Scientific misconduct by dr vijay kumar

SCIENTIFIC
MISCONDUCT
D R . V I J AY K U M A R , T E A C H E R E D U C AT O R
S C H O O L O F E D U C AT I O N , A P E E J AY S T YA U N I V E R S I T Y

SCIENTIFIC CONDUCT
• What is Science?
Body of knowledge which is based on logic and establishes cause and effect relationship
– Body of knowledge: discipline, subject
– Logic: Rationale
– Establish cause and effect relationship
Two broad views od science (Kerlinger, 1970)
– Static View and Dynamic View
• Static View
– Science is an activity which contributes systematized information to the world
– Work of scientist is to uncover new facts and add them to the existing corpus of knowledge
• Dynamic View
– Activity that scientist do
– Emphasis is more on heuristic nature of science –proceeding to a solution by trial and error
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Basics of Scientific Misconduct by Dr. Vijay Kumar,
Teacher Educator, Apeejay Stya University
2

CONT…
• What is scientific?
– Anything related to science
– Based on or characterized by the methods and principles of science.
– Systematic
– Any discipline can be studies scientifically, even if that discipline may not be scientific
• Education can be studies scientifically
• What is scientific conduct?
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SCIENTIFIC CONDUCT
• Objectivity: in observation, data collection and reporting of results, there is only one
reasonable meaning or interpretation
• Control of bias / impartiality: personal prejudices, beliefs and attitudes must not influence
research process
• Willingness to alter beliefs: when justified by the evidence, beliefs are changed
• Verification: the findings are verified by others through replication
• Induction: general conclusions are drawn from specific observations
• Precision: definitions of terms and instruments (e.g. tests) contain sufficient detail to
convey exact meaning
• Truth: Conclusions are always tentative
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SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT
• Defined differently by different experts/institutions
• Scientific misconduct has occurred throughout the history of science.
• Some research behaviors are so at odds with the core principles of science
• Treated very harshly by the scientific community and by institutions that oversee
research.
• Anyone who engages in these behaviors is putting his or her scientific career at risk
and is threatening the overall reputation of science and the health and welfare of
the intended beneficiaries of research.
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CONT…
• Collectively these actions have come to be known as scientific misconduct.
• The US government began to take systematic interest in such misconduct in the
1980s.
• Since then, a number of studies have examined
– how frequently individual scientists have observed scientific misconduct or were involved
in it.
• In most studies at least 10% of the scientists sampled reported having observed
scientific misconduct.
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CONT…
• Defined as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism.
• Violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the
publication of professional scientific research
• fabrication, falsification, plagiarism and violation of authorship rules in proposing,
performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results. -[US Department of
Health and Human Services]
• This may occur at any stage of the research process
– Data generation
– recording
– review and
– publication/ dissemination of scientific knowledge
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COMMON TYPES OF SCIENTIFIC
MISCONDUCT
• Misappropriation of Ideas – taking the intellectual property of others, perhaps as a result
of reviewing someone else’s article or manuscript, or grant application and proceeding
with the idea as your own.
• Plagiarism – utilizing someone else’s words, published work, research processes, or
results without giving appropriate credit via full citation.
• Self-plagiarism – recycling or re-using your own work without appropriate disclosure
and/or citation.
.
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CONT…
• Impropriety of Authorship – claiming undeserved authorship on your own behalf,
excluding material contributors from co-authorship, including non-contributors as
authors, or submitting multi-author papers to journals without the consensus of all
named authors.
• Failure to Comply with Legislative and Regulatory Requirements – willful violations of rules
concerning the safe use of chemicals, care of human and animal test subjects,
inappropriate use of investigative drugs or equipment, and inappropriate use of research
funds
• Violation of Generally Accepted Research Practices – this can include the proposal of the
research study, manipulation of experiments to generate preferred results, deceptive
statistical or analytical practices to generate preferred results, or improper reporting of
results to present a misleading outcome.
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CONT…
• Falsification of Data – rather than manipulate the experiments or the data to generate
preferred results, this transgression simply fabricates the data entirely.
• Failure to Support Validation of Your Research – by refusing to supply complete
datasets or research material needed to facilitate validation of your results through a
replication study.
• Failure to Respond to Known Cases of Unsuccessful Validation Attempts – published
research that is found to be flawed should be retracted from the journal that
published it.
• Inappropriate Behavior in Relation to Suspected Misconduct – failure to cooperate
with any claims of misconduct made against you, failure to report known or
suspected misconduct, destruction of any evidence related to any claim of
misconduct, retaliation against any persons involved in a claim of misconduct,
knowingly making false claims of misconduct.
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DEFINITIONS OF SCIENTIFIC
MISCONDUCT
• “fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research,
or in reporting research results.”
By U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy (Office of Research Integrity)
According to the definition, the three elements of misconduct are defined as follows:
• Fabrication is “making up data or results.”
• Falsification is “manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or
omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the
research record.”
• Plagiarism is “the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words
without giving appropriate credit.”
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CONT…
To be considered research misconduct, actions must represent a
• “significant departure from accepted practices,”
• must have been “committed intentionally, or knowingly, or recklessly,” and
• must be “proven by a preponderance of evidence.”
• According to the statement,
“research misconduct does not include differences of opinion.”
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SOME RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS AND RESEARCH-FUNDING AGENCIES
DEFINE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH MISCONDUCT MORE BROADLY.
These institutional definitions may add, for example,
• abuse of confidentiality in peer review
• failure to allocate credit appropriately in scientific publications
• not observing regulations governing research
• failure to report misconduct, or
• retaliation against individuals who report misconduct to the list of behaviors that are
considered misconduct.
In addition, the National Science Foundation, US has retained a clause in its misconduct
policies that includes
behaviors that seriously deviate from commonly accepted research practices as possible
misconduct.
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• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
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SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT AS PER
WORLD ASSOCIATION OF MEDICAL EDITORS (WAME)
• Gives a useful overview of misconduct
• Use a slightly amended version of the US Office of Research Integrity definition of
scientific misconduct
Includes behaviours as given as follows:
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FALSIFICATION OF DATA
• Ranging from fabrication to deceptive selective reporting of findings and omission of
conflicting data, or
• willful suppression and/or distortion of data
• Falsification is the alteration of the observed result of a scientific experiment.
• This is the practice of manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing
or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research
record.
• Falsification is the most common form of scientific misconduct, in a study of China 2006 40%
of the investigated misconduct cases were falsifications.
• Falsification involves making changes for example in the set up or results of an experiment in a
way that cannot be scientifically justified.
• Most commonly with the intention of improving the results or removing results that do not fit
the hypothesis.
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PLAGIARISM
The appropriation of the language, ideas, or thoughts of another without crediting their
true source, and
representation of them as one's own original work.
Copying someone else’s intellectual property (information or ideas) as own achievement
without giving the actual source.
Most frequent type of misconduct and major breach of ethics.
qualitatively different from the falsification and fabrication because it does not distort
scientific knowledge, although it has important consequences for the careers of people
involved, and for the whole scientific enterprise
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IMPROPRIETIES OF AUTHORSHIP
• Improper assignment of credit, such as
• excluding others,
• misrepresentation of the same material as original in more than one publication,
• inclusion of individuals as authors who have not made a definite contribution to the
work published; or
• submission of multi-authored publications without the concurrence of all authors.
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MISAPPROPRIATION OF THE IDEAS OF OTHERS
• An important aspect of scholarly activity is the exchange of ideas among colleagues.
• Scholars can acquire novel ideas from others during the process of reviewing grant
applications and manuscripts.
• However, improper use of such information can constitute fraud.
• Wholesale appropriation of such material constitutes misconduct.
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VIOLATION OF GENERALLY ACCEPTED RESEARCH
PRACTICES
• Serious deviation from accepted practices in proposing or carrying out research,
• improper manipulation of experiments to obtain biased results,
• deceptive statistical or analytical manipulations, or
• improper reporting of results
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MATERIAL FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH LEGISLATIVE
AND REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS AFFECTING
RESEARCH:
Including but not limited to
• serious or substantial, repeated, willful violations of applicable local regulations and
law
• involving the use of funds, care of animals, human subjects, investigational drugs,
recombinant products, new devices, or radioactive, biologic, or chemical materials.
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INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR IN RELATION TO
MISCONDUCT
This includes
• unfounded or knowingly false accusations of misconduct,
• failure to report known or suspected misconduct,
• withholding or destruction of information relevant to a claim of misconduct and
• retaliation against persons involved in the allegation or investigation
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REFERENCE
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK214564/
• https://ori.hhs.gov/definition-research-misconduct
• https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033437
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Scientific misconduct by dr vijay kumar

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