Academic literature on the topic 'Fabrication, Falsification and Plagiarism'

“You, who are on the road Must have a code that you can live by And so, become yourself Because the past is just a good bye”1 The recent dismissal of charges of plagiarism made against no less than a Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of the Philippines2 and subsequent retaliatory threats against protesting faculty of the College of Law of the University of the Philippines3 are matters of grave concern in a country where even the capital crime of plunder can be so blatantly disregarded. Not surprisingly, these misdemeanors share a similar etymology. Plagiarism comes from the “Latin plagiarius ‘kidnapper, seducer, plunderer,’ used in the sense of ‘literary thief’ by Martial, from plagium ‘kidnapping,’ from plaga ‘snare, net.’"4 According to the World Association of Medical Editors, “plagiarism is the use of others' published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source.”5 Just as ignorance of the law is not an excuse to violate it, the misconduct of plagiarism is not contingent on whether it was committed intentionally or unintentionally. Technical Plagiarism “occurs when one inadvertently fails to properly cite, credit, and/or integrate a source, be it text, computer code, graphic, audio, or video information into one's work … (and) can range in severity from an errant footnote, to incomplete citation information to "forgetting" to cite altogether.”6 Five general types of plagiarism have been identified by Barnbaum:7 “cut and paste,” “word-switch,” “style,” “metaphor,” and “idea.” The first two are easy to understand, the first referring to literally lifting and applying words, phrases, sentences or paragraphs while the second involves substituting words or paraphrasing without attribution. But even following the flow of thought or reasoning style of another, substituting your own words sentence after sentence or paragraph after paragraph is “style plagiarism” and the same holds true when the metaphors or ideas of another are used without proper acknowledgement.7 The bottom line is that plagiarism gives the false impression that the words, ideas, composition or creation are those of the plagiarizer and not someone else’s, or misleads the recipient about the nature of the plagiarized material.5 There is even “self-plagiarism,” which “refers to the practice of an author using portions of their previous writings on the same topic in another of their publications, without specifically citing it formally in quotes,”5 and may give the impression that the present work is new and original, when in fact it is not. According to Scanlon,8 while the whole issue of self-plagiarism “raises knotty conceptual, legal, ethical, and theoretical questions … we do and should give writers legal and ethical latitude for limited self-copying, although certainly not for egregious duplication.” Barring situational concessions for limited self- and technical plagiarism in exceptional contexts, plagiarism generally involves fabrication and falsification, which in science (as in law) are misconducts of the highest degree, regardless of the presence or absence of “malicious intent.” The Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors of The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) outlines the duties of editors in pursuing such misconduct: 9 Pursuing misconduct Editors have a duty to act if they suspect misconduct. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers. Editors should not simply reject papers that raise concerns about possible misconduct. They are ethically obliged to pursue alleged cases. Editors should first seek a response from those accused. If they are not satisfied with the response, they should ask the relevant employers or some appropriate body (perhaps a regulatory body) to investigate. Editors should follow the COPE flowcharts where applicable (link to flowcharts). Editors should make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation is conducted; if this does not happen, Editors should make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem. This is an onerous but important duty. If this “onerous but important duty” applies to scientific misconduct, how much more to an institution whose very foundations are based on ethics and morality and whose raison d’etre is their upholding? Where resides this institution’s moral authority, if it cannot set the example it ought to? It is not right to take what is not yours without permission; that is thievery at best. It is even worse to shamelessly appropriate for yourself, that which belongs to others; that is looting and piracy. But the large-scale wanton stripping of intellectual (and other) properties and subsequent justification with legalese that violate the very roots of academic (and other) freedoms for present and future generations are tantamount to no less than pillage and plunder.

IntroductionBetween 0.02% and 0.04% of articles are retracted. We aim to: (a) describe the reasons for retraction of genetics articles and the time elapsed between the publication of an article and that of the retraction notice because of research misconduct (ie, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism); and (b) compare all these variables between retracted medical genetics (MG) and non-medical genetics (NMG) articles.MethodsAll retracted genetics articles published between 1970 and 2018 were retrieved from the Retraction Watch database. The reasons for retraction were fabrication/falsification, plagiarism, duplication, unreliability, and authorship issues. Articles subject to investigation by company/institution, journal, US Office for Research Integrity or third party were also retrieved.Results1582 retracted genetics articles (MG, n=690; NMG, n=892) were identified . Research misconduct and duplication were involved in 33% and 24% of retracted papers, respectively; 37% were subject to investigation. Only 0.8% of articles involved both fabrication/falsification and plagiarism. In this century the incidence of both plagiarism and duplication increased statistically significantly in genetics retracted articles; conversely, fabrication/falsification was significantly reduced. Time to retraction due to scientific misconduct was statistically significantly shorter in the period 2006–2018 compared with 1970–2000. Fabrication/falsification was statistically significantly more common in NMG (28%) than in MG (19%) articles. MG articles were significantly more frequently investigated (45%) than NMG articles (31%). Time to retraction of articles due to fabrication/falsification was significantly shorter for MG (mean 4.7 years) than for NMG (mean 6.4 years) articles; no differences for plagiarism (mean 2.3 years) were found. The USA (mainly NMG articles) and China (mainly MG articles) accounted for the largest number of retracted articles.ConclusionGenetics is a discipline with a high article retraction rate (estimated retraction rate 0.15%). Fabrication/falsification and plagiarism were almost mutually exclusive reasons for article retraction. Retracted MG articles were more frequently subject to investigation than NMG articles. Retracted articles due to fabrication/falsification required 2.0–2.8 times longer to retract than when plagiarism was involved.

The main principles of the publishing policy of the journal "Technical Electrodynamics" are considered, namely the observance of the principles of academic integrity. The concept of academic integrity, types of its violation - plagiarism, self-plagiarism, falsification, fabrication are explained. There are some legal documents developed in Ukraine on this issue, which must be followed by every scientist and scientific publications. References 10.

Purpose – Rising public scrutiny has? brought new demands for science communication. Especially, incidents of falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism have recently come to question academic integrity and legitimacy in Germany. Focussing on a prominent plagiarism case that revolved around the former Minister of Science and Education’s dissertation, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the communication strategies of the Düsseldorf University as it navigated the complex challenges of the crisis situation. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is based on a rhetorical analysis of the public discourse of the University Düsseldorf in the context of the plagiarism crisis. Findings – The study finds that the university responded to the crisis by focussing on legitimating the legal and administrative process by which it evaluated Schavan’s dissertation and revoked the degree. In turn, this focus neglected restoring the threatened reputation of graduate education and of scholarship itself. Ultimately, the crisis communication of the university worked to undermine the premises and goals of science communication. Research limitations/implications – Future research should focus on case studies of crisis communication by academic and research organizations as well as on investigating the effects of crisis rhetoric on public trust in and on understanding of academic research. The study suggests that it is worthwhile for crisis and science communication scholars to work to develop distinct frameworks for science communication in crisis and crisis communication in science that account for the unique tensions and duality of needs in this arena. Originality/value – The study contributes to the understanding of the intersections between crisis communication and science communication. Especially, it underlines the importance of developing distinct frameworks for science communication in crisis and crisis communication in science that account for the unique tensions and duality of needs in this arena.

An area of concern in scientific research including medical research is misconduct or dishonesty like fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results. This article focuses on the concepts of research misconduct with the objectives to discuss briefly on the extent of problem, various forms, possible reasons; methods of detection, and prevention. It is expected that this article will encourage the leaders of academic research groups to inform their students, future researchers and research associates about the ethical responsibilities of scientific research and publications, and to insure that, when they are given the responsibility for research and consequently submitting a paper, they are fully aware of the potential consequences to themselves and to their coauthors for violations of research ethical guidelines.Mediscope Vol. 4, No. 2: Jul 2017, Page 1-4

Research institutions are responsible for promoting research integrity and handling allegations of research misconduct. Due to various cultural and social contexts, institutional policies from different cultural backgrounds exhibit many differences, such as their primary concern and mechanisms for dealing with allegations of research misconduct. This comparative study analyses research misconduct policies from 21 Chinese and 22 European universities. The results show that definitions of research misconduct from all retrieved policies go beyond fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism but include different types of questionable research practices. Their procedures for handling research misconduct differ in, for example, confidentiality and disclosure of conflict of interest. Differences can also be found in their governance approaches (“bottom-up” versus “top-down”).

This article summarizes the major categories of ethical violations encountered during submission, review, and publication of scientific articles. We discuss data fabrication and falsification, plagiarism, redundant and duplicate publication, conflict of interest, authorship, animal and human welfare, and reviewer responsibility. In each section, pertinent historical background and citation of relevant regulations and statutes are provided. Furthermore, a specific case(s) derived from actual situations is(are) presented. These cases were chosen to highlight the complexities that investigators and journals must face when dealing with ethical issues. A series of discussion questions follow each case. It is our hope that by increasing education and awareness of ethical matters relevant to scientific investigation and publication, deviations from appropriate conduct will be reduced.

The objective of medical research is the quest for scientific truth, as well as the communication of new knowledge to the medical society through publication of novel results. Journals publishing these results rely on the trust that all persons involved (authors, peer reviewers, editors, and publishers) remain honest, following the rules and ethics of scientific integrity. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and a wide spectrum of pitfalls and misconducts may occur, ranging from less serious violations of ethical rules to most serious ones. In ascending order of severity, these include borderline questionable practices (HARKing [Hypothesizing After the Results are Known] and hyping), redundant publications, authorship misconducts, plagiarism, and all types of fraud (data falsification or fabrication). Awareness of all these fraudulent practices is essential to mitigate misconduct in academic writing.

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Mudanças no forma de comunicação entre os cientistas ocorreram ao longo dos últimos séculos, mas a publicação em periódicos especializados, já no século XX, tornou-se o formato padrão e central da ciência. Em paralelo ao aumento exponencial da produção em periódicos, observou-se também um aumento no número de casos de má conduta, o que levou a uma série de iniciativas mundiais para auxiliar a elaboração de politicas e a formação de especialistas no tema, também tratado de Integridade em Pesquisa. A despeito da literatura crescente neste tema, ainda há poucos estudos sobre a responsabilização dos diferentes atores, a saber, autores, revisores e editores, em casos de má conduta. Considerando a relevância do tema e a escassez de literatura específica, este estudo parte da seguinte questão: como os editores de revistas científicas, brasileiras e de outros países da América Latina, percebem as diferentes práticas de má conduta no processo editorial? Outras questões mais específicas também direcionaram o estudo: Em que momento do fluxo editorial são identificadas as más condutas? Quais os procedimentos das revistas? As revistas têm políticas editoriais específicas para lidar com a prevenção e detecção de más condutas? Como definem plágio e outras más condutas? Qual a familiaridade dos editores com práticas de má conduta? Qual a responsabilização de autores, revisores e editores? Para responder estas questões, o estudo, de natureza quanti-qualitativa, focou na população de editores de revistas científicas das maiores coleções da Plataforma SciELO, ou seja, Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Colômbia, Cuba e México. Um questionário online foi enviado para os 858 editores-chefes, dos quais 209 retornaram. A análise das respostas utilizou tratamento estatístico para descrever as variáveis extraídas das questões fechadas e também análise de conteúdo, segundo Bardin, das questões abertas. Um primeiro conjunto de resultados mostra que 80% dos editores brasileiros e latino americanos indicam que as más condutas raramente ou nunca ocorreram em suas revistas; o momento mais frequente de identificação das más condutas é na análise dos pareceristas e os procedimentos mais frequentes é de rejeitar o artigo. Também identificou-se que a maior parte das revistas participantes do estudo têm políticas específicas de prevenção, mas 36,6% das revistas brasileiras e 24,7% das latino americanas indicaram que não as possuem. Sobre a familiaridade com algumas práticas, o editores brasileiros e latino americanos são mais familiarizados com envio simultâneo de trabalhos, conflitos de interesse e plágio. Sobre o conhecimento sobre plágio, autoplágio e redundância, identificou-se que a maior parte dos editores apresenta a definição uma clássica para estas práticas, ou seja, demonstram conhecimento sobre um conceito do senso comum. Por fim, sobre as responsabilidades nas ocorrências de fabricação, falsificação e plágio, a maior parte dos editores aponta que os autores são totalmente responsáveis, enquanto outros, especialmente os editores latino-americanos, delegam aos revisores esta responsabilidade. O trabalho, que não é exaustivo, teve o objetivo de primeiramente adentrar em temática ainda não explorada e buscar uma melhor compreensão sobre a relação entre questões éticas da comunicação cientifica, o fluxo editorial e os editores, cujas informações, espera-se, possam servir de referência para pesquisas e estudos futuros.
The way scientists communicate has changed over the last few centuries; however publication in specialized journals has become the standard and central format of science since the twentieth century. Parallel to the exponential increase of journals production, there has also been an increase in the number of misconduct cases, which has led to a series of global initiatives to assist with both, policy development and the training of experts on this theme, which is also referred to as Integrity in Research. In spite of the growing literature on this subject, there are still few studies on the accountability of the different actors, that is, authors, reviewers and editors, in misconduct cases. Considering the relevance of such a theme and the scarcity of specific literature, this study starts with the following question: how do the editors of scientific journals from Brazil and other Latin American countries perceive the different misconduct practices in the editorial process? Other more specific questions also directed the present study: at what point in the editorial flow are the misconducts identified? What are the procedures of the magazines? Do magazines have specific editorial policies to deal with the prevention and detection of misconduct? How do they define plagiarism and other misconducts? What is the publishers' familiarity with misconduct practices? What is the responsibility of authors, reviewers and editors? In order to answer such questions, this quantitative qualitative study focused on the population of scientific journals editors of the largest collections of the SciELO Platform, that is, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico. An online questionnaire was sent to the 858 chief editors, of which 209 returned. A statistical analysis was carried out to describe the variables extracted from the closed questions, in addition to the content of the open questions, according to Bardin. A first set of the results shows that 80% of Brazilian and Latin American publishers indicate that misconduct has rarely or never occurred in their journal. The analysis of the reviewers is the most frequent moment for identifying the misconducts; rejecting the article is the most frequent procedure. It was also seen that most of the journals participating in the study have specific prevention policies; however 36.6% of the Brazilian journals and 24.7% of the Latin American ones said that they do not. Concerning familiarity with some practices, Brazilian and Latin American publishers are more familiar with the simultaneous submission of papers, conflicts of interest, and plagiarism as well. Considering knowledge on plagiarism, self-plagiarism and redundancy, it was seen that most of the editors have the classic definition for these practices, that is, they show knowledge about a common sense concept. Finally, regarding responsibility for Fabrication, Falsification and Plagiarism, most editors point out that the authors are fully responsible, whereas others, especially Latin American publishers, delegate this responsibility to the reviewers. This non-exhaustive study had as its main purpose to enter into a not yet explored topic, in addition to seek a better understanding on the relationship among the ethical issues of scientific communication, the editorial flow and the editors, whose information is expected to be used for further research and studies.

This first comprehensive study of New Zealand news media plagiarism proceeds from the observation that plagiarism, if not demonstrably increasing, is more common than many practitioners would care to believe. It affirms that, contrary to conventional opinion, plagiarism cannot be understood or dismissed simply or entirely as the product of dishonest or lazy journalists. The study findings support indications of an underlying culture of copying within news media organisations—a professional ideology encouraging, if not overtly justifying, copying, and discouraging clear authorship attribution. The findings emanate from responses to a survey distributed to all New Zealand’s journalists, followed by in-depth interviews with five journalists identified as having personal experience with aspects of the practice identified in the survey, and a sixth with a journalist against whom a complaint of plagiarism was upheld by watchdog body, the NZ Press Council. The research analysed the just four complaints related to plagiarism brought before the Press Council since its 1972 inception, as well as another five much-publicised examples of the practice written about in the news media, to the present day. Of the nine cases examined, three reflected the most serious type of dishonesty associated with Jayson Blair of the New York Times—calculated theft of words as well as outright interview fabrication. The others can be categorised in a perceived less blameworthy variety of plagiarism, bedevilled by confusion of terms and newsroom pressures. But because much run-of-the-mill plagiarism is likely to have gone unrecorded and unnoticed beyond the newsroom involved, the true extent of any sort of plagiarism here could not be judged. What was possible in this research, was to gauge a sense of prevalence by asking working journalists not of their own sins, but of their experience of being plagiarised by others. Suddenly the numbers of plagiarism cases rocketed, not in a usefully quantifiable way, but clearly demonstrative of an extent sufficient to warrant analysis of nature and origin. These experiences were set against an American model that identified four antecedents of plagiarism behaviour, two individual—journalistic rationalising of dishonesty and problematic techniques—and two situational—definitional ambiguity and reporter aversion to attribution. What became clear in these analyses was that, though all news media organisations view plagiarism very seriously, few if any acknowledge their own role in perpetrating the practice, that journalism is an industry that proceeds from an ideology of matching and copying.

Fraud and misconduct are firstly introduced by clearly defining the meaning of the two words along with what constitutes good data quality and data integrity. Falsification, Fabrication and Plagiarism are discussed. The concept of how regulators view high quality data is described along with the consequences of falsification. The chapter then goes on to present multiple definitions of fraud and misconduct to show similarities and differences between regulatory authorities in the UK and US as compared to other organisations such as the Royal College of Physicians, the Medical Research Council Policy and UK Research Integrity office. Additionally, five landmark and historical cases are presented to demonstrate what constitutes fraud. The General Medical Counsel's role in protecting public safety by ensuring proper medical standards is described along with the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) and the EU Competent Authority roles in conducting investigations of suspected fraud and misconduct cases. The important roles of whistleblowers are described as well as COPE's role in reviewing published medical journal's research. Practical examples are provided to be used for the detection of fraud as well as specific approaches used by the pharmaceutical industry to detect fraudulent data. In the US, databases are available to conduct searches for individuals who have committed fraud such as the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) and the PHS Administration Action Bulletin Board. Additionally, the process for how fraud and misconduct cases are handled in the UK are discussed along with the options available for regulators, such as the MHRA, on sharing information with the public.

What is scientific research? It is the process by which we learn about the world. For this research to have an impact, and positively contribute to society, it needs to be communicated to those who need to understand its outcomes and significance for them. Any piece of research is not complete until it has been recorded and passed on to those who need to know about it. So, good communication skills are a key attribute for researchers, and scientists today need to be able to communicate through a wide range of media, from formal scientific papers to presentations and social media, and to a range of audiences, from expert peers to stakeholders to the general public. In this book, the goals and nature of scientific communication are explored, from the history of scientific publication; through the stages of how papers are written, evaluated, and published; to what happens after publication, using examples from landmark historical papers. In addition, ethical issues relating to publication, and the damage caused by cases of fabrication and falsification, are explored. Other forms of scientific communication such as conference presentations are also considered, with a particular focus on presenting and writing for nonspecialist audiences, the media, and other stakeholders. Overall, this book provides a broad overview of the whole range of scientific communication and should be of interest to researchers and also those more broadly interested in the process how what scientists do every day translates into outcomes that contribute to society.

Legislating members of a realm of epistemic ends have obligations to one another that are simultaneously epistemic and moral. Respecting these obligations not only promotes the ends of the discipline, it is in part constitutive of those ends. Falsification, fabrication, suppression of results and plagiarism undermine the epistemic enterprise. They are betrayals of trust.

This chapter reviews applications of Benford's law to uncover fraud in macroeconomic data, forecasts, and econometric regression results, as Benford's law provides tools for checking reliability and detecting fraud in science and academia. Scientific misconduct appears in various forms: fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. Replication is considered the prime strategy against scientific misconduct, but it is seldom performed in empirical economics. Regardless, the potential of Benford's law to enhance the efficiency of replication as a strategy against fraud in published research is discussed in this chapter. In addition, the chapter remarks that routine applications of Benford tests could uncover data anomalies and provide valuable hints of irregularities in empirical economics research.

Today, a major consideration in scientific publishing is obviously ethical issues or those relating to research integrity, and key concepts around falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism are explored in this chapter, in terms of defining key principles for good research practice underpinned by the highest standards of integrity, as is expected of all researchers today. There have been many high-profile cases of controversies involving scientific papers, and key case studies are described. In addition, issues such as failure to acknowledge conflicts of interest for the authors (e.g., the Lancet study by Wakefield et al. on the link between the MMR vaccine and autism) are discussed. Likely future trends including the nature of the refereeing process and the access to experimental data are explored, and a key focus is on the rights and responsibilities of authors and coauthors.

The chapter aims to explain the importance of ethics in research and teaching. First, it focuses on ethical studies. It expresses the implications that are necessary for a study to be ethical. The researcher has a vital role in conducting an ethical research. There are some critical points, which the researcher should take into account. For each field, various research methods are used. Therefore, different ethical codes and implications should be adapted in accordance with the research method in order to have ethical studies. In addition to research ethics, researchers also have a responsibility as an author to share his/her research with others by publishing it. Unethical behaviors such as fabrication, falsification, plagiarism will be explained. Lastly, a lecturer is responsible for giving lectures, teaching, and assessing the students. For a lecturer to assess its students fairly, s/he should be ethical. The lecturer should provide ethics in teaching.