Research Misconduct
Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. A '' Lancet'' review on ''Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries'' provides the following sample definitions, reproduced in The COPE report 1999: * Danish definition: "Intention or gross negligence leading to fabrication of the scientific message or a false credit or emphasis given to a scientist" * Swedish definition: "Intention ldistortion of the research process by fabrication of data, text, hypothesis, or methods from another researcher's manuscript form or publication; or distortion of the research process in other ways." The consequences of scientific misconduct can be damaging for perpetrators and journal audience and for any individual who exposes it. In addition there are public health implications attached to the promotion of medical or other interventions based on false or fabricated resea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scholarly Method
The scholarly method or scholarship is the body of principles and practices used by scholars and academics to make their claims about the subject as valid and trustworthy as possible, and to make them known to the scholarly public. It is the methods that systemically advance the teaching, research, and practice of a given scholarly or academic field of study through rigorous inquiry. Scholarship is noted by its significance to its particular profession, and is creative, can be documented, can be replicated or elaborated, and can be and is peer reviewed through various methods. The scholarly method includes the subcategories of the scientific method, in which scientists prove their claims, and the historical method, in which historians verify their claims. Methods The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write history. The question of the nature, and indeed the possibility, of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fabrication (science)
In science, scientific inquiry and academia, academic research, data fabrication is the intentional misrepresentation of research results. As with other forms of scientific misconduct, it is the intent to deceive that marks fabrication as unethical, and thus different from scientists pathological science, deceiving themselves. There are many ways data can be fabricated. Experimental data can be fabricated by reporting experiments that were never conducted, and accurate data can be manipulated or misrepresented to suit a desired outcome. One of the biggest problems with this form of scientific fraud is that "university investigations into research misconduct are often inadequate, opaque and poorly conducted. They challenge the idea that institutions can police themselves on research integrity." Sometimes intentional fabrication can be difficult to distinguish from unintentional academic incompetence or malpractice. Examples of this include the failure to account for measurement erro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Photo Manipulation
Photograph manipulation involves the transformation or alteration of a photograph using various methods and techniques to achieve desired results. Some photograph manipulations are considered to be skillful artwork, while others are considered to be unethical practices, especially when used to deceive the public. Other examples include being used for political propaganda, or to improve the appearance of a product or person, or simply as entertainment or practical jokes. Depending on the application and intent, some photograph manipulations are considered an art form because it involves the creation of unique images and in some instances, signature expressions of art by photographic artists. Ansel Adams employed some of the more common manipulations using darkroom exposure techniques, burning (darkening) and dodging (lightening) a photograph. Other examples of photo manipulation include retouching photographs using ink or paint, airbrushing, double exposure, piecing photos or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Peer Review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g., medical peer review. It can also be used as a teaching tool to help students improve writing assignments. Henry Oldenburg (1619–1677) was a German-born British philosopher who is seen as the 'father' of modern scientific peer review. Professional Professional peer review focuses on the performance of professionals, with a view to improving quality, upholding standards, or providing certification. In academia, peer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Predatory Journal
Predatory publishing, also write-only publishing or deceptive publishing, is an exploitative academic publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without checking articles for quality and legitimacy, and without providing editorial and publishing services that legitimate academic journals provide, whether open access or not. The phenomenon of "open access predatory publishers" was first noticed by Jeffrey Beall, when he described "publishers that are ready to publish any article for payment". However, criticisms about the label "predatory" have been raised. A lengthy review of the controversy started by Beall appears in ''The Journal of Academic Librarianship''. Predatory publishers are so regarded because scholars are tricked into publishing with them, although some authors may be aware that the journal is poor quality or even fraudulent but publish in them anyway. New scholars from developing countries are said to be especially at risk of bein ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Impact Factor
The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as indexed by Clarivate's Web of Science. As a journal-level metric, it is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field; journals with higher impact factor values are given the status of being more important, or carry more prestige in their respective fields, than those with lower values. While frequently used by universities and funding bodies to decide on promotion and research proposals, it has come under attack for distorting good scientific practices. History The impact factor was devised by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in Philadelphia. Impact factors began to be calculated yearly starting from 1975 for journals listed in the ''Journal Citation Rep ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coercive Citation
Coercive citation is an academic publishing practice in which an editor of a scientific or academic journal forces an author to add spurious citations to an article before the journal will agree to publish it. This is done to inflate the journal's impact factor, thus artificially boosting the journal's scientific reputation. Manipulation of impact factors and self-citation has long been frowned upon in academic circles; however, the results of a 2012 survey indicate that about 20% of academics working in economics, sociology, psychology, and multiple business disciplines have experienced coercive citation. Individual cases have also been reported in other disciplines. Background The impact factor (IF) of a journal is a measure of how often, on average, papers published in the journal are cited in other academic publications. The IF was devised in the 1950s as a simple way to rank scientific journals. Today, in some disciplines, the prestige of a publication is determined largely ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scholarly Peer Review
Scholarly peer review or academic peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed (usually anonymously) by experts (or "peers") in the same field. Peer review is widely used for helping the academic publisher (that is, the editor-in-chief, the editorial board or the program committee) decide whether the work should be accepted, considered acceptable with revisions, or rejected for official publication in an academic journal, a monograph or in the proceedings of an academic conference. Academic peer review requires a community of experts in a given (and often narrowly defined) academic field, who are qualified and able to perform reasonably impartial review. Impartial review, especially of work in less narrowly defined or inter-disciplinary fields, may be difficult to accomplish, and the significance (good or bad) of an idea may never be widely appreciated among its contemporaries. Peer review is gen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conflict Of Interest
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations in which the personal interest of an individual or organization might adversely affect a duty owed to make decisions for the benefit of a third party. An "interest" is a commitment, obligation, duty or goal associated with a particular social role or practice. By definition, a "conflict of interest" occurs if, within a particular decision-making context, an individual is subject to two coexisting interests that are in direct conflict with each other. Such a matter is of importance because under such circumstances the decision-making process can be disrupted or compromised in a manner that affects the integrity or the reliability of the outcomes. Typically, a conflict of interest arises when an individual finds themselves occupying two soc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, memoirs, magazine articles, or other written material. Memoir ghostwriters often pride themselves in "disappearing" when impersonating others since such disappearance signals the quality of their craftsmanship. In music, ghostwriters are often used to write songs, lyrics, and instrumental pieces. Screenplay authors can also use ghostwriters to either edit or rewrite their scripts to improve them. Usually, there is a confidentiality clause in the contract between the ghostwriter and the credited author that obligates the former to remain anonymous. Sometimes the ghostwriter is acknowledged by the author or publisher for their writing services, euphemistically called a "researcher" or "resea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scientific Journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as students, researchers, and professors instead of professional journalists. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past (see list of scientific journals). Most journals are highly specialized, although some of the oldest journals such as ''Nature'' publish articles and scientific papers across a wide range of scientific fields. Scientific journals contain articles that have been peer reviewed, in an attempt to ensure that articles meet the journal's standards of quality and scientific validity. Although scientific journals are superficially similar to professional magazines, they are actually quite different. Issues of a scientific journal are rarely read casuall ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Multiple Publication
Duplicate publication, multiple publication, or redundant publication refers to publishing the same intellectual material more than once, by the author or publisher. It does not refer to the unauthorized republication by someone else, which constitutes plagiarism, copyright violation, or both. Multiple submission is not plagiarism, but it is today often viewed as academic misbehavior because it can skew meta-analyses and review articlesElizabeth Wager. ''Getting Research Published: An A to Z of Publication Strategy''. Radcliffe Publishing, 2010 and can distort citation indexes and citation impact by gaming the system to a degree. It was not always looked upon as harshly, as it began centuries ago and, besides the negative motive of vanity which has always been possible, it also had a legitimate motive in reaching readerships of various journals and books that were at real risk of not otherwise overlapping. In a print-only era before modern discoverability via the internet and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |