What is this about? (Is About)
From The Embassy of Good Science
A short summary providing some details about the theme/resource (max. 75 words)
- ⧼SA Foundation Data Type⧽: Text
[
Adequate documentation or ‘note taking’ of the research process is essential for transparent and trustworthy results. Indeed, keeping inadequate notes of the research process is considered a questionable research practice .'"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"' Inadequate note keeping can lead to ideas or information being forgotten, mistakes in reporting, an inadequate description of the context in which the data were generated, and difficulties for replication of findings. Different disciplines, research institutions, and research teams have different procedures for note taking, e.g. in a notebook or electronically, and different conceptions of what a ‘note’ consists of. In general, note taking serves as a ‘second memory’ in the research process and promotes the quality and transparency of the performed research.
'"`UNIQ--references-00000001-QINU`"' +
Ignoring safety risks when planning and conducting a study is a questionable research practice in study design. Not considering potential physical, psychological, social, legal or economic risks can harm researchers, research participants, and wider community. +
This short article will talk about the experimental or study design, its logic and its appropriate use as well as its misuse. +
Not disclosing changes to the research design is considered a questionable research practice.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"' At the start of research, the study design should be determined to ensure validity and verifiability. Whilst performing research, it may turn out that the study design contains flaws or is insufficient. Changing the study design without disclosing those changes undermines the transparency of the research process. Altering the design without disclosing the changes provides researchers with the opportunity to present their results in a skewed way. For example, the researcher could select the most spectacular results, or choose a different test that leads to statistical significance.
'"`UNIQ--references-00000001-QINU`"' +
Irrelevant research questions are those questions that do not advance scientific understanding. Examples include questions that have already been convincingly answered by others, leading to duplicate research, or that could be answered by performing a systematic review or meta-analysis. '"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"' Irrelevant research questions can lead to research waste.
'"`UNIQ--references-00000001-QINU`"' +
Sometimes scientists can be faced with incentives that run counter to good science. For instance, in order to obtain a journal publication that will get them a grant or a promotion, scientists may be incentivised to exaggerate their findings, or even to drop out data points that do not fit a hypothesis. Some believe that the evaluation of scientists based on metrics alone (IF of journal publications, h-index, etc.) can encourage sloppy science or outright misconduct.
Journals, peer reviewers, universities, and funding agencies may also be confronted with incentives that do not promote good science. +
Research results are presented in specific manners based on certain interests or perspectives. Polarisation occurs when researchers hold radically opposed views leading to the segregation of the scientific community into groups in part constituted by their opposition to other groups in the field. Polarisation goes beyond mere disagreement. It occurs when researchers begin (a) to self-identify as proponents of a particular position that needs to be strongly defended beyond what is supported by the data and (b) to discount arguments and data that would normally be taken as important in a scientific debate.” '"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"'
The same data may be analysed and presented as very different results. “In polarised research scientists come to engage in facting interests instead of revealing interesting facts.” '"`UNIQ--ref-00000001-QINU`"''"`UNIQ--references-00000002-QINU`"' +
Predatory publishing, also called deceptive publishing, is a kind of academic publishing more geared toward making money than generating high quality publications.
Predatory journals have proliferated since the early 2000s. They typically apply a pay to publish model, work with an open access platform, and economize on editorial and peer review services .'"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"' As a result, they tend to promise a very swift review process and fast publication. One way to check for predatory publishing is checking whether the publisher is a member of a recognized professional organization committed to best publishing practices (like COPE or EASE).
'"`UNIQ--references-00000001-QINU`"' +
Research misbehaviors, or questionable research practices (QRPs), are a threat to research integrity and to the validity of science. While research misconduct, in particular fabrication, falsification and plagiarism have a high impact on science, they rarely occur. Research misbehaviours, however, are estimated to occur frequently. While conceivibly having a lower impact on individual cases, the aggregated impact is estimated to be much higher. '"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"''"`UNIQ--ref-00000001-QINU`"''"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"''"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"'
'"`UNIQ--references-00000004-QINU`"' +
Fabrication of numerical data is frequently described as an example of research misconduct that can occur in all areas of research. It can be detected by statistical tools, like the chi-square test for uniformity of digit distributions. +
Preregistration is the act of registering research protocols before conducting the experiments. It enables to state in advance the type of study (exploratory or confirmatory), hypotheses, methodological design and statistical plan that are going to be used.
Preregistration of animal studies belongs to the Open Science movement and enables a comprehensive overview of all (registered) studies, including those that might otherwise remain unpublished. Therefore, it promotes transparency and research rigour.
Although this process is rather common in clinical research, it is not yet standard practice in the preclinical field. According to recent reviews, initiatives are present to promote preregistration of animal studies, but the uptake remains slow [1]
<small>[1] Baker M. Animal registries aim to reduce bias. Nature. 2019;573(7773):297-8, doi:10.1038/d41586-019-02676-4</small> +
Trial registration is the publication of information about the design, conduct, and administration of clinical trials and should be registered before enrollment of the first participant. The information should be published on a publicly-accessible website at no charge, managed by a nonprofit organization, freely available to anybody and searchable electronically. Registration aims 1) to improve the transparency of these trials and 2) to protect stakeholder interests – including the interests of the subjects, the investigators, peer scientists and society in general. +
In a statistical pre-registration, the purpose and type of statistical analysis to be conducted in a study should be disclosed before the study begins. Statistical pre-registration helps to clearly distinguish between hypothesis generating (exploratory) studies, for which statistical significance is not meaningful, and hypothesis testing (confirmatory) studies for which statistical significance is meaningful'"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"'.
'"`UNIQ--references-00000001-QINU`"' +
The ORCID acronym stands for Open Researcher and Contributor Identification. An ORCID identifier helps to connect individual researchers with their work. ORCID is a non-profit organization established and introduced in 2009 in the US. As well as individual researchers, the ORCID community includes universities, laboratories, research companies, funders, publishers, repositories and professional societies.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"'.
'"`UNIQ--references-00000001-QINU`"' +
Digital humanities stands for humanities research that uses digital resources, tools and methods. It implies collaborative, trans-disciplinary and computational research, teaching and publishing. These relatively new practices mark an important shift away from printed outputs, which have dominated the production and dissemination of knowledge '"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"'.
'"`UNIQ--references-00000001-QINU`"' +
Some codes of conduct and guidelines discuss foundational principles which are relevant for researchers across all areas of research, and practices which are applicable in all disciplines. But there are other codes and guidelines which concern specific disciplines or areas of research. +
Different options for a coordinated approach to research misconduct in Europe are outlined in a new report by the EMBO Science Policy Programme. The report, ‘Governance of research integrity: Options for a coordinated approach in Europe’ '"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"', includes an analysis of the current systems for the governance of research integrity in a number of countries, and identifies gaps that could be addressed with a more coordinated approach in Europe. It further explores the advantages and disadvantages of each role for such a body, as well as the pros and cons of different possible structures and funding sources. It also looks at the implementation of a possible European body by a number of European organizations already active in the area of research integrity. Other possible mechanisms to reach a more consistent approach to address misconduct are discussed in the report, including the coordination of procedures used by research performing organizations, funders and publishers. The policy project was supported by an international group of experts who provided input through interviews and in a workshop organised in partnership with the OECD Global Science Forum.
'"`UNIQ--references-00000001-QINU`"' +
Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are designed to support the decision-making processes in patient care. A large number of guidelines are available both from medical associations and national health departments. The content of a CPG is based on a systematic review of clinical evidence - the main source for evidence-based care. Guidelines report the quality of the evidence used when they formulate the recommendations. For each recommendation in the guidelines, the level of evidence and strength of the recommendation are defined[[#%20ftn1|[1]]]. The quality of evidence has been defined as “reflecting the extent to which confidence in the estimate of an effect is adequate to support recommendations”[[#%20ftn2|[2]]]. The grading of the recommendations may vary across professional health agencies and scientific societies.
The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) working group have developed the GRADE system, which is intended as a common, sensible and transparent approach to grading the quality of evidence for the use in clinical guidelines[[#%20ftn3|[3]]]. The GRADE approach has a wide dissemination, with endorsement from more than 50 organizations worldwide, including WHO and Cochrane.
----[[#%20ftnref1|[1]]] Cura Della Redazione A. La costruzione delle linee guida [Clinical practice guidelines: what they are and how are developed]. Assist Inferm Ric. 2014;33:214-8.
[[#%20ftnref2|[2]]] Guyatt GH, Oxman AD, Vist GE, Kunz R, Falck‐Ytter Y, Schünemann HJ, et al. GRADE: what is “quality of evidence” and why is it important to clinicians? BMJ. 2008;336:995–8.
[[#%20ftnref3|[3]]] The GRADE working group [Internet]. GRADE [accessed 8 September, 2020]. Available online at: '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000000-QINU`"' 2013.
<br /> +
Digital image manipulation is very easy. You might be tempted to make an image more convincing, but simultaneously, no researcher with integrity wants to misrepresent their data. Image manipulation can be classified as scientific misconduct. It can be hard to find the ethical lines of what is and what is not allowed. Also, some images might look suspicious to you as a reviewer or journal editor. Luckily, comprehensive guidelines and tools exist. +
Every institution where research is carried out should have codes that regulate research procedure from its conceptualization to publication. Besides institution guidelines, there should be rules on a national or an even larger scale. Every researcher needs to get familiar with codes that apply to themselves. +
