Tampering, forgery, and plagiarism are the culprits that undermine scientific research
Experts call for further definition and determination of scientific research misconduct
Carry forward the spirit of scientists
The network is not good, the slides cannot be played, and the operation is unskilled...This is the director of the academic committee of the Bioethics Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/Beijing Union Medical College, and the director of the Bioethics Institute of the Center for Ethics and Moral Construction of Renmin University of China Qiu Renzong and Zhang Luo's online meeting was not so smooth, but the enthusiasm of the experts at the meeting was not affected.
"Now the weighting of graduation thesis is getting stricter, but many people have reported that some reasonable citations have also been judged as plagiarism. At the same time, some of the plagiarism of other people's views and the change of materials have been confused, and even targeted. "Sexual anti-checking software." Qiu Renzong said, "In view of this, we should more clearly define and determine scientific research misconduct."
Hu Qingli, the former deputy director general of the World Health Organization and a tenured professor at Ruijin Hospital of Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Cao Nanyan, a former member of the Academic Style Construction Committee of the Ministry of Education and a professor at Tsinghua University, believed that scientific research misconduct should be defined as "in the project proposal, research review or When reporting research results, tamper, falsify or plagiarize (ie FFP)".
Cao Nanyan explained that tampering means fabricating data or results for preservation or reporting; forgery means manipulating research materials, equipment or processes, changing or missing data or results, resulting in the research and the research records not being consistent; plagiarism refers to the idea of others , Research process, research results, or written statements based on their own, but did not recognize the original author’s contribution in any way.
"This definition is linked to current internationally accepted definitions (such as those of the United States and the European Union). Misconduct in scientific research is a behavior that violates the ethics of scientific research and is bad in nature and has serious consequences. It is deliberate and deliberate and corrupted. The core value of science-honesty. Such a definition allows us to focus our energy and time, focusing limited resources on judgment, investigation, and handling scientific research misconduct." Qiu Renzong believes.
Experts attending the meeting emphasized that it is necessary to strictly distinguish between scientific research misconduct and other behaviors that violate scientific research ethics, as well as "unintentional overtaking".
Experts analyzed that there are many other behaviors that do not meet ethical standards, such as providing false information in the resume; there is false information in the materials provided when applying for funding, submitting ethical review applications, and awards; improper signature; two submissions or one submission Multi-investment; repeated publication, etc., including these non-standard behaviors that are not in violation of ethical standards are also included in scientific research misconduct, which will make the organization that investigates and handles scientific research misconducts very troublesome and weakens the focus on FFP. "There are a lot of meetings, but FFP has not been effectively reduced." Qiu Renzong said.
At the same time, how to determine scientific research misconduct has always been a difficult point in practice. "Some regulations have not grasped the core concept of plagiarism, that is,'holding others' ideas, achievements, and textual representations as their own.' Qiu Renzong analyzed whether there are labels or citations to determine whether there is plagiarism, but each paragraph is required. , Excessive or even unnecessary citations, may obscure the core concept of "own for own", and expand plagiarism.
Experts believe that the same problem also appears in the review of plagiarism using duplicating software. "Duplicate checking software will show'false negatives' and'false positives', the nature of the papers is different, and the ratio of coincidences is also different. Original papers should not have too high a coincidence, but the degree of coincidence of critical papers is bound to be very high High. However, relying on duplicating software to identify plagiarism has made many people unwilling to write critical articles." Qiu Renzong believes that after the duplication, expert professors should read the thesis and decide whether it constitutes plagiarism.
What worries Qiu Renzong is that if scientific education on integrity is not strengthened and only re-checking software is used to check project applications and papers, students will find software loopholes. "Duplicating software can't cultivate the core value of science-honesty, maybe it will train more hackers to deal with duplicating software."
Experts suggested that the relevant departments should evaluate, modify, supplement and improve the existing regulations based on the experience and existing problems of maintaining scientific integrity and opposing scientific research misconduct.
"At present, the most serious and urgent issues that everyone is concerned about are: buying and selling and writing essays ('thesis factory') and'foreman research' (that is, people who are not in the profession receive funding through the relationship to recruit professionals to conduct research, make their own Corresponding author).” Cao Nanyan and other experts believe that these situations involve a variety of social factors and law enforcement departments, which require special handling. This urgently requires the reduction of administrative intervention, the abolition of SCI-only evaluation, the development of an appropriate academic evaluation system, and the adoption of policies and laws. Guide, gradually form the standard of self-discipline and health of the academic community.
Our reporter Cao Xiuying