Scientific research misconducts : An overview

Authors

  • Mohd Hafiz Arzmi Department of Fundamental Dental and Medical Sciences, Kulliyyah of Dentistry, International Islamic University Malaysia, 25200 Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia & Cluster of Cancer Research Initiative IIUM (COCRII), International Islamic University Malaysia, 25200 Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31436/ijohs.v2i1.69

Keywords:

research misconducts, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism

Abstract

Research misconduct is defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results (Anderson, 2013; Breen, 2016; Resnik, 2019). It can occur at many stages of the research process.  These include during proposal preparation, data collection, analysis and publication (Amin et al., 2012).  The previous studies reported that 2,047 articles were retracted from PubMed in May 2012, with 67% of the articles due to misconduct (Dal-Ré et al., 2020).  Besides, the percentage of retracted papers in the year of 2012 were reported to increase by 10-fold compared to the total articles retracted in 1975 (Fang et al., 2012).  According to Liu and Chen (2018), the data from Retraction Watch on the 31st July 2017 revealed that the US, China, Germany, Japan and India were the top six countries that had articles retracted. 

References

All European Academies (2017). The European code of conduct for research integrity. Retrieved from https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Code_Conduct_ResearchIntegrity.pdf

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Chau, D. M., Chai, L. C., & Veerakumarasivam, A. (2018). Malaysian Educational Module on Responsible Conduct of Research. Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

Dal-Ré, R., Bouter, L. M., Cuijpers, P., Gluud, C., & Holm, S. (2020). Should research misconduct be criminalised? Research Ethics, 16(1-2), 1-12.

Fang FC, Steen RG and Casadevall A (2012) Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences USA, 109(42): 17028–17033.

Liu, X., & Chen, X. (2018). Journal retractions: some unique features of research misconduct in China. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 49(3), 305-319.

Olesen, A. P., Amin, L., & Mahadi, Z. (2018). In their own words: research misconduct from the perspective of researchers in Malaysian universities. Science and Engineering Ethics, 24(6), 1755-1776.

Pratt, T. C., Reisig, M. D., Holtfreter, K., & Golladay, K. A. (2019). Scholars' preferred solutions for research misconduct: results from a survey of faculty members at America's top 100 research universities. Ethics and Behavior, 29(7), 510-530.

Resnik, D. B., Neal, T., Raymond, A., & Kissling, G. E. (2015). Research misconduct definitions adopted by US research institutions. Accountability in Research, 22(1), 14-21.

Yu, L., Miao, M., Liu, W., Zhang, B., & Zhang, P. (2020). Scientific misconduct and associated factors: A survey of researchers in three Chinese tertiary hospitals. Accountability in Research, 1-20.

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Published

2021-02-28

How to Cite

Arzmi, M. H. . (2021). Scientific research misconducts : An overview. IIUM Journal of Orofacial and Health Sciences, 2(1), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.31436/ijohs.v2i1.69

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