What are the best practices? (Has Best Practice)
From The Embassy of Good Science
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The European Code of Conduct states that good research practice with regard to collaborations are based on the following principles:
*All partners in research collaborations take responsibility for the integrity of the research.
*All partners in research collaborations agree at the outset on the goals of the research and on the process for communicating their research as transparently and openly as possible.
*All partners formally agree at the start of their collaboration on expectations and standards concerning research integrity, on the laws and regulations that will apply, on protection of the intellectual property of collaborators, and on procedures for handling conflicts and possible cases of misconduct.
*All partners in research collaborations are properly informed and consulted about submissions for publication of the research results. (ECC 2017, section 2.6)
Vicens and Bourne (2007) suggest the following rules: '"`UNIQ--ref-00000010-QINU`"'
#Do Not Be Lured into Just Any Collaboration
#Decide at the Beginning Who Will Work on What Tasks
#Stick to Your Tasks
#Be Open and Honest
#Feel Respect, Get Respect
#Communicate, Communicate, and Communicate
#Protect Yourself from a Collaboration That Turns Sour
#Always Acknowledge and Cite Your Collaborators
#Seek Advice from Experienced Scientists
#If Your Collaboration Satisfies You, Keep It Going
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Reflection on moral conflicts, and especially on moral dilemmas, is an important element of responsible research practice. Take for example Phase I trials that involve novel therapies for patients (so-called First-In-Human (FIH) Trials). '"`UNIQ--ref-000002C1-QINU`"' These trials involve a high degree of uncertainty in intervention development and possible outcomes. Although this step, hopefully, in turn, will make a Phase-III clinical trial in compliance with the basic epistemological and ethical requirement of therapeutic trials possible, it is a fact that so far no widely accepted standards for judgments of uncertainty, safety, and value of FIH trials have yet been formulated. Consequently, no selection of patients to be included in such trials can be said to be fully satisfactory, i.e. without the possibility of moral failure. Through acknowledging the possible existence of irresolvable moral conflicts in research, researchers will learn modesty, and thereby also protect themselves from being infected by the vice of ''hybris''.
Reflection on moral dilemmas can be fostered by organizing Moral Case Deliberation (MCD). '"`UNIQ--ref-000002C2-QINU`"' In MCD, a morally troublesome situation is investigated by a group, guided by a facilitator. During the investigation, the conflicting values in the situation are examined in dialogue. This enables participants to become aware of, and reflect on the moral conflict involved. MCD specifically focuses on moral conflicts that cannot be restlessly solved, that is on moral dilemmas. The aim is to investigate different values of stakeholders in practice, and become aware that in making a choice, certain values will be harmed. This may result in the awareness that, although a choice is unavoidable, one should be open to the negative consequences of and take responsibility for them.
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Avoid the following pitfalls (behavioral aspect with an example): (a) Temptation - “Getting my name on this article would look really good on my CV”, (b) Rationalization - “It’s only a few data points, and those runs were flawed anyway”, (c) Ambition - “The better the story we can tell, the better a journal we can go for”, (d) Group and authority pressure - “The PI’s instructions don’t exactly match the protocol approved by the ethics review board, but she is the senior researcher”, (e) Entitlement - “I’ve worked so hard on this, and I know this works, and I need to get this publication”, (f) Deception - “I’m sure it would have turned out this way (if I had done it)”, (g) Incrementalism - “It’s only a single data point I’m excluding, and just this once”, (h) Embarrassment - “I don’t want to look foolish for not knowing how to do this”, (i) Stupid systems, “It counts more if we divide this manuscript into three submissions instead of just one”. +
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TENK believes that it is important to keep the threshold low for initiating a preliminary inquiry into such cases. +
- Open access publishing +
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Different publishers have a different set of rules for reporting research and conducting peer review so it is always recommended to familiarize yourself with any specific guidelines which are available on each journal’s webpage. Before you can accept an invitation to review, it is necessary to consider does your area of expertise match the topic of the proposed article as well as your potential conflict of interest. A successful peer review usually contains a clear answer on the question should the proposed article be accepted, rejected, or revised. It also contains a list of any major and/or minor issues, their location within the article as well as explanations and suggestions to the author(s). There are some freely available resources which can help with peer review process such as COPE's ethical guidelines for peer reviewers '"`UNIQ--ref-0000029E-QINU`"', Peer review golden rules and good practice checklist '"`UNIQ--ref-0000029F-QINU`"' and the Handbook on Best Practices for Peer Review '"`UNIQ--ref-000002A0-QINU`"', published by the Association of American University Presses.
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The researcher entered into a Voluntary Settlement Agreement with the ORI. They voluntarily agreed to exclude themselves from serving in any advisory capacity to the PHS and to certify in every PHS research application or report that all contributions to the application or report are properly cited or otherwise acknowledged. +
Polish Ministry of Science and Information Society Technologies' Good Scientific Research Practice Recommendations +
- Observing basic good conduct such as honesty
- Proper management and cooperation in research teams
- . Special consideration of the needs of young researchers
- Securing and maintaining research results
- Observance of copyrights of the scientific publications.
- Avoiding conflicts of interest +
[https://www.allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ALLEA-European-Code-of-Conduct-for-Research-Integrity-2017.pdf The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity] defines good practices for training, supervision and mentoring:
"Senior researchers, research leaders and supervisors mentor their team members and offer specific guidance and training to properly develop, design and structure their research activity and to foster a culture of research integrity" +
- Tips to ensure public engagement
- Promoting gender equality in research
- Policy recommendations
- Open access
- Science education at schools +
- The pros and cons of self-regulation and statutory regulation
- Who oversees self-regulation? +
In areas such as physics, mathematics and economy, preprint servers have been in use for almost 30 years.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000007C-QINU`"' In 1991 a centralized automated repository, the arXiv preprint server, was the pioneer in this method of dissemination of research results. It played an important role in physics, astronomy and mathematics, and later was implemented into other research areas.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000007D-QINU`"' Significant number of journals has adopted this practice of posting their manuscripts on preprint servers. About 46% of the 2,566 publishers indexed in SHERPA RoMEO support preprint servers.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000007E-QINU`"' The Lancet, for example, posts articles to preprint severs from Social Science Research Network (SSRN).'"`UNIQ--ref-0000007F-QINU`"'
Preprint servers can be journal (Netprints), non-journal (arXiv), mixed (ResearchGate), subject repositories (Social Sciences Research Network) as well as national and regional servers (Chinese Preprint Server Online).'"`UNIQ--ref-00000080-QINU`"' They can be supported by con-commercial and non-editorial organizations as well. For example, the Welcome Trust in UK has its own preprint server.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000081-QINU`"' Research institutions and funding organizations also can have preprint servers. One of the examples is UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC) that includes the manuscripts posted on preprint servers in biomedical research grant applications.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000082-QINU`"'
Some of the most popular preprint servers are:
-[https://www.biorxiv.org/ BioRxiv] (a preprint repository for the biological sciences);
-[https://arxiv.org/ arXiv] (an open access archive operated by Cornell University, containing 1,774,607 articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science and economics);
-[https://thewinnower.com/ the Winnower] (an open access online publishing platform that offers an open post-publication peer review);
-[https://psyarxiv.com/ PsyArXiv] (a preprint server for the field of psychology, launched in 2016 by Cornell University);
-[http://www.prepubmed.org/ PrePubMed] (a platform that indexes preprints from PeerJ Preprints, Figshare, bioRxiv, and F1000Research)'"`UNIQ--ref-00000083-QINU`"';
-[https://www.medrxiv.org/ medRxiv] (the first preprint server for medicine, launched in 2019 by Yale and BMJ).'"`UNIQ--ref-00000084-QINU`"'
Longer list of preprint repositories can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zYOy6bcydDZ9G56FKmDzg_pexTarVsJR5hH0KiQGt_I/edit#gid=1494155948 here] and [https://asapbio.org/preprint-servers here].
Although there are some preprint servers for medicine, shortcomings of this practice have to be considered. Medical research findings are often discussed by the media and public, so the media release of an unreviewed work can be harmful.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000085-QINU`"''"`UNIQ--ref-00000086-QINU`"' Preprints in medicine also raise ethical questions regarding research with humans, therefore the confidentiality of participants should be protected.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000087-QINU`"'
Nevertheless, in this time of COVID-19 pandemic preprint servers showed to be a useful tool because of the accelerated dissemination of research results. This is important especially regarding treatments and vaccines.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000088-QINU`"' From the early stages of the pandemic to the mid October, more than 19,000 preprints were produced.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000089-QINU`"' We also have to consider that peer reviewed articles published in journals can present low-quality work. One of the examples is article about a Russian vaccine, published in the Lancet,'"`UNIQ--ref-0000008A-QINU`"' which instigated objections and an open letter to the authors and the Lancet editor. The objections addressed data presented in the article and called for full availability of the original data in order to evaluate the study and enable reproduction of the research findings.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000008B-QINU`"''"`UNIQ--ref-0000008C-QINU`"'
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- Ensuring academic independence
- Enabling integrity in research
- Misconduct handling +
According to the Belmont[https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html]'"`UNIQ--ref-00000026-QINU`"' report:
· Respect
· Beneficence
· Justice
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*Nowadays, ‘good publication’ is considered to be peer reviewed publication. Since 1830 peer review became systematic and operational and is considered essential for academic publishing in present times.
*Journal editors are responsible for the publication process. Their standards are defined in guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) which were founded in 1997.
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The aim of all eight scenarios is to allow researchers, research ethics committees ('RECs'), research integrity offices ('RIOs') and research administrators to focus their reflection on core principles and research contexts that enshrine good research practice as well as their local rules and practices. +
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When qualitative research is intended to generate hypotheses for future research or to test the feasibility and acceptability of interventions, then applying the results is relatively straightforward.
Can the results of qualitative research be applied directly to daily clinical practice? If the study population seems similar enough to one’s own, then the clinician can justifiably consider the usage of the study results to reflect on his or her practice (2). +
Pre-registration of study protocols enhances the transparency of the research process and lends credibility to results. +
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Recommendations of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK for Research Integrity Advisers and related background organisations1 +
Advisors' range of activities include:
- Supporting the responsible conduct of research
- Providing guidance on the handling of misconduct
- Conducting preliminary ethical reviews +
Some of the most common examples of replication failures come from drug discovery and development. Usually drugs are developed in several stages, beginning with cells and animal studies and ultimately advancing to human trials. Failures in both conceptual and direct replication are frequent in this branch of science. Conceptual failure, for example, can occur when testing a drug that has promising action in animals for the first time in humans'"`UNIQ--ref-00000180-QINU`"''"`UNIQ--ref-00000181-QINU`"', whereas a direct replication failure might occur when testing the same drug on a similar group of people'"`UNIQ--ref-00000182-QINU`"'. Since successful replications enhance public trust in science and medicine, the increasing number of non-replicable studies in various disciplines, mainly psychology, have resulted in what has been described as a “replication crisis” and raised serious concerns'"`UNIQ--ref-00000183-QINU`"'. A study conducted by a team of 270 scientists at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville showed that only 35 of 100 studies published in one of the prominent psychology journals in 2008 could be replicated'"`UNIQ--ref-00000184-QINU`"'. Some argue however that there is no such thing as a “replication crisis”; moreover, sometimes the “non-replicability” could be helpful to science'"`UNIQ--ref-00000185-QINU`"'.
If replication fails, it does not necessarily mean that the original result of the experiment which is being replicated is false. It indicates some unknown factors are different in the replication experiment vs. the original experiment and an attempt should be made to investigate these '"`UNIQ--ref-00000186-QINU`"''"`UNIQ--ref-00000187-QINU`"'. If such factors are found (either of a technical or knowledge domain specific nature) they can substantially improve the understanding of the phenomena being studied.
In the last few years, leading scientific institutions in the United States have taken some steps to improve replicability. In 2014, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided training modules for postdoctoral fellows and a list of publications regarding replicability on their website, and emphasized addressing transparency in grant applications'"`UNIQ--ref-00000188-QINU`"'. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) have published Companion Guidelines on Replication and Reproducibility in Education Research in 2018. The guidelines suggest several actions to enhance replicability. For example, proposals for replication studies should guarantee objectivity, pre-registration of the research design and methods should ensure transparency, research should be described in detail, and all research data should be publically available'"`UNIQ--ref-00000189-QINU`"'. Taking these important steps calls for a significant culture shift so that accuracy in research would be valued more than swiftness'"`UNIQ--ref-0000018A-QINU`"'.
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