The Ethics Blog

A blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)

Tag: publication ethics (Page 3 of 4)

Not just facts, ideas are also needed

8 February, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlWhen fraudulent “academic” journals publish articles without proper peer review. When websites online spread fake information. When politicians talk about alternative facts. Then undeniably, one feels a need for a general tightening up.

A possible problem in this reaction is that we castrate ourselves. That we don’t dare to propose and discuss ideas about the situation we are in. That we don’t dare to think, interpret and analyze. Because we fear being found guilty of error and of contributing to the scandalous inflation of facts and truths.

We hide ourselves in a gray armor of objectivity. In order not to resemble what we react to.

But why do these tendencies occur now? Is it about the internet? Is it about neglected groups of citizens? Is it about economic and political shifts in power?

In order to understand this complex situation and act wisely, we need not just facts but also good questions, thoughts, interpretations and analyses of the situation. If we take that task seriously, we also take relevant facts seriously when we discuss the ideas.

If we react with hypercorrection, with an armor of correctness, we risk repressing our questions about how we should think about our situation. We repress our uncertainty: the motive for thinking, interpreting and analyzing.

Pär Segerdahl

This post in Swedish

We care about communication - the Ethics Blog

Share this post

The apparent academy

29 November, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlWhat can we believe in? The question acquires new urgency when the IT revolution makes it easier to spread information through channels that obey other laws than those hitherto characterizing journalism and academic publishing.

The free flow of information online requires a critical stance. That critical stance, however, requires a certain division of labor. It requires access to reliable sources: knowledge institutions like the academy and probing institutions like journalism.

But what happens to the trustworthiness of these institutions if they drown in the sea of impressively designed websites? What if IT entrepreneurs start what appear to be academic journals, but publish manuscripts without serious peer review as long as the researchers are paying for the service?

This false (or apparent) academy is already here. In fact, just as I write this, I get by email an offer from one of these new actors. The email begins, “Hello Professor,” and then promises unlikely quick review of manuscripts and friendly, responsive staff.

What can we do? Countermeasures are needed if what we call critical reflection and knowledge should retain their meaning, rather than serve as masks for something utterly different.

One action was taken on The Ethics Blog. Stefan Eriksson and Gert Helgesson published a post where they tried to make researchers more aware of the false academy. Apart from discussing the phenomenon, they listed deceptive academic journals to which unsuspecting bioethicists may submit papers (deceived by appearances). They also listed journals that take academic publishing seriously. The lists will be updated annually.

In an article in Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy (published by Springer), Eriksson and Helgesson deepen their examination of the false academy. Several committed researchers have studied the phenomenon and the article describes and discusses what we know about these questionable activities. It also proposes a list of characteristics of problematic journals, like unspecified editorial board, non-academic advertisement on the website, and spamming researchers with offers to submit manuscripts (like the email I received).

Another worrying trend, discussed in the article, is that even some traditional publishers begin to embrace some of the apparent academy’s practices (for they are profitable). Such as publishing limited editions of very expensive anthologies (which libraries must buy), or issuing journals that appear to be peer reviewed medical journals, but which (secretly) are sponsored by drug companies.

The article concludes with tentative suggestions on countermeasures, ranging from the formation of committees that keep track of these actors to stricter legislation and development of software that quickly identifies questionable publications in researchers’ publication lists.

The Internet is not just a fast information channel, but also a place where digital appearance gets followers and becomes social reality.

Pär Segerdahl

Eriksson, S. & Helgesson, G. 2016. “The false academy: predatory publishing in science and bioethics.” Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, DOI 10.1007/s11019-016-9740-3

This post in Swedish

Approaching future issues - the Ethics Blog

Share this post

Where to publish and not to publish in bioethics

19 April, 2016 / / 27 Comments

Stefan Eriksson, Associate Professor of Research Ethics, Uppsala University

This blog has been updated! Click to see the new 2018 list!

Allegedly, there are over 8.000 so called predatory journals out there. Instead of supporting readers and science, these journals serve their own economic interests first and at best offer dubious merits for scholars. We believe that scholars working in any academic discipline have a professional interest and a responsibility to keep track of these journals. It is our job to warn the young or inexperienced of journals where a publication or editorship could be detrimental to their career. Even with the best of intent, researchers who publish in these journals inadvertently subject themselves to criticism. We have seen “predatory” publishing take off in a big way and noticed how colleagues start to turn up in the pages of some of these journals. This trend, referred to by some as the dark side of publishing, needs to be reversed.

Gert Helgesson, Professor of Medical Ethics, Karolinska InstitutetPeople have for a number of years now turned to Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado, who runs blacklists of “potential, possible, or probable” predatory publishers and journals. His lists are not, however, the final say on the matter, as it is impossible to judge reliably actors in every academic discipline. Moreover, since only questionable journals are listed, the good journals must be found elsewhere. We are much obliged to his work but think that a response of gatekeeping needs also to be anchored in each discipline.

As a suitable response in bioethics, we have chosen the following approach: Below, we alphabetically list the recommended journals in our field that either have an impact over one, as calculated by Thomson Reuters over a five year period, and a good reputation (still no potentially predatory journal in bioethics have received such a high IF, but it might happen), or by our own experience have been found to be of high quality when engaging with them as authors, reviewers and/or readers (and agreed upon by all those involved as authors of this blog post or as reference persons for the lists).

This will make up a list of English-language journals that are reputable, trustworthy and have real impact. Of course we are well aware there are many more journals out there with a lower impact that we have no experience of; many of them will provide good service to authors and readers. There are other lists covering bioethics journals, such as:

They are all of great use when further exploring the reputable journals available.

It is also important to list the journals that are potentially or possibly predatory or of such a low quality that it might be disqualifying to engage with them. We have listed them alphabetically and provided both the homepage URL and links to any professional discussion of these journals that we have found (which most often alerted us to their existence in the first place). If we have critical remarks ourselves, we have added them.

Each of these journals asks scholars for manuscripts from, or claims to publish papers in, bioethics or related areas (such as practical philosophy). They have been reviewed by the authors of this blog post as well as by a group of reference persons that we have asked for advice on the list. Those journals listed have unanimously been agreed are journals that – in light of the criticism put forth and the quality we see – we would not deem acceptable for us to publish in. Typical signs as to why a journal could fall in this category, such as extensive spamming, publishing in almost any subject, or fake data being included on the website etc., are listed here:

In light of the fact that all journals on the “where not to publish”-list so far are Open Access (OA), we want to stress our general support for various OA initiatives, while also acknowledging the problems (see the Schöpfel paper referenced at the end of this post).

We would love to hear about your views on these lists, and be especially grateful for pointers to journals engaging in sloppy or bad publishing practices. The lists are not meant as check-lists but as starting points and assistance for any bioethics scholar to ponder for him- or herself where to publish.

Also, anyone thinking that a journal in our list should be given due reconsideration might post their reasons for this as a comment to the blog post or send an email to us. Journals might start out with some sloppy practices but shape up over time and we will be happy to hear about it. You can make an appeal against the inclusion of a journal and we will deal with it promptly and publicly.

Please spread the content of this blog as much as you can and check back for updates (we will do a major update annually and continually add any further information found).

WHERE TO PUBLISH – THE 2016 LIST

Alphabetical list, criteria explained in text above. 5-year impact factors from 2015, rounded off with one decimal, given in parenthesis, if over 1.

  • Accountability in Research
  • American Journal of Bioethics (4.0)
  • Bioethics (1.5)
  • Biology & Philosophy (1.2)
  • BMC Medical Ethics (1.7)
  • Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics
  • Clinical Ethics
  • Developing World Bioethics (1.7)
  • Ethics (1.8)
  • Ethics and Information Technology (1.1)
  • Hastings Center Report (1.4)
  • Health Care Analysis (1.2)
  • Journal of Academic Ethics
  • Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics (1.1)
  • Journal of Clinical Ethics
  • Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics (1.4)
  • Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (1.1)
  • Journal of Medical Ethics (1.4)
  • Journal of Medicine & Philosophy
  • Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (1.1)
  • Medicine Health Care & Philosophy
  • Milbank Quarterly (6.3)
  • Neuroethics (1.2)
  • Nursing Ethics (1.6)
  • Public Health Ethics (1.1)
  • Research Ethics
  • Science & Engineering Ethics (1.1)
  • Science, Technology and Human Values (2.5)
  • Social Science and Medicine (3.5)
  • Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics

WHERE NOT TO PUBLISH – THE 2016 LIST

In light of recent legal action taken against people trying to warn others about dubious publishers and journals – see here and here – we want to stress that this blog post is about where we would like our papers to show up, it is about quality, and as such it is an expression of a professional judgement intended to help others find good journals to publish with. As such it is no different from other rankings that can be found for various products and services everywhere. Our list of where not to publish implies no accusation of deception or fraud but claims to identify journals that experienced bioethicists would usually not find to be of high quality. Those criticisms linked to might be more upfront or confrontational; us linking to them does not imply an endorsement of any objectionable statement made therein. We would also like to point out that individual papers published in these journals might of course nevertheless be perfectly acceptable contributions to the scholarly literature of bioethics.

Stefan Eriksson & Gert Helgesson

Read more about Stefan’s work at CRB here

We like ethics : www.ethicsblog.crb.uu.se

Share this post

Macchiarini and the spirit of fraudulence

10 February, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlI assume you heard of Paolo Macchiarini, the “star surgeon” who, with the willpower of a general, simply would win a great battle at the frontline of research – by creating new tracheae using the patients’ own stem cells. That the endeavor had costs in terms of a few soldiers’ or patients’ lives is sad, but some losses must be accepted if one is to win a major battle in the service of cutting-edge experimental research.

It is difficult to avoid such an interpretation of Macchiarini’s mindset, after seeing the Swedish TV-documentaries about him (“Experimenten”/”The Experiments”). You feel the presence of a dominating iron will to carry out a plan and to win. It feeds a warlike spirit in which collegial doubts must be suppressed because they corrupt the morale and slow down the march forward, toward the frontline.

Truth is, as we know, the first casualty of war. Losses must be described as successes, in order not to lose readiness for action in the final battle – which, of course, will be won, don’t for a moment doubt that! The condition of patients who after surgery barely can breathe must thus be described as if the surgery had given them a nearly normal respiratory function. Macchiarini’s misconduct follows the logic of war.

Imagine this rigid winner, waiting impatiently for patients for whom his unproven methods (with some good will) could be interpreted as a last chance to survive. Does he approach the patients as a doctor who wants to offer a last treatment option? Hardly, but the possibility of interpreting the situation in such a way takes him to the frontline: he gets the opportunity to operate on them.

Does he then relate to the patients as a researcher to his participants? Not that either. For the treatment is only improvised in the heat of battle and can hardly even be called experimental; and all failures will be covered up by more scientific fraudulence.

The fact that research ethics developed in the shadow of the Second World War is hardly a coincidence. Something that worries in the Macchiarini case is that research itself – with its competition for funding and more – obviously can be animated by a warlike and strategic spirit of winning, which corrupts individuals as well as institutions…

It goes without saying that suspected research misconduct should not be investigated by the universities themselves; that there is a need for an independent body that handles such matters.

Pär Segerdahl

This post in Swedish

Following the news - the ethics blog

Share this post

Online course in research ethics, spring 2016

27 January, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlAnyone who manages research also needs to be able to reflect on research. Not only the researchers themselves, but also funding bodies, journal editors, members of research ethics committees, administrators, journalists, organizations, politicians, and others.

How do you act if you suspect research misconduct, and what is it? What are the ethical and legal regulations governing data management or research on humans and animals?

If you want to learn more about these issues, or perhaps about publication ethics and authorship rules, conflicts of interest, mentor/trainee responsibilities, biosecurity and more – then we can help you. We give an online course in research ethics for medicine and the life sciences.

The course runs for ten weeks, from April 4 to June 10, every week with its own theme (the last week is devoted to sharing what you learned with your home institution). The course includes video lectures and texts to read, but also interactive exercises and regular e-meetings with other students and with the teacher.

The course is given in English and is open to students from all over the world. If you want to know what some of the former students have to say about the course, you can read more here. And if you want to know who the course is aimed at, read more here.

Research ethical responsibility is vital and it is important that ethics education reaches out. The course fee is € 1.125 (including tax), and to students who cannot receive financial support from their home institution we offer a limited number of scholarships for which application deadline is February 15.

If you don’t need a scholarship you can apply for the course until course start.

Pär Segerdahl

This post in Swedish

We care about education

Share this post

Articles may be retracted if ethics is neglected

30 September, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlWhen a scientific article is retracted, it means that the article should never have been published and that data and conclusions from the study should not be used to underpin future research.

Articles are often retracted when it is found that the authors acted fraudulently. They may have been careless, or cheated, or have plagiarized someone else’s (or their own!) previous work. Retracted articles may still be available for reading, but with a notice that they are retracted, and with explanations of the reasons behind the decision.

A rarer and less known reason to retract scientific articles is that the study reported does not satisfy ethical requirements for the protection of research participants.

Human research participation should be voluntary and research on humans must first be approved by an ethical review board. Editors of medical journals are bound by the same requirements. They increasingly require that authors state that the research they want to publish has an ethics approval.

How common is it that published articles are retracted because ethical requirements were neglected? How do editors motivate their decision? And what happens afterwards – are the articles cited and used despite the retraction?

Ethical retractions are uninvestigated, but in an article in the journal Accountability in Research Yusuke Inoue (former guest researcher at CRB) and Kaori Muto, present a study of articles retracted for ethical reasons:

One difficulty they mention is that unethical research may still produce scientifically valid data, results and conclusions – although neglect of ethics is a strong warning sign that other demands may have been neglected. Editors must therefore strike a balance between the requirement to retrospectively protect research participants and the scientific value of the article and its results. And if one decides to retract the article for ethical reasons, the research study may have to be repeated with new participants, which is also ethically problematic.

Yusuke Inoue and Kaori Muto studied retracted medical papers in English in the period 1981-2011. They found that the first ethical retractions did not occur until 2000 (2 articles). The number was then relatively constant (14 articles 2001-2010), but increased dramatically in 2011 (83 articles) – most of them related to a research scandal around anesthesiology researcher Joachim Boldt.

Most retraction notices stated as reason for the decision, simply “lack of ethical review.” However, editors rarely explained the decision more closely, for example, if they judged that the whole study was fraudulent, or judged that the study was well done but lacked ethical review. It then becomes unclear how to assess the contents of the retracted article.

Inoue and Muto also found that the majority of articles that were retracted for ethical reasons continued to be quoted. In some cases, it could be established that citations were deliberately misleading (as when authors cite their own retracted articles without mentioning that they are retracted). In other cases, however, retracted articles were cited perfectly legitimately, to specify that data from them had been excluded.

Inoue and Muto’s conclusion is that editors need to explain more clearly the reason behind their ethical retractions, so that future researchers can better assess the content of the articles. Moreover, discussion is needed on how data from articles that were retracted for ethical reasons may be used.

While we’re discussing scientific misconduct, I take the opportunity to link to an American dissertation that shows that often when misconduct is revealed by the Office of Research Integrity, it does not lead to the retraction of articles:

The number of retracted articles thus gives a poor measure of the extent of scientific misconduct. There are many “fraudulent articles” in circulation!

Pär Segerdahl

We recommend readings - the Ethics Blog

Share this post

Open research platforms and open data

11 February, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlToday, I recommend reading about two major changes in current research. Both changes are reflected in the December issue of the newsletter:

The changes concern researchers’ relation to their material.

The first change has been discussed on the Ethics Blog. It is that samples and data that individual research groups collect begin to be saved, documented and analyzed in joint biobanks. The material is then made available to other researchers, both nationally and internationally.

This requires an attitude change among researchers who are used to store their data material locally and then use it locally. Now, one sends the material to the biobank instead, which takes care of it and provides service to researchers in the form of analysis, access to more data, advice, and more. Perhaps researchers need not always collect their own material, if relevant data are available via the biobank infrastructure.

This change is discussed in the editorial by Joakim Dillner, Acting director of BBMRI.se, and in an interview with Mark Divers, Head of the biobank facility that BBMRI.se built up at Karolinska Institutet.

The second change has not been discussed on this blog. It is featured in an interview in the newsletter with a researcher in cognitive neurophysiology, Gustav Nilsonne. It is closely related to the first, but requires a change in attitude to what it means to make research available through publication in scientific journals.

The change is about making research open not only through Open Access publication of scientific articles, but also by making raw data available. Such a change is significant in several ways:

  1. Data collected with efforts of many research participants can be used multiple times instead of disappearing in forgotten archives.
  2. Published findings can be critically examined; it becomes more difficult to cheat or be negligent.
  3. It becomes easier to make meta-analysis of data from many studies.

These changes can of course be seen as two sides of the same coin. Researchers seeking services from the biobank facility must accept that other researchers apply for access to “their” data … which thereby become open.

Pär Segerdahl

We recommend readings - the Ethics Blog

Share this post

Plagiarism: what is it and what makes it wrong?

25 August, 2014 / / 0 Comments

PÄR SEGERDAHL Associate Professor of Philosophy and editor of The Ethics BlogScience is an advanced collective enterprise. Even the most original researcher inevitably builds on the achievements of other researchers. They deserve credit, and transparency facilitates research and makes it possible to scrutinize the original work. The art of giving due credit to other researchers is therefore part and parcel of scientific practice.

It is a well-known fact, however, that this art isn’t always practiced impeccably. Plagiarism is a growing concern in the research community, not least for editors of scientific journals. The causes of plagiarism may vary: ignorance of the techniques of quotation and their importance, momentary forgetfulness, or an intention to cheat and steal others’ work.

When defining plagiarism, it is tempting to focus on the intentional cases that imply dishonesty. However, from the point of view of the significance that giving due credit has in the collective enterprise of science, it is important to resist that temptation.

A recent article in Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy defines plagiarism while avoiding the focus on intentional plagiarism. Gert Helgesson and Stefan Eriksson define plagiarism as:

  • “An instance of someone using someone else’s intellectual product (such as texts, ideas, or results), thereby implying that it is their own.”

Researchers often use others’ intellectual products. It is the latter part of the definition that specifies what makes such a use a case of plagiarism: using someone else’s intellectual product in such a manner that it implies that it is one’s own. This implies that even a well-intended attempt to be honest can be a case of plagiarism. Suppose that a colleague gives you permission to freely use a text he or she created. If you use it in a manner that implies that you created it, you are plagiarizing.

The value of the suggested definition of plagiarism, as I see it, is that it is rigorously adapted to the significance that giving due credit has in science as a collective enterprise. The intention to deceive certainly makes plagiarism more reprehensible, but it is not primarily what makes plagiarism a concern in science.

The authors thus highlight that what makes plagiarism wrong in research is above all that it distorts scientific credit.

Pär Segerdahl

We want to be just - the Ethics Blog

Share this post

Life scientists’ responsibility when their research has dual use

13 March, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Do life scientists have moral responsibility when their research can be used not only to do good (like preventing pandemics) but also to harm others (like developing biological weapons)?

It could be tempting to think that researchers’ only responsibility is the advancement of scientific knowledge. The use and practical application of that knowledge is the responsibility of others.

The September 11 attacks made that idea much less tenable. Since then, the security sector has pushed the scientific community to take more extensive responsibility for research that could be used to develop, for example, biological weapons.

Do scientists have such a responsibility for how others might use their findings? If they do have responsibility, how is it most appropriately approached in practice? These questions are investigated by Frida Kuhlau at CRB in a dissertation that she defends on March 23:

Kuhlau argues that researchers do have a moral responsibility for research with dual use and she tries to specify the content of that responsibility. It includes, for example, always considering possible negative implications of one’s research; reporting activities of concern; being prepared to occasionally delimit the dissemination of results.

How is such responsibility best approached in practice? The traditional way of taking ethical responsibility for research is by imposing ethical regulatory systems (guidelines, codes, ethical review).

Like Linus Johnsson who defended his dissertation last Saturday, Frida Kuhlau doubts such bureaucratic attempts to ethically regulate research. Researchers need to shoulder the responsibility themselves, learning how to deliberate and take action concerning research with dual use.

Shouldering responsibility does not mean, however, doing it alone. Individual researchers normally don’t have all the competencies needed to reasonably assess possible risks of research. The scientific community and the security sector are dependent on each other. What is required to take proper responsibility, Frida Kuhlau suggests, is therefore an ethic of conversation and deliberation.

Taking moral responsibility for research with dual use presupposes ongoing communicational processes. These processes need organizational support, platforms. A novel suggestion in the dissertation is that ethical review boards could function as such platforms.

Rather than only reviewing, as ethical review boards normally do, these boards would support an ethical culture of conversation and deliberation about dual-use research.

For more information about this important dissertation, see News from Uppsala University. If you are in Sweden and want to visit the public examination, it takes place in Auditorium Minus, Museum Gustavianum, Uppsala, Saturday, March 23, 2013, at 09:15.

Pär Segerdahl

We recommend readings - the Ethics Blog

Share this post

Is there a need for a retractions database?

18 October, 2012 / / 0 Comments

I wrote a while ago about drug companies as whistle blowers. Evidently, the pharmaceutical industry wastes more and more resources unsuccessfully trying to replicate published research studies.

The amount of irreproducible published research surprised me. If there is such a trend, questions accumulate. Are researchers becoming increasingly careless, or even fraudulent? Are researchers acting under too heavy pressure to publish positive results? Do many researchers lack sufficient skills in statistics?

Or has research in the life sciences entered such complex terrain that it has become virtually inhuman to survey all factors that may influence the results?

I’m not competent to answer these questions and welcome helpful comments.

A way to handle at least part of the problem has been suggested: set up a centralized retractions database. Such a resource would help scientists and the industry to exclude at least some of the most unsuitable candidates for replication.

An ambitious study of retractions used secondary sources when the journals’ own reasons for the retractions seemed incomplete or vague. According to this study, fraud or suspected fraud caused 43% of the retractions. Duplication accounted for 14% of the retractions, and plagiarism for 10%; only 21% of the retractions had to do with error.

If you want to read more about the study on retractions, it is summarized in this recent Nature News article.

Pär Segerdahl

Following the news - the ethics blog

Share this post
« Older posts Newer posts »