Academic misconduct, misrepresentation and gaming: A reassessment

'Special issue-ization' as a growth and revenue strategy: Reproduction by the "big five" and the risks for research integrity

The exponential growth of MDPI and Frontiers over the last decade has been powered by their extensive use of special issues. The "special issue-ization" of journal publishing has been particularly associated with new publishers and seen as potentially "questionable." Through an extended case-study analysis of three journals owned by one of the "big five" commercial publishers, this paper explores the risks that this growing use of special issues presents to research integrity. All three case-study journals show sudden and marked changes in their publication patterns. An analysis of special issue editorials and retraction notes was used to determine the specifics of special issues and reasons for retractions. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse data. Findings suggest that these commercial publishers are also promoting special issues and that article retractions are often connected to guest editor manipulation. This underlies the threat that "special issue-ization" presents to research integrity. It highlights the risks posed by the guest editor model, and the importance of extending this analysis to long-existing commercial publishers. The paper emphasizes the need for an in-depth examination of the underlying structures and political economy of science, and a discussion of the rise of gaming and manipulation within higher education systems.

Misconducts in research and methods to uphold research integrity

Research misconduct refers to deliberate or accidental manipulation or misrepresentation of research data, findings, or processes. It can take many forms, such as fabricating data, plagiarism, or failing to disclose conflicts of interest. Data falsification is a serious problem in the field of medical research, as it can lead to the promotion of false or misleading information. Researchers might engage in p-hacking - the practice of using someone else's research results or ideas without giving them proper attribution. Conflict of interest (COI) occurs when an individual's personal, financial, or professional interests could potentially influence their judgment or actions in relation to their research. Nondisclosure of COI can be considered research misconduct and can damage the reputation of the authors and institutions. Hypothesis after results are known can lead to the promotion of false or misleading information. Cherry-picking data is the practice of focusing attention on certain data points or results that support a particular hypothesis, while ignoring or downplaying results that do not. Researchers should be transparent about their methods and report their findings honestly and accurately. Research institutions should have clear and stringent policies in place to address scientific misconduct. This knowledge must become widespread, so that researchers and readers understand what approaches to statistical analysis and reporting amount to scientific misconduct. It is imperative that readers and researchers alike are aware of the methods of statistical analysis and reporting that constitute scientific misconduct.

Ambiguity in Ethical Standards: Global Versus Local Science in Explaining Academic Plagiarism

The past decade has seen extensive research carried out on the systematic causes of research misconduct. Simultaneously, less attention has been paid to the variation in academic misconduct between research fields, as most empirical studies focus on one particular discipline. We propose that academic discipline is one of several systematic factors that might contribute to academic misbehavior. Drawing on a neo-institutional approach, we argue that in the developing countries, the norm of textual originality has not drawn equal support across different research fields depending on its level of internationalization. Using plagiarism detection software, we analyzed 2,405 doctoral dissertations randomly selected from all dissertations defended in Russia between 2007 and 2015. We measured the globalization of each academic discipline by calculating the share of publications indexed in the global citation database in relation to overall output. Our results showed that, with an average share of detected borrowings of over 19%, the incidence of plagiarism in Russia is remarkably higher than in Western countries. Overall, disciplines closely follow the pattern of higher globalization associated with a lower percentage of borrowed text. We also found that plagiarism is less prevalent at research-oriented institutions supporting global ethical standards. Our findings suggest that it might be misleading to measure the prevalence of academic misconduct in developing countries without paying attention to variations at the disciplinary level.

A global exploratory comparison of country self-citations 1996-2019

Self-citations are a key topic in evaluative bibliometrics because they can artificially inflate citation-related performance indicators. Recently, self-citations defined at the largest scale, i.e., country self-citations, have started to attract the attention of researchers and policymakers. According to a recent research, in fact, the anomalous trends in the country self-citation rates of some countries, such as Italy, have been induced by the distorting effect of citation metrics-centered science policies. In the present study, we investigate the trends of country self-citations in 50 countries over the world in the period 1996-2019 using Scopus data. Results show that for most countries country self-citations have decreased over time. 12 countries (Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Malaysia, Pakistan, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Ukraine), however, exhibit different behavior, with anomalous trends of self-citations. We argue that these anomalies should be attributed to the aggressive science policies adopted by these countries in recent years, which are all characterized by direct or indirect incentives for citations. Our analysis confirms that when bibliometric indicators are integrated into systems of incentives, they are capable of affecting rapidly and visibly the citation behavior of entire countries.

A study on the content of integrity policies and research integrity management in Chinese universities

Background

This study outlines a comprehensive analysis of the primary characteristics of managing research integrity (RI) in domestic colleges and universities in China. RI education in China consists primarily of soft advocacy, with no hard requirements or continuous and systematic support. Together with other stakeholders, such as funders and publishers, higher education institutions (e.g., colleges and universities) are one of the vital actors that have a lot of influence on RI promotion and implementation among researchers. However, the literature on the regulation of RI policies in China's universities is limited.

Methods

We investigate the top 50 colleges and universities in the 2021 Best Chinese Universities Ranking. Their guidance and policy documents on RI were collected via their official websites. By integrating the use of scientometrics analysis, including descriptive statistical analysis, inductive content analysis, and quantitative analysis, we examine whether and how these higher education institutions respond to national policies in a timely manner, especially in terms of their frequency of updates, topic clustering analysis, terms clustering analysis, content aggregation. To further understand the composition mechanism and the main working systems of university RI management organizations, we conducted in-depth research on the organizational functions, meeting system, staff composition mechanism, and scientific research misconduct acceptance and investigation mechanisms.

Results

The regulations on the treatment of RI in China's universities have, in response to the government's call to establish their own management policies and working mechanisms, maintained a zero-tolerance stance on research misconduct. The sampled universities listed the definition and principles of misconduct practices, investigation procedures, and sanctions of research misconduct in their own policy documents. Some of them listed inappropriate research practices All 50 sampled universities have formed relevant organizations responsible for RI management, they all provide the detailed regulations of the committees. Yet, there is still a need to further define Questionable Research Practice, foster higher standards for integrity in research and, establish and improve an efficient, authoritative, well-restrained and supervision working mechanism for organizations responsible for RI treatment.

“It is Very Difficult for us to Separate Ourselves from this System”: Views of European Researchers, Research Managers, Administrators and Governance Advisors on Structural and Institutional Influences on Research Integrity

Research integrity is fundamental to the validity and reliability of scientific findings, and for ethical conduct of research. As part of PRINTEGER (Promoting Integrity as an Integral Dimension of Excellence in Research), this study explores the views of researchers, research managers, administrators, and governance advisors in Estonia, Italy, Norway and UK, focusing specifically on their understanding of institutional and organisational influences on research integrity.

A total of 16 focus groups were conducted. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that competition is pervasive and appeared in most themes relating to integrity. The structural frameworks for research such as funding, evaluation and publication were thought to both protect and, more commonly, undermine integrity. In addition, institutional systems, including workload and research governance, shaped participants’ day-to-day work environment, also affecting research integrity. Participants also provided ideas for promoting research integrity, including training, and creating conditions that would be supportive of research integrity.

These findings support a shift away from individual blame and towards the need for structural and institutional changes, including organisations in the wider research environment, for example funding bodies and publishing companies.

Publication games: In the web of reciprocity

The present processes of research assessment, i.e. focusing on one or a few, related, scientometrics, foster questionable authorship practices, like gifting authorship to non-contributing people. An especially harmful one of these unethical practices is the formation of publication cartels, where authors offer gift authorship to each other reciprocally. Here, by developing a simple model and a simulation of the publication process I investigate how beneficial cartels can be and what measure can be used to restrict them. My results indicate that publication cartels can significantly boost members' productivity even if paper counts are weighted by the inverse of author number (the 1/n rule). Nevertheless, applying the 1/n rule generates conflicts of interest both among cartel members themselves and between cartel members and non-members which might lead to the self-purification of the academic publishing industry.

INFLUENCE OF CITATION PRACTICES ON ACADEMIC ASSESSMENT

In writing scientific papers, proper citation and referencing are crucial and thereby should be taught to graduate students and novice researchers as tools for counteracting the pervasive errors in citing, quoting, and referencing. Although the relevance of citation counts and derived indicators such as the h-index in assessing research performance is out of question, this emphasis has resulted in an “impact or perish” culture featuring post-production misrepresentation and related misbehaviors. Herein, I appraise the use of citations in academic assessment, citations in original vs. review articles, convenience and country of origin biases, and some related issues. The current landscape highlights that formal instruction on citation practices and their implications should be included in graduate programs and enduringly reinforced by mentors in laboratories.

Stakeholders’ views on an institutional dashboard with metrics for responsible research

Concerns about research waste have fueled debate about incentivizing individual researchers and research institutions to conduct responsible research. We showed stakeholders a proof-of-principle dashboard with quantitative metrics of responsible research practices at University Medical Centers (UMCs). Our research question was: What are stakeholders’ views on a dashboard that displays the adoption of responsible research practices on a UMC-level? We recruited stakeholders (UMC leadership, support staff, funders, and experts in responsible research) to participate in online interviews. We applied content analysis to understand what stakeholders considered the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the dashboard and its metrics. Twenty-eight international stakeholders participated in online interviews. Stakeholders considered the dashboard helpful in providing a baseline before designing interventions and appreciated the focus on concrete behaviors. Main weaknesses concerned the lack of an overall narrative justifying the choice of metrics. Stakeholders hoped the dashboard would be supplemented with other metrics in the future but feared that making the dashboard public might put UMCs in a bad light. Our findings furthermore suggest a need for discussion with stakeholders to develop an overarching framework for responsible research evaluation and to get research institutions on board.

Academic Integrity and Human Resource Development: Being and Doing

Academic integrity is addressed, with a particular focus on the field of human resource development. Academic integrity can be connected to ideal values such as honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage. Key sources pertaining to academic integrity are presented, along with “areas of concern” highlighted by recent research. Some of the available resources pertaining to academic integrity are listed, along with a final call to action, including a call to “integrous living.”

RESPONSE_ABILITY A Card-Based Engagement Method to Support Researchers' Ability to Respond to Integrity Issues

Issues related to research integrity receive increasing attention in policy discourse and beyond with most universities having introduced by now courses addressing issues of good scientific practice. While communicating expectations and regulations related to good scientific practice is essential, criticism has been raised that integrity courses do not sufficiently address discipline and career-stage specific dimensions, and often do not open up spaces for in-depth engagement. In this article, we present the card-based engagement method RESPONSE_ABILITY, which aims at supporting researchers in developing their ability to respond to challenges of good scientific practice. The method acknowledges that what counts and what does not count as acceptable practice may not be as clear-cut as imagined and that research environments matter when it comes to integrity issues. Using four sets of cards as stimulus material, participants are invited to reflect individually and collectively about questions of research integrity from different perspectives. This approach is meant to train them to negotiate in which contexts certain practices can still be regarded as acceptable and where possible transgressions might begin. RESPONSE_ABILITY can be seen as fostering the creation of an integrity culture as it invites a more reflexive engagement with ideals and realities of good practice and opens a space to address underlying value conflicts researchers may be confronted with. Concluding the article, we call for caution that addressing issues of integrity meaningfully requires striking a delicate balance between raising researchers' awareness of individual responsibilities and creating institutional environments that allow them to be response-able.

Replication and Reproduction: Crises in Psychology and Academic Labour

Discussions of the replication crisis in psychology require more substantive analysis of the crisis of academic labour and of social reproduction in the university. Both the replication crisis and the crisis of social reproduction in the university describe a failure in processes of reproducing something. The financial crisis of 2007–8 shortly preceded the emergence of the replication crisis, as well as exacerbated ongoing tendencies in the organisation and practices of university research (particularly the use of precarious contracts and the adjunctification of research). These provide two reasons to address these two named crises together. But many analyses of and responses to the replication crisis turn to research culture, often at the expense of adequate investigations of research labour. Today’s psychological sciences are made through multiple forms of labour: these include researchers, who range from senior principal investigators to sub-contracted, and exploited, research assistants; research participants/subjects, who include those providing labour for experiments via exploitative platforms including Amazon Mechanical Turk; and workers providing heterogeneous technical and administrative labour. Through understanding what is at stake for these multiple forms of labour, psychology might better analyse problems besetting psychology today, as well as develop different imaginaries and practices for how to address them.

Towards a Research Agenda for Promoting Responsible Research Practices

This opinion piece aims to inform future research funding programs on responsible research practices (RRP) based on three specific objectives: (1) to give a sketch of the current international discussion on responsible research practices (RRPs); (2) to give an overview of current initiatives and already obtained results regarding RRP; and (3) to give an overview of potential future needs for research on RRP. In this opinion piece, we have used seven iterative methodological steps (including literature review, ranking, and sorting exercises) to create the proposed research agenda. We identified six main themes that we believe need attention in future research: (1) responsible evaluation of research and researchers, (2) the influence of open science and transparency on RRP, (3) research on responsible mentoring, supervision, and role modeling, (4) the effect of education and training on RRP, (5) checking for reproducibility, and (6) responsible and fair peer review. These themes have in common that they address aspects of research that are mostly on the level of the scientific system, more than on the level of the individual researcher. Some current initiatives are already gathering substantial empirical evidence to start filling these gaps. We believe that with sufficient support from all relevant stakeholders, more progress can be made.

The dominance of big teams in China’s scientific output

Modern science is dominated by scientific productions from teams. A recent finding shows that teams of both large and small sizes are essential in research, prompting us to analyze the extent to which a country’s scientific work is carried out by big or small teams. Here, using over 26 million publications from Web of Science, we find that China’s research output is more dominated by big teams than the rest of the world, which is particularly the case in fields of natural science. Despite the global trend that more papers are written by big teams, China’s drop in small team output is much steeper. As teams in China shift from small to large size, the team diversity that is essential for innovative work does not increase as much as that in other countries. Using the national average as the baseline, we find that the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) supports fewer small teams than the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States does, implying that big teams are preferred by grant agencies in China. Our finding provides new insights into the concern of originality and innovation in China, which indicates a need to balance small and big teams.

Plagiarism in Project Studies

Plagiarism is condemned yet remains a frequently occurring form of academic misconduct. This editorial informs project scholars about plagiarism and Project Management Journal’s ( PMJ®) approach to it. We define plagiarism as the theft of words, ideas, and representations, and explain three principles to judge plagiarism based on our expectations on research integrity: honesty, originality, and authorship. Accordingly, plagiarism detection services (PDS) assist but do not limit our judgment. We hope to lay the foundation for a comprehensive understanding of plagiarism in project studies, and thus help (early career) scholars understand the different facets of plagiarism and thereby avoid it.

Self-promotion and the need to be first in science

Scientists, like all humans, are subject to self-deceptive valuations of their importance and profile. Vainglorious practice is annoying but mostly harmless when restricted to an individual’s perception of self-worth. Language that can be associated with self-promotion and aggrandizement is destructive when incorporated into scientific writing. So too is any practice that oversells the novelty of research or fails to provide sufficient scholarship on the uniqueness of results. We evaluated whether such tendencies have been increasing over time by assessing the frequencies of articles claiming to be “the first”, and those that placed the requirement for scholarship on readers by using phrases such as “to the best of our knowledge”. Our survey of titles and abstracts of 176 journals in ecology and environmental biology revealed that the frequencies of both practices increased linearly over the past half century. We thus warn readers, journal editors, and granting agencies to use caution when assessing the claimed novelty of research contributions. A system-wide reform toward more cooperative science that values humility, and abhors hubris, might help to rectify the problem.

What Research Institutions Can Do to Foster Research Integrity

In many countries attention for fostering research integrity started with a misconduct case that got a lot of media exposure. But there is an emerging consensus that questionable research practices are more harmful due to their high prevalence. QRPs have in common that they can help to make study results more exciting, more positive and more statistically significant. That makes them tempting to engage in. Research institutions have the duty to empower their research staff to steer away from QRPs and to explain how they realize that in a Research Integrity Promotion Plan. Avoiding perverse incentives in assessing researchers for career advancement is an important element in that plan. Research institutions, funding agencies and journals should make their research integrity policies as evidence-based as possible. The dilemmas and distractions researchers face are real and universal. We owe it to society to collaborate and to do our utmost best to prevent QRPs and to foster research integrity.

On the Willingness to Report and the Consequences of Reporting Research Misconduct: The Role of Power Relations

While attention to research integrity has been growing over the past decades, the processes of signalling and denouncing cases of research misconduct remain largely unstudied. In this article, we develop a theoretically and empirically informed understanding of the causes and consequences of reporting research misconduct in terms of power relations. We study the reporting process based on a multinational survey at eight European universities (N = 1126). Using qualitative data that witnesses of research misconduct or of questionable research practices provided, we aim to examine actors' rationales for reporting and not reporting misconduct, how they report it and the perceived consequences of reporting. In particular we study how research seniority, the temporality of work appointments, and gender could impact the likelihood of cases being reported and of reporting leading to constructive organisational changes. Our findings suggest that these aspects of power relations play a role in the reporting of research misconduct. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of research misconduct in an academic context. Specifically, we elucidate the processes that affect researchers' ability and willingness to report research misconduct, and the likelihood of universities taking action. Based on our findings, we outline specific propositions that future research can test as well as provide recommendations for policy improvement.

How much is too much? The difference between research influence and self-citation excess

Citations can be an indicator of publication significance, utility, attention, visibility or short-term impact but analysts need to confirm whether a high citation count for an individual is a genuine reflection of influence or a consequence of extraordinary, even excessive, self-citation. It has recently been suggested there may be increasing misrepresentation of research performance by individuals who self-cite inordinately to achieve scores and win rewards. In this paper we consider self-referencing and self-citing, describe the typical shape of self-citation patterns for carefully curated publication sets authored by 3517 Highly Cited Researchers and quantify the variance in the distribution of self-citation rates within and between all 21 Essential Science Indicators’ fields. We describe both a generic level of median self-referencing rates, common to most fields, and a graphical, distribution-driven assessment of excessive self-citation that demarcates a threshold not dependent on statistical tests or percentiles (since for some fields all values are within a central ‘normal’ range). We describe this graphical procedure for identifying exceptional self-citation rates but emphasize the necessity for expert interpretation of the citation profiles of specific individuals, particularly in fields with atypical self-citation patterns.