20151118 edanz asia pm

Eri Kinoshita

Ayli Chong

Being an Ethical Researcher and Author

Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

18 November 2015

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Be an ethical researcher and author

Your goal is not only to publish but also to contribute to society

Importance of research and publication ethics

Ethics at publication planning

Ethics of reporting

Ethics at submission

Ethics of peer review and publication


Section 1

Research & publication ethics

Publication success = Academic success

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Publication Metrics and Success on the Academic Job Market van Dijk et al. Current Biology. 2014; 24: R516-R517.

• >25,000 researchers in PubMed • Determined which factors are linked to

academic success

• Number of publications • Impact factor of the journal • Number of citations • University ranking • Male vs. Female


• Not addressing relevant questions • Incomplete literature review to justify study • Inappropriate methodology (low validity/reliability) • Incomplete reporting to allow replication • Clinical trials unpublished

Avoid research waste

~85% of biomedical research is waste

Lancet 2009; 374: 86–89


Fabrication, Falsification & Plagiarism

Sun S, Zhang G, Wu Z, Shi W, Yang B, Li Y (2014) MicroRNA-302a Functions as a Putative Tumor Suppressor in Colon Cancer by Targeting Akt. PLoS ONE 9(12): e115980. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115980 Published: December 26, 2014

Zhang G-M, Bao C-Y, Wan F-N, Cao D-L, Qin X-J, Zhang H-L, et al. (2015) MicroRNA-302a Suppresses Tumor Cell Proliferation by Inhibiting AKT in Prostate Cancer. PLoS ONE 10(4): e0124410. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0124410 Published: April 29, 2015


Singapore Statement on Research Integrity 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, 21-24 July 2010

Principles of research integrity

• Honesty in all aspects of research • Accountability in the conduct of research • Professional courtesy and fairness in working with

others • Good stewardship of research on behalf of others

http://www.singaporestatement.org/downloads/singpore%20statement_A4size.pdf


Singapore Statement on Research Integrity

Principles of research integrity

• Integrity; Adherence to regulations • Research methods; Research records; Research Findings • Authorship; Publication acknowledgement • Peer review • Conflicts of interest • Public communication • Reporting and responding to irresponsible research practices • Research environments • Societal considerations

http://www.singaporestatement.org/downloads/singpore%20statement_A4size.pdf

Research & publication ethics Studies with participants

Human studies need:

• Approval from ethics board (institutional review board, IRB)

• For studies with prospective assignment: trial registration before enrollment

• Informed consent for enrollment • Informed consent for publication

Transparency & publishing conflicting data

Research & publication ethics Studies with participants

Participants need to be informed of:

• Study objectives (and freedom to leave) • Potential benefits or risks involved • Confidentiality

This is usually written informed consent

Human safety/benefit, not exploitation Nuremberg Code 1947, Declaration of Helsinki 1964

Templates: http://www.who.int/rpc/research_ethics/informed_consent/en/


Science is “self-correcting”…

Responsible conduct of research

• Helps society/humanity • Objective search for Truth • Tests hypotheses; adjusts theories • Relies on transparency & reproducibility • Responsible use of resources • Based on trust and honor code • Based on publishing in peer-reviewed journals:

Correction notices made public and linked

Flawed/fraudulent articles are retracted, with permanently linked public Retraction notices


State conflicts of interest

No plagiarism or redundancy

Clear author contributions

No fabrication or falsification

Always follow ethics guidelines

Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE Responsible Research Publication: International Standards for Authors*

Good publication ethics

Consequences of unethical behavior

• Unable to publish • Loss of employment

*http://publicationethics.org/files/International%20standards_authors_for%20website_11_Nov_2011.pdf


CS Lewis:

Responsible conduct of research

“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.”

Also relies on education/training and monitoring by supervisors, collaborators, units, institutions, funders,

publishers, academic community, governments, netizens (e.g., “Retraction Watch” website)…


Section 2

Ethics at publication

planning Keep all research records

Allow others to verify & replicate your findings Collaborators, Funder, Institution, Peer-reviewed journals,

Other researchers

• Keep raw data files; make back-ups

Protect personal information

• Keep patient data anonymized • Keep patient data secure (password protect

files/disks; avoid USB sticks)


planning

Declare conflicts of interest (COIs)

Financial or personal relationships that may bias your research

• Your readers trust that you analyzed your results in an objective and fair manner

• Being biased in your analysis deceives your readers and violates their trust


planning Examples of COIs

Your spouse works for the drug company (personal COI)

You are researching a new drug…

• You consult for the drug company • The company funded your study • You own stock in the company

(financial COIs)


planning

An author works at the company

What should you do?

• Ensure study design is not unfairly manipulated

• Ensure author is blinded during data analysis

• Restrict role of the author in manuscript writing

• Should be addressed BEFORE study begins!

Avoiding COIs


planning

The company is funding your research

Avoiding COIs

What should you do?

• State the company’s role in the study design • State the company’s role in data analysis • State the company’s role in manuscript writing • Should be disclosed in the cover letter

Some journals will ask you to include a statement such as: “I had full access to all of the data in this study and I take complete responsibility

for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis”*

*http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/ author-responsibilities--conflicts-of-interest.html


planning Disclosing COIs

Should be disclosed to university ethics committee before obtaining approval

Should be disclosed to journal editors and funding bodies

Journal editors may or may not publish COIs with your article

Not declaring a COI may lead to the rejection/retraction of your paper or

suspension/termination of a grant


planning

Four criteria for authorship

1. Significantly involved in study design, data collection/analysis

2. Writing and revising the manuscript

3. Approval of final version

4. Responsible for the content (accuracy and integrity)

http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html


planning Who can be an author?

During the study, I had help from 4 people:

Supervisor

Collaborator

Technician

Post-doc

Study design, data analysis, writing paper

Provided materials, reviewed paper

Data collection, reviewed paper

Study design, data collection/analysis, writing paper


planning Gift/ghost authorship

Making someone an author when they do not deserve it (friends, colleagues, etc.)

Gift authorship

• Try to make paper more prestigious by adding a “big name” • Adding the department head to every paper from their department • Thanking someone for a contributed material

Not making someone an author when they do deserve it

Ghost authorship • Hide conflict of interest by excluding an author (e.g., company

employee); hide contribution by junior members (e.g., students) [People who helped write the paper should be included in the Acknowledgements or else they are “ghost writers”]


planning Acknowledgements

Nugraha et al. Biomaterials. 2011; 32: 6982–6994.

Thank those who have made positive contributions

Funding agencies (some journals have a

separate Funding section)

Ethics of reporting

Section 3

Ethics of reporting Need for reproducibility

Transparency for verification:

It needs to be clear how your study was done

Ethics of reporting

How does your study contribute to your field?

What did you find?

What did you do?

Why did you do the study?

Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

Complete reporting

Participants/materials, appropriate techniques, appropriate analyses

Including unexpected/negative results; data records & accessibility!

Including similarities and differences, limitations

After doing a thorough literature review

Ethics of reporting

PRISMA Systematic reviews &

Meta-analyses

STROBE Observational studies

CARE Case reports

CONSORT Randomized controlled

clinical trials

ARRIVE Animal studies

http://www.equator-network.org/

International biomedical reporting guidelines

Ethics of reporting Data manipulation

Never

Fabricate data Move data on

a graph

Manipulate data/images

Hide bad results

Ethics of reporting Altering images

What kind of changes can be made to images?

Overall brightness and contrast, as long as it does not obscure or remove information from the original image

Rossner and Yamada. J Cell Biol. 2004; 166: 11–15.

You cannot:

• Enhance brightness/contrast of only part of an image • Crop out or remove “unwanted” parts

Ethics of reporting Share negative results

Negative results are useful?

Yes!

• Allows complete evaluation of your study

• Prevents others from repeating those experiments

• Allows others to modify those experiments

• Prevents funding agencies from wasting money

Supplementary info; Data repositories / Data journals

Ethics of reporting

Makes readers think others’ words or ideas are your own

Copying published text even with a citation

Stating ideas of someone else without citing the source

Text plagiarism

Ethics of reporting

Copying text that you have published before into your manuscript

Self-plagiarism

May violate copyright

Makes readers think you are presenting something new

Ethics of reporting

What if you want to directly quote someone?

Direct quotes

Humanities • Often acceptable • Include text in “quotation marks” or separate

paragraph • Use bibliographic footnote and page number

Sciences • Usually not acceptable

Ethics of reporting

Expressing published ideas using different words

Paraphrasing

Tips on paraphrasing:

• Write the text first in Japanese, and then later translate back into English

• Verbally explain ideas to a colleague • Always cite the source in your notes • Name and cite published methods

Ethics of reporting Good paraphrasing

24. Li et al. PLoS ONE. 2013; 8: e68372.

“The magnitude of the change in carbon storage depends on how physical, chemical, or biological processes are altered over time under different land uses.”

The size of the carbon storage change depends on how physical, chemical, or biological processes are changed over time under different land uses.24

Temporal changes in biological, chemical, or physical processes under different land uses can influence the size of the carbon storage change.24

Ethics at manuscript submission

Section 4

Coverage and Staffing Plan


Ethics declarations

Declare in your cover letter…

Not submitted to other journals

Funding, donations

All authors agree and contributed

Original and unpublished

State potential conflicts of interest

Research ethics

Clinical journals: authorship, COI, IRB & consent, CONSORT, © form


Ethics at manuscript submission Sequential submission

Author Editor Reviewer 1 wk

4 wks 2 wks

Total ~2 months

3 journals = over 6 months!

Do not submit to multiple journals to save time!



Multiple submission is not allowed

Author Editor2 Reviewer2

3 journals = ~2 months!

Editor1 Reviewer1

Editor3 Reviewer3


Ethics at manuscript submission Why is it unethical?

Wastes editors’ time & resources

• After first acceptance, have to withdraw submission from the others

• Damages your reputation with publishers

Duplicate publication • It will be noticed in the field; copyright problems • One or both articles may be retracted • Wastes time and damages your reputation with both

the publisher and your peers



You can submit to another journal only if:

You have been rejected by the first journal You have formally withdrawn the submission

When can you submit to another journal?



Can you publish a paper translated into English?

What do you need to do?

1. Obtain permission from the first publisher

2. Tell journal editor of English journal: – You already obtained permission to re-publish – Why necessary to publish in English

3. Cite the original publication

Note: many journal editors will not be interested in publishing non-original articles


Ethics at manuscript submission Salami publishing

One study

4 publications

Same sample population Same controls Experiments concurrent Dependent results

Distinct populations Different controls Experiments sequential Independent results

One larger paper will have more impact in the field and more citations!


Ethics at manuscript submission Salami publishing

One study

4 publications

Same sample population Same controls Experiments concurrent Dependent results

Distinct populations Different controls Experiments sequential Independent results

One larger paper will have more impact in the field and more citations!

By André Karwath [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

Why unethical? Readers will not have access

to all the relevant information to critically

evaluate the study



Predatory journals

Some Open Access journals are not good

Easy way to get money from authors

• Promise quick and easy publication • Often ask for a “submission/handling” fee • May copy name of real journal; false IF • May not exist, or may be of low quality • Beware of spam e-mails asking for authors/editors

If you are ever unsure, please check Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers

http://scholarlyoa.com/2015/01/02/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2015/



THINK Trusted and appropriate?

SUBMIT Only if OK

thinkchecksubmit.org

CHECK Do you know the journal?

Trustworthy journals

Reputable publisher? Suitable aims/scope?

Familiar editorial board? Indexed? Fees only after acceptance?


Section 5


Ethics of peer review

Recommending reviewers

Where to find them?

From your reading/references, networking at conferences

How senior? Aim for mid-level researchers

Who to avoid? Collaborators (past 5 years),

researchers from your university

International list: 1 or 2 from Asia, 1 or 2 from Europe, and 1 or 2 from North America



Be careful who you recommend!


Ethics of peer review ORCiD

Identify yourself!



Reviewers’ responsibilities

If you are a reviewer

1. Declare conflicts of interest

2. Decline if no time or wrong area of expertise; or keep to deadline

3. Do not delay review/publication on purpose 4. Keep courteous in the review 5. Keep the grant/manuscript confidential;

destroy/delete after review 6. Do not use any of the information

Based on: http://exchanges.wiley.com/ethicsguidelines


Ethics of peer review Public responsibility

For public material/interviews:

1. Limit professional comments to your recognized expertise

2. Clearly distinguish professional comments from opinions

3. Be accurate and clear 4. Do not overgeneralize or sensationalize 5. Do not discuss unpublished research or work still

being peer reviewed 6. Even after journal publication, respect embargoes

Based on: http://www.singaporestatement.org/downloads/singpore%20statement_A4size.pdf

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Be an ethical researcher and author

Your goal is not only to publish but also to contribute to society



Ethics of reporting

Ethics at submission


Thank you!

Any questions?

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Eri Kinoshita: [email protected] Ayli Chong: [email protected]

20151118 edanz asia pm

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