Lecture 5 Flashcards
Definition of scientific misconduct
Fabrication, or plagiarism in proposing performing or reviewing research or in reporting research or in reporting research results
-making up data
-changing or omitting results
-altering research materials, taking other peoples work
incentives for misconduct
publication pressure, scientific productivity is measured primarily in papers, Publication impacts career momentum
Pressures experienced by student researchers
competitive graduate programs
pressures to produce results/publish quickly
fear of failure and imposter syndrome
lack of progress in research
Consequences of Academic Misconduct
-reputational damage
-expulsion from an academic institution
-revocation of degrees
-loss of research funding, possible repayment of funds or lawsuits
-job termination
Retractions
formal withdrawal of a scientific paper
when can articles be retracted
errors involving key findings
-scientific misconduct
-work is plagiarized from previosly published work
- the authors violated ethical guidelines
Retraction watch
blog tracking retraction of papers for different reasons, misconduct and honest mistakes
Rise of the retractions
rise of retractions in the last decade, half are misconduct some are due to peer review scam
Post complication commentary facilities fraud detection
websited where commenters can post concerns about data, analysis, or interpretation. people sometimes people bicker and weaponize attacks
Impact of publication Bias
success of a scientific paper partly depends on its outcome, positive results are more likely to be published and cited
Efforts to combat publication bias
both positive and negative results are essential to the scientific process, some journals have been created to address the bias
Predatory publishers and journals
accept manuscripts without peer review, just to get fee payments from the authors
Corrections
issued for minor errors in scientific papers that do not undermine the main findings or integrety of the study
-misreported a value in a table
-a mistake in listing authors
- incorrect or missing a citation
-minor clarifications to the methodology
The data are the data
a common refrain when conducting research, usually with a sigh of exasperation
