Fostering Integrity in Research (2017) / Chapter Skim
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4 Context and Definitions
4 Context and Definitions
Pages 57-76
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From page 57... ...
Synopsis: Integrity is essential to the functioning of the research enterprise and personally important to the vast majority of those who dedicate their lives to science. Yet research misconduct and detrimental research practices are facts of life.
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From page 58... ...
scientists, research institutions, and government agencies relied solely on a system of self-regulation based on shared ethical principles and generally accepted research practices to ensure integrity in the research process." As discussed in Chapter 2, science and research have not had defined mechanisms for certification, licensure, and imposing penalties for unethical behavior that have developed in professions such as medicine, law, and some areas of professional engineering. Behaviors such as fabrication of research results and plagiarism might be punished by employers but were generally not subject to legal action, at least in the United States.1 Unethical behavior in research first emerged as a policy issue in connection with the treatment of human research subjects and laboratory animals.
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As behaviors that violate those values, such as data fabrication, emerged as serious problems, researchers and policy makers sought to develop a framework of concepts and definitions to use in preventing, investigating, taking corrective action, and otherwise addressing those behaviors. The TABLE 4-1 Research Integrity Policy Time Line Year U.S.
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for Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (the Belmont Report)
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by 16 federal agencies that conduct, support, or otherwise regulate human subjects research; the FDA also adopted certain of its provisions. 1992 OSI and OSIR are consolidated into Responsible Science is the Office of Research Integrity published.
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Rationales for different approaches are explored, and this committee's recommended framework is presented and explained. Some issues affecting the advantages and disadvantages of alternative approaches only become clear when considering how concepts and definitions related to violations of research integrity are actually understood and utilized in specific contexts, such as institutional investigations of alleged misconduct that are overseen by federal agencies.
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. The 1992 report Responsible Science put forward a framework of terms to describe and categorize behaviors that depart from scientific integrity (NASNAE-IOM, 1992)
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Also, as will be discussed further below, research institutions themselves may choose to adopt definitions of research misconduct for the purposes of their own internal management and employment policies that are broader than the definition adopted by the federal government. In the discussion below, the appropriateness or suitability of research misconduct definitions is considered primarily from the standpoint of U.S.
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Much of the research enterprise, including research universities and the associations representing them, opposed the inclusion of elements other than FFP in federal definitions, particularly the "other serious deviations" clause. For example, Responsible Science states that "the vagueness of this category has led to confusion about which actions constitute misconduct in science" (NAS-NAE-IOM, 1992)
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On the basis of current knowledge, it appears that the "other serious deviations" clause and similar formulations may not have the adverse impacts on research that some have feared, but they may introduce the risk that a controversial or mishandled case could lead to turmoil and a loss of credibility on the part of the institutions and agencies charged with addressing research misconduct. The Ryan Commission In 1995, the Commission on Research Integrity was organized by Congress to "advise the Secretary of Health and Human Services and Congress about ways to improve the Public Health Service (PHS)
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The commission based its recommendation to include "interference" as an element of misconduct based on testimony it received about cases where researchers sabotaged the experiments of others or absconded with vital data, arguing that existing laws against vandalism were often not adequate to address these situations. It also recommended defining other forms of "professional misconduct" as obstruction of investigations of research misconduct and repeated noncompliance with research regulations after notice.
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For example, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's policy, adopted in 2007, defines research misconduct as FFP and "any other serious deviations or significant departures from accepted and professional research practices, such as the abuse or mistreatment of human or animal research subjects" (HHMI, 2007)
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definitions and policies operate in a global context. Research Councils UK, the organization of the United Kingdom's government-funding agencies, has a lengthy and detailed definition of "unacceptable conduct": Unacceptable conduct includes each of the following: Fabrication This comprises the creation of false data or other aspects of research, including documentation and participant consent.
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Its finding that Lomborg had committed scientific dishonesty was controversial and was ultimately overturned by Denmark's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, which cited insufficient evidence and arguments and an overly broad definition of scientific dishonesty (Resnik and Master, 2013)
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Likewise, plagiarism is often intentional but can also result from sloppy work practices that could be characterized as "reckless." In addition to stipulating that research misconduct does not include "honest error," the federal research misconduct policy includes the provision that the behavior must be "committed intentionally, or knowingly, or recklessly" in order for a finding of misconduct to be warranted (OSTP, 2000)
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In the meantime, it is worth considering an issue that the committee spent considerable time discussing, that of authorship misrepresentation that might not be clearly included in OSTP's definition of plagiarism. A footnote in the 1992 report Responsible Science states that "it is possible that some extreme cases of noncontributing authorship may be regarded as misconduct because they constitute a form of falsification" (NAS-NAE-IOM, 1992)
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This will be covered in Chapter 7. DETRIMENTAL RESEARCH PRACTICES The 1992 Responsible Science report identified an additional set of actions "that violate traditional values of the research enterprise and that may be detrimental to the research process," but for which "there is at present neither broad agreement as to the seriousness of these actions nor any consensus on standards for behavior in such matters." As examples of these actions, it cited failing to retain significant research data for a reasonable period, maintaining inadequate research records, conferring or requesting authorship on the basis of a specialized service or contribution that is not significantly related to the research reported in the paper, refusing to give peers reasonable access to unique research materials or data that support published papers, using inappropriate statistical or other methods of measurement to enhance the significance of research findings, and misrepresenting speculations as fact or releasing preliminary research results, especially in the public media, without providing sufficient data to allow peers to judge the validity of the results or to reproduce the experiments.
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How this may be done is covered in detail in Chapter 9. These are examples of DRPs that the committee has considered and agrees on: • Detrimental authorship practices that may not be considered misconduct, such as honorary authorship, demanding authorship in return for access to previously collected data or materials, or denying authorship to those who deserve to be designated as authors; • Not retaining or making data, code, or other information/materials under lying research results available as specified in institutional or sponsor policies, or standard practices in the field; • Neglectful or exploitative supervision in research; • Misleading statistical analysis that falls short of falsification; • Inadequate institutional policies, procedures, or capacity to foster research integrity and address research misconduct allegations, and deficient im plementation of policies and procedures; and • Abusive or irresponsible publication practices by journal editors and peer reviewers.
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Otherwise, this committee agrees that the category of other misconduct should remain as it was recommended in Responsible Science.
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