Can authorship policies help prevent scientific misconduct? What role for scientific societies?

How to combine rules and commitment in fostering research integrity?

Research integrity (RI) is crucial for trustworthy research. Rules are important in setting RI standards and improving research practice, but they can lead to increased bureaucracy; without commensurate commitment amongst researchers toward RI, they are unlikely to improve research practices. In this paper, we explore how to combine rules and commitment in fostering RI. Research institutions can govern RI using markets (using incentives), bureaucracies (using rules), and network processes (through commitment and agreements). Based on Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action, we argue that network processes, as part of the lifeworld, can legitimize systems - that is, market or bureaucratic governance modes. This can regulate and support RI practices in an efficient way. Systems can also become dominant and repress consensus processes. Fostering RI requires a balance between network, market and bureaucratic governance modes. We analyze the institutional response to a serious RI case to illustrate how network processes can be combined with bureaucratic rules. Specifically, we analyze how the Science Committee established at Tilburg University in 2012 has navigated different governance modes, resulting in a normatively grounded and efficient approach to fostering RI. Based on this case, we formulate recommendations to research institutions on how to combine rules and commitment.

Taiwanese Researchers' Perceptions of Questionable Authorship Practices: An Exploratory Study

In 2014, SAGE Publications retracted 60 articles authored by Taiwanese researchers due to suspected peer-review fraud. This scandal led to the resignation of the Minister of Education at the time since he coauthored several retracted works. Issues regarding the lack of transparent decision-making processes regarding authorship were further disclosed. Motivated by the scandal, we believe that this is one of the first empirical studies of questionable authorship practices (QAPs) in East Asian academia; we investigate Taiwanese researchers' perceptions of QAPs. To meet this purpose, a self-reported survey was developed. Four hundred and three local researchers, including research faculty (e.g., professors), postdoctoral researchers, and Ph.D. students, participated in the survey. Four major findings resulted. First, the underlying causes of Taiwanese doctoral students' engagement in QAPs were attributable to their desire to achieve particular academic-related successes and their feeling of reciprocal obligation to support other researchers. Second, the underlying motives for Taiwanese research associates' (i.e., research faculty and postdoctoral fellows) engagement in QAPs were attributable to their attempts to achieve particular career successes and of the desire to consolidate their professional networks. Third, the participants generally agreed that QAPs had a long history among local academics but were rarely reported. Fourth, participants' backgrounds (i.e., research discipline, academic rank, and type of affiliations) had significant effects on their responses regarding particular authorship issues; however, their gender did not have a significant effect. QAPs are a critical issue in Taiwanese academia; therefore, we discussed the implications of the current findings including subsequent instruction and future research.

A review of the literature on ethical issues related to scientific authorship

The article at hand presents the results of a literature review on the ethical issues related to scientific authorship. These issues are understood as questions and/or concerns about obligations, values or virtues in relation to reporting, authorship and publication of research results. For this purpose, the Web of Science core collection was searched for English resources published between 1945 and 2018, and a total of 324 items were analyzed. Based on the review of the documents, ten ethical themes have been identified, some of which entail several ethical issues. Ranked on the basis of their frequency of occurrence these themes are: 1) attribution, 2) violations of the norms of authorship, 3) bias, 4) responsibility and accountability, 5) authorship order, 6) citations and referencing, 7) definition of authorship, 8) publication strategy, 9) originality, and 10) sanctions. In mapping these themes, the current article explores major ethical issue and provides a critical discussion about the application of codes of conduct, various understandings of culture, and contributing factors to unethical behavior.

Scientific misconduct and accountability in teams

Increasing complexity and multidisciplinarity make collaboration essential for modern science. This, however, raises the question of how to assign accountability for scientific misconduct among larger teams of authors. Biomedical societies and science associations have put forward various sets of guidelines. Some state that all authors are jointly accountable for the integrity of the work. Others stipulate that authors are only accountable for their own contribution. Alternatively, there are guarantor type models that assign accountability to a single author. We contribute to this debate by analyzing the outcomes of 80 scientific misconduct investigations of biomedical scholars conducted by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI). We show that the position of authors on the byline of 184 publications involved in misconduct cases correlates with responsibility for the misconduct. Based on a series of binary regression models, we show that first authors are 38% more likely to be responsible for scientific misconduct than authors listed in the middle of the byline (p<0.01). Corresponding authors are 14% more likely (p<0.05). These findings suggest that a guarantor-like model where first authors are ex-ante accountable for misconduct is highly likely to not miss catching the author responsible, while not afflicting too many bystanders.

50 Tips for Clinical Trialists

This paper presents ‘Tips’ for researchers of brain impairment who are interested in conducting randomised controlled trials. The paper is intended for researchers who are planning to undertake their first trial, but may also be of interest to more experienced trialists or clinicians who want to further their understandings of clinical trials. The Tips include suggestions for how to design, conduct, analyse and report clinical trials.

The visibility of scientific misconduct: A review of the literature on retracted journal articles

Retractions of scientific articles are becoming the most relevant institution for making sense of scientific misconduct. An increasing number of retracted articles, mainly attributed to misconduct, is currently providing a new empirical basis for research about scientific misconduct. This article reviews the relevant research literature from an interdisciplinary context. Furthermore, the results from these studies are contextualized sociologically by asking how scientific misconduct is made visible through retractions. This study treats retractions as an emerging institution that renders scientific misconduct visible, thus, following up on the sociology of deviance and its focus on visibility. The article shows that retractions, by highlighting individual cases of misconduct and general policies for preventing misconduct while obscuring the actors and processes through which retractions are effected, produce highly fragmented patterns of visibility. These patterns resemble the bifurcation in current justice systems.

"Conferring authorship": biobank stakeholders' experiences with publication credit in collaborative research

Background

Multi-collaborator research is increasingly becoming the norm in the field of biomedicine. With this trend comes the imperative to award recognition to all those who contribute to a study; however, there is a gap in the current “gold standard” in authorship guidelines with regards to the efforts of those who provide high quality biosamples and data, yet do not play a role in the intellectual development of the final publication.

Methods and findings

We carried out interviews with 36 individuals working in, or with links to, biobanks in Switzerland, in order to understand how they interpret, apply and value authorship criteria in studies involving biosamples. The majority of respondents feel that authorship is an important motivating factor in working and publishing collaboratively. However, our findings suggest that in some cases, authorship guidelines are being ignored in favor of departmental standards which recognize “scientific work” as meriting authorship.

Conclusions

Our results support the current calls in the literature for an alternative method of crediting biomaterial contributions, in order to ensure appropriate authorship inclusion and promote collaborative research involving biobanks.

Environmental Factors Contributing to Wrongdoing in Medicine: A Criterion-Based Review of Studies and Cases

In this paper we describe our approach to understanding wrongdoing in medical research and practice, which involves the statistical analysis of coded data from a large set of published cases. We focus on understanding the environmental factors that predict the kind and the severity of wrongdoing in medicine. Through review of empirical and theoretical literature, consultation with experts, the application of criminological theory, and ongoing analysis of our first 60 cases, we hypothesize that 10 contextual features of the medical environment (including financial rewards, oversight failures, and patients belonging to vulnerable groups) may contribute to professional wrongdoing. We define each variable, examine data supporting our hypothesis, and present a brief case synopsis from our study that illustrates the potential influence of the variable. Finally, we discuss limitations of the resulting framework and directions for future research.

Authors' opinions on publication in relation to annual performance assessment

BACKGROUND

In the past 50 years there has been a substantial increase in the volume of published research and in the number of authors per scientific publication. There is also significant pressure exerted on researchers to produce publications. Thus, the purpose of this study was to survey corresponding authors in published medical journals to determine their opinion on publication impact in relation to performance review and promotion.

METHODS

Cross-sectional survey of corresponding authors of original research articles published in June 2007 among 72 medical journals. Measurement outcomes included the number of publications, number of authors, authorship order and journal impact factor in relation to performance review and promotion.

RESULTS

Of 687 surveys, 478 were analyzed (response rate 69.6%). Corresponding authors self-reported that number of publications (78.7%), journal impact factor (67.8%) and being the first author (75.9%) were most influential for their annual performance review and assessment. Only 17.6% of authors reported that the number of authors on a manuscript was important criteria for performance review and assessment. A higher percentage of Asian authors reported that the number of authors was key to performance review and promotion (41.4% versus 7.8 to 22.2%). compared to authors from other countries.

CONCLUSIONS

The number of publications, authorship order and journal impact factor were important factors for performance reviews and promotion at academic and non-academic institutes. The number of authors was not identified as important criteria. These factors may be contributing to the increase in the number of authors per publication.

Causal factors implicated in research misconduct: evidence from ORI case files

There has been relatively little empirical research into the causes of research misconduct. To begin to address this void, the authors collected data from closed case files of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). These data were in the form of statements extracted from ORI file documents including transcripts, investigative reports, witness statements, and correspondence. Researchers assigned these statements to 44 different concepts. These concepts were then analyzed using multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. The authors chose a solution consisting of seven clusters: (1) personal and professional stressors, (2) organizational climate, (3) job insecurities, (4) rationalizations A, (5) personal inhibitions, (6) rationalizations B and, (7) personality factors. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for policy and for future research.

A Descriptive Analysis of Authorship Within Medical Journals, 1995–2005

INTRODUCTION

The emphasis on publications for promotion in academic medicine would lead one to the theory that authorship numbers would increase proportionally with this emphasis. To investigate authorship trends across a number of periodicals, we performed a descriptive study comparing two full years of published articles spaced ten years apart from five medical journals.

METHODS

Physician reviewers each reviewed all articles of one medical journal for the 1995 and 2005 publication years. Reviewed journals included Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), Annals of Emergency Medicine (AnnEM), Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM), Journal of Trauma (JT), and New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Data collected for each article were number of authors, ordinal number of the corresponding author, type of study described, whether the described study was a multicenter trial, whether authorship listed included a "study group," and whether any author was also an editor of the journal.

RESULTS

A total of 2927 articles were published in the five journals in 1995, and of these, 1401 (47.9%) were analyzed after the exclusion criteria had been applied; for 2005 a total of 3630 articles were published and of these, 1351 (37.2%) were included in the analysis. Across all five journals the mean number of authors per article increased from 4.66 to 5.73 between 1995 and 2005 (P < 0.0001), and four of the five journals individually had statistically significant increases in the number of authors per article. More articles had a journal editor as an author in 2005 (increased from 7.8% to 11.0%, P = 0.004), though no single journal had a statistically significant increase.

CONCLUSION

We describe a trend of increasing mean authors, editorial authorship, study groups, and multicenter trials over time with fewer solo authors now publishing original research or case reports. The academic medical community must pursue an authorship requirement consensus to assure that a standard of contribution for all authors on a given paper is met.

Scientific societies and research integrity: what are they doing and how well are they doing it?

Scientific societies can play an important role in promoting ethical research practices among their members, and over the past two decades several studies have addressed how societies perform this role. This survey continues this research by examining current efforts by scientific societies to promote research integrity among their members. The data indicate that although many of the societies are working to promote research integrity through ethics codes and activities, they lack rigorous assessment methods to determine the effectiveness of their efforts.