ABSTRACT
The Need for Attention to Research Integrity A number of studies have attempted to assess the prevalence of research misconduct and other behaviors that can compromise the integrity of research,
often referred to as questionable research practices. The overall conclusion seems to be that they are both more prevalent than the number reported to oversight bodies would suggest. In the past 10 years, the National Science Foundation has seen a doubling in the number of research misconduct allegations received, and the amount of research misconduct has increased dramatically, suggesting that the allegations arising involve more serious matters. The ORI, within the Department of Health and Human Services, has also observed an increase in the number of allegations reviewed (ORI, 2007a, 2007b). Overall, estimates of the percentage of researchers who engage in questionable research practices are much higher than estimates of those who commit actionable research misconduct (Martinson, Anderson, & De Vries 2005; National Science Foundation, 1990). Whereas egregious research misconduct tends to be exposed over time, questionable research practices tend to go undetected or uncorrected, posing a potentially greater threat to research integrity. The science literature now contains more reports of serious misconduct cases internationally (Giles, 2005; Steneck, 2000; Yidong, 2005). Given the increasing number of scientists, the intermixing of ethical and regulatory regimes, tighter funding, and the potential for an erosion of ethics, it is reasonable to assume that the number of allegations and also the number of confirmed cases of research misconduct or questionable research practices will increase (Altman & Broad, 2005).2 In addition, erosion of integrity can be detected in large numbers of students, well before they chose to become researchers (McCabe, 1997). One survey found that 75 percent of high-school students had engaged in “serious cheating,” another found that 53 percent of undergraduates had cheated on written work, and yet another found that students find it acceptable to do anything to win (McCabe, Butterfield, & Trevino, 2006; Morin, 2006; Slobogin, 2002; Tanner, 2002). A recent study concluded that early-and mid-career scientists are more likely to commit acts that create ethical, legal, or regulatory issues when they perceive that they are treated unfairly in organizational decision- making (with respect to funding, peer review, and advancement) (Martinson, Anderson, Crain, & De Vries 2006; see also Giles, 2007). Finally, the increasing sophistication of electronic resources and availability of data have made it easier to commit research misconduct. Scientists intent on plagiarism can easily search and find the precise text they desire on the Internet (Cook, 2007). Plagiarists have claimed that, when working in a digital environment and cutting and pasting text, they “lost” or “misplaced” the citations. Effectively, they claim that they were the victims of the technologies they were exploiting to commit misconduct. Over 10 years ago, concerns about digital technology’s capacity to facilitate inappropriate manipulation of figures were just beginning to surface (Anderson, 1994; Mitchell, 1994; Vogel, 2005). Now, data and figure manipulation are quite easy with commonly available software. There are confirmed cases of individuals who have simply expanded a given
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dataset by a selected multiplier to create new datasets (OIG, 2004), who have “erased” background data points or inverted figures (OIG, 2005), or who have simply adjusted the gain on data-gathering equipment to create data logs (Katsnelson, 2007). All are examples of research misconduct facilitated by modern technologies.
