Beyond Trust: Plagiarism and Truth

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Abstract

Academic misconduct distorts the relationship between scientific practice and the knowledge it produces. The relationship between science and the knowledge it produces is, however, not something universally agreed upon. In this paper I will critically discuss the moral status of an act of research misconduct, namely plagiarism, in the context of different epistemological positions. While from a positivist view of science, plagiarism only influences trust in science but not the content of the scientific corpus, from a constructivist point of view both are at stake. Consequently, I argue that discussions of research misconduct and responsible research ought to be explicitly informed by the authors’ views on the relationship between science and the knowledge it produces.

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Most cited references 11

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Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists

Thomas Gieryn (1983)

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Ranking major and minor research misbehaviors: results from a survey among participants of four World Conferences on Research Integrity

Lex Bouter, Joeri K Tijdink, Nils H. Axelsen … (2016)

Background Codes of conduct mainly focus on research misconduct that takes the form of fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. However, at the aggregate level, lesser forms of research misbehavior may be more important due to their much higher prevalence. Little is known about what the most frequent research misbehaviors are and what their impact is if they occur. Methods A survey was conducted among 1353 attendees of international research integrity conferences. They were asked to score 60 research misbehaviors according to their views on and perceptions of the frequency of occurrence, preventability, impact on truth (validity), and impact on trust between scientists on 5-point scales. We expressed the aggregate level impact as the product of frequency scores and truth, trust and preventability scores, respectively. We ranked misbehaviors based on mean scores. Additionally, relevant demographic and professional background information was collected from participants. Results Response was 17% of those who were sent the invitational email and 33% of those who opened it. The rankings suggest that selective reporting, selective citing, and flaws in quality assurance and mentoring are viewed as the major problems of modern research. The “deadly sins” of fabrication and falsification ranked highest on the impact on truth but low to moderate on aggregate level impact on truth, due to their low estimated frequency. Plagiarism is thought to be common but to have little impact on truth although it ranked high on aggregate level impact on trust. Conclusions We designed a comprehensive list of 60 major and minor research misbehaviors. Our respondents were much more concerned over sloppy science than about scientific fraud (FFP). In the fostering of responsible conduct of research, we recommend to develop interventions that actively discourage the high ranking misbehaviors from our study. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s41073-016-0024-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Accounting for Impact? The Journal Impact Factor and the Making of Biomedical Research in the Netherlands

Alexander Rushforth, Sarah de Rijcke (2015)

The range and types of performance metrics has recently proliferated in academic settings, with bibliometric indicators being particularly visible examples. One field that has traditionally been hospitable towards such indicators is biomedicine. Here the relative merits of bibliometrics are widely discussed, with debates often portraying them as heroes or villains. Despite a plethora of controversies, one of the most widely used indicators in this field is said to be the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). In this article we argue that much of the current debates around researchers’ uses of the JIF in biomedicine can be classed as ‘folk theories’: explanatory accounts told among a community that seldom (if ever) get systematically checked. Such accounts rarely disclose how knowledge production itself becomes more-or-less consolidated around the JIF. Using ethnographic materials from different research sites in Dutch University Medical Centers, this article sheds new empirical and theoretical light on how performance metrics variously shape biomedical research on the ‘shop floor.’ Our detailed analysis underscores a need for further research into the constitutive effects of evaluative metrics.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Bart Penders:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2661-9181

b.penders@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Bioeth Inq

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Bioeth Inq

Title: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry

Publisher: Springer Singapore (Singapore )

ISSN (Print): 1176-7529

Publication date (Electronic): 12 December 2017

Publication date PMC-release: 12 December 2017

Publication date (Print): 2018

Volume: 15

Issue: 1

Pages: 29-32

Affiliations

ISNI 0000 0001 0481 6099, GRID grid.5012.6, Care and Public Health Research Institute (Caphri), Department of Health, Ethics and Society (HES), , Maastricht University, ; PO Box 616, NL-6200MD Maastricht, The Netherlands

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Bart Penders http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2661-9181

Article

Publisher ID: 9825

DOI: 10.1007/s11673-017-9825-6

PMC ID: 5897471

PubMed ID: 29234992

SO-VID: 08d1d0e5-9b5d-4afe-8ee9-ec04641a478a

License:

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

History

Date received : 13 February 2017

Date accepted : 7 July 2017

Funding

Funded by: Maastricht University

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Ethics

Keywords: trust,truth,plagiarism,misconduct,responsible research behaviour,epistemology

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Ethics

Keywords: trust, truth, plagiarism, misconduct, responsible research behaviour, epistemology

Beyond Trust: Plagiarism and Truth

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Most cited references 11

Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists

Ranking major and minor research misbehaviors: results from a survey among participants of four World Conferences on Research Integrity

Accounting for Impact? The Journal Impact Factor and the Making of Biomedical Research in the Netherlands

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