo/6EByy |
https://web.archive.org/web/20170112125427/https://scholarlyoa.com/pu
blishers/
▸Hijacked journals: https://archive.fo/Hr8tk |
https://web.archive.org/web/20170111172313/https:/scholarlyoa.com/othe
r-pages/hijacked-journals/
▸Misleading metrics: https://archive.fo/tAOfX |
https://web.archive.org/web/20170111172311/https://scholarlyoa.com/oth
er-pages/misleading-metrics/

43. ▸http://thinkchecksubmit.org/

46. Hijacked journals
▸ bogus website claiming to belong to a legitimate journal
▸ Purpose: fraud!
▸ offering authors the opportunity to rapidly publish their research for a fee
▸ sometimes, the stealing of private data (passwords, credit cards numbers, etc.)
▸ Print-only journals and journals with poor websites are more likely to be
hijacked.
▸ Web domain of the false journal resembles that of the legitimate journal.
▸ The identity of perpetrators is usually difficult or impossible to establish.
Lukić, Tin, Ivana Blešić, Ljubica Ivanović Bibić, Dragan Milošević, and Dušan Sakulski. 2014. “Predatory and Fake
Scientific Journals/Publishers- A Global Outbreak with Rising Trend: A Review.” Geographica Pannonica 18 (3):
69–81.

47. legitimate journal
plant biology
fake journal
multidisciplinary

48. fake journal
multidisciplinary
legitimate journal
forestry

49. legitimate journal
Open Access
fake journal
subscription-based

50. Peer review in a fake journal

51. Vanity press
▸authors pay to have their
books published
▸No peer review

53. ACTIONS AGAINST
MISCONDUCT
▸Reporting misconduct
▸Investigation
▸Sanctions (reprimand, suspension,
revocation, etc.)
▸Legal action
▸Public discussion
▸Open access to publications
research data
▸Developing methods for misconduct
detection

54. Whistleblowing and investigation
▸formal reporting of alleged misconduct
▸based on evidence
▸A whistleblower does not take responsibility for the
investigation.
▸measures to protect both the whistleblower and the
accused
▸All parties must be given an opportunity to present
evidence.
▸Cases sometimes end up in court proceedings.

56. NEW FORMS OF
PEER REVIEW
▹ Birukou, Aliaksandr, Joseph Rushton Wakeling, Claudio
Bartolini, Fabio Casati, Maurizio Marchese, Katsiaryna
Mirylenka, and others, ‘Alternatives to Peer Review: Novel
Approaches for Research Evaluation’, Frontiers in
Computational Neuroscience, 5 (2011),
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2011.00056
▹ DeCoursey, Thomas, ‘The Pros and Cons of Open Peer
Review’, Nature, 2006,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature04991
▹ Frood, Arran, ‘Mentors, Mates or Metrics: What Are the
Alternatives to Peer Review?’, EuroScientist Webzine, 2014,
http://www.euroscientist.com/mentors-mates-or-metrics-
what-are-the-alternatives-to-peer-review/
▹ Vesnic-Alujevic, L., ‘Peer Review and Scientific Publishing in
Times of Web 2.0’, Publishing Research Quarterly, 30
(2014), 39–49, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12109-014-
9345-8
▹ Ware, Mark, ‘Peer Review: Recent Experience and Future
Directions’, New Review of Information Networking, 16
(2011), 23,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13614576.2
011.566812

57. Post-publication peer review
https://pubpeer.com/
Plug in for web browsers establishes a
link to comments on PubPeer.

58. Open research data and reproducibility
▸ European Commission. ‘What Are Open Research Data?’ Research and
Innovation: Open Science. Accessed 5 April 2017.
https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/index.cfm?pg=researchdata&s
ection=monitor.
▸ Sue Childs, Julie McLeod, Elizabeth Lomas, and Glenda Cook. ‘Opening
Research Data: Issues and Opportunities’. Records Management Journal
24, no. 2 (15 July 2014): 142–62. doi:10.1108/RMJ-01-2014-0005.
▸ Schmidt, Birgit, Astrid Orth, Gwen Franck, Iryna Kuchma, Petr Knoth, and
José Carvalho. ‘Stepping up Open Science Training for European Research’.
Publications 4, no. 2 (17 June 2016): 16. doi:10.3390/publications4020016.
▸ Ayris, Paul. ‘Research Data Management Supporting Research Integrity and
Open Science’. In LEARN Toolkit of Best Practice for Research Data
Management. 23-27: LEARN, 2017. doi:10.14324/000.learn.00.

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