Academic publishing and scholarly communications: Good reads, May 2017
This month, we’d like to draw your attention to posts that explore larger level issues in research communication. The underlying theme, we realized, in most of these posts, was the problems plaguing science particularly about best and ethical practices when writing and communicating research. The stories we would like to share with you this month include the case of a Columbian researcher who faced trial for sharing another researcher’s PhD thesis, Denmark’s new law to curb research misconduct, China’s pledge to show zero tolerance to academic fraud, a study that affirms the role of journal guidelines in ensuring authors follow ethical practices, a view on the reliability of company funded research, opinions on why biomedical researchers inflate claims in their papers, and what the scientific community should do after the March for Science. That looks like an interesting mix, doesn’t it? What are you waiting for! Read on and share these developments with your colleagues/fellow researchers.
Denmark takes serious steps to curb research misconduct: Following some high-profile findings of misconduct in Denmark, some of which were ultimately overturned in court, the country has announced that starting July 1, new policies for handling misconduct will go into effect, which alter the definition of misconduct and establish clear policies for who handles such allegations. As per the new policies, research misconduct will be limited to how it’s typically defined elsewhere - fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism - as opposed to the previous definition that included serious breaches of good scientific practices. All such allegations will be now be investigated by a central body, The Board for the Prevention of Scientific Misconduct, and not by the authors' institutions as it has been in the past. Institutions, however, will remain responsible for investigating allegations of the Questionable Research Practices (QRPs), such as selective reporting of data. Additionally, to ensure transparency, institutions will have to publicize their policies for handling QRPs. The Board for the Prevention of Scientific Misconduct will replace the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD). Going forward, anyone making allegations of research misconduct in Denmark will submit them to the researchers’ institution, which will then forward them to the central board, along with all information related to the case. How these changes help curb ethical violations in research and publication remains to be seen.
China pledges to show zero tolerance to academic fraud: China has pledged to follow a zero tolerance policy towards academic fraud following the retraction of over a hundred papers by Springer due to fake peer reviews in April. All of these papers were from Chinese institutions. "China will resolutely contain the breeding and spreading of academic fraud and deal with such misconducts seriously," Shang Yong, Executive Vice Chairman of China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), told a press conference. Shang also said that the instances of scientific fraud should be treated as a learning experience, and efforts should be made to reform the evaluation system for scientists, scientific projects and institutions for scientific research, rather than going with the traditional one-size-fits-all evaluation policy. The official said that CAST would coordinate with the ministries of science and technology as well as education to keep academic fraud at bay. The public announcement of this policy could be seen as the beginning of a few changes to help tackle academic misconduct.
Do people trust company-funded research? People don’t trust scientific research when companies are involved, reports a recent study. This is not a good sign for the types of public-private research partnerships that are becoming more prevalent as government funding for research and development lags. Randomly assigned participants were asked to each evaluate one of 15 different research partnership arrangements – various combinations of scientists from a university, a government agency, a nongovernmental organization and a large food company. The results revealed that the public find it hard to view research as useful when produced with an industry partner, even when that company is just one of several collaborators. In the past, the pharmaceutical, chemical, nutrition and petroleum industries have all faced criticism of their research integrity. Recent ethically questionable episodes have no doubt fuelled public skepticism of industry research. However, given the central role that industry plays in scientific research and development, it is important to regain public trust in industry based research. Perhaps this segment of the research industry needs to explore strategies for designing multi-sector research collaborations that can generate high-quality results while being perceived as legitimate by the public.
Columbian scientists acquitted of major copyright infringement charges: Earlier this month, Columbian scientist Diego Gómez Hoyos was cleared of serious copyright violation. In 2011, Gómez who was an undergraduate student at the University of Quindio (Armenia) came across an interesting 2006 PhD thesis on amphibian taxonomy. He posted the thesis on the public document sharing platform Scribd, because he thought "it was useful to identify amphibians in the fieldwork I did with my group at the university". Two years later, the author of the thesis accused Gómez of violating copyright laws. The Columbian legal system considers copyright violation a punishable offense that could lead to up to eight years of imprisonment. Gómez's case was taken up by The Karisma Foundation, a Colombian human-rights organization. The trial has dragged on since 2014 and has evoked mixed reactions from the academic community, including making researchers wary of sharing anything online. Gómez's acquittal was based on the fact that there was no evidence to implicate him for willfully sharing another author's work to receive economic or personal benefits or to intentionally harm the author of the thesis.
Study finds positive correlation between journal guidelines and ethical reporting practices: To what extent do journal guidelines help authors follow best and ethical publication practices? A study tried to answer this question by analyzing psychology journals and found that when journals introduced specific guidelines about the responsible use of statistics, authors were more likely to follow those good reporting practices, especially when presenting statistical data. The study, led by David Giofre (senior lecturer, School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University), mainly looked at specific new guidelines introduced by the journal Psychological Science in 2014. As per the new guidelines, researchers were not to state whether their results were “statistically significant”. Instead they were asked to report a statistical measure supporting their confidence in the findings and explain the reasons behind the inclusion or exclusion of specific data from their analyses. Further, authors making full datasets openly available would receive badges. The study compared the effect of these guidelines to those of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, which directs authors to report statistics following the recommendations of the American Psychological Association.
OK, we marched for science. What next? In this thought provoking post, Sheryl Denker talks about the post event scenario of the global March for Science. It is heartening to see that scientific organizations and researchers from across the globe united to share powerful messages about the need to uphold the scientific cause. But what do we do after the March? What difference did the March bring about? And how can the scientific community sustain the momentum caused by this powerful movement? Unfortunately, no one seems to have answers to these questions. For some climate change scientists, conducting a weekly check of the resources they have consumed is a step forward because it increases their awareness of small changes that could lead to improvements. For some, after the March, it is important for scientists to be vocal, emphatic, and public in their support for the right causes. According to some others, in the follow up to the March for Science, researchers should ensure that real science is communicated and no false news spreads among the lay people. This is an interesting read because it reflects the diversity in opinions about the role of science and what the March for Science movement could have meant for different sections of the scholarly community.
Understanding the inflation of claims in biomedical research: Here’s another thought provoking opinion piece that looks at the credibility of published research. The author, Sam Ogden, talks about the increasing tardiness in biomedical research, where several published results are irreproducible or are true under only very specific conditions. Ogden points out several reasons for the sloppiness but stresses that the biggest factor that led to the situation is not being openly discussed or tackled: the amount of biomedical research data as well as findings that inflate the significance of a study has risen over the years. Also, today, authors write papers to make broad assertions instead of validating specific conclusions. The result of all this is that “papers are increasingly like grand mansions of straw, rather than sturdy houses of brick.” Funding agencies’ emphasis on impact is another reason for this inflation of research claims. Ogden confesses that despite being an experienced reviewer, he struggles to find meaning in data when reviewing a work outside his area of specialization. He believes that reviewers play a major role in ensuring the validity of scientific claims: “The main question when reviewing a paper should be whether its conclusions are likely to be correct, not whether it would be important if it were true. Real advances are built with bricks, not straw.”
Did you read any of these posts? Or, would you like to share something interesting you came across? We’d love to hear from you. And if you'd like to stay updated about significant events in the scholarly publishing industry, we recommend our Industry News section.
Published on: May 31, 2017
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