How to Promote contributorship and data sharing to cultivate research integrity
Will be presented in the 2022 ACSE Conference Aug 21st, 2022
Dasapta Erwin Irawan (Faculty of Earth Sciences and Technology, Institut Teknologi Bandung) and Juneman Abraham (Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara University)
The research measurement situation in Indonesia is very dependent on metrics. The government through various national level regulations and university leaders is more focused on measuring output in the form of papers. The publication of the paper is used as a proxy indicator of research integrity which is often not the case.
Research integrity is still not a priority, as evidenced by the launch of the Minister of Education, Culture, Research and Technology Regulation (Permendikbudristek) Number 39 of 2021 concerning Academic Integrity in Producing Scientific Work, which was published at the end of 2021 but has not been socialized at the national level to date.
We promote contributionship not just authorship. Authorship is part of contributorship and not the other way around. Although CREDIT has now become the standard for submission of papers, authorship remains the norm of appreciation.
We reviewed Permendikbudristek. In Article 9(d) and Article 10(4), which states provisions regarding unauthorized authorship or authorship. Illegal authorship means that an author does not actively contribute to the writing of a scientific work, nor contribute ideas, opinions, and/or an active role related to the related scientific field.
We hope that this sentence is a "fresh opportunity" to promote Contributorship, because "joining yourself as an author" in the Permendikbudristek can be based on an active role in preparing the manuscript or other roles that have not been defined operationally.
Moreover, the Draft Regulation of the Head of LIPI (now the National Research and Innovation Agency) Article 32 states that "contributor status for collaborative activities is assessed based on the role of the researcher's contribution (contributorship)" can be an indicator of researcher performance.
This means the author role can refer to the 14 contributing roles in the CREDIT guide.
The practice of sharing data (data sharing) is the second thing we focus on. Data also builds research integrity. Analysis cannot be done without data, therefore data must always be embedded in various research outcomes. Not only data tables in the paper, but also raw data that can be reused by other researchers.
The data will be closely related to researchers who design data collection systems, design experimental devices, people who collect data in the field or conduct experiments, as well as institutions that fund them. What is definitely unrelated is data as private ownership, especially for state-funded research. Data sharing can spur the development of science further and faster.
International conversations have led to data as independent research outputs. This means the data need and should be able to be shared with other researchers, with data citations.
The chronic problem in Indonesia is that the data sharing culture is not yet rooted, which is indicated by:
Misinformation about the “research code of ethics” – as if sharing data would violate the code of ethics,
Perception of loss or loss, especially for data that cannot be obtained. easily obtained (such as data from the interior in Indonesia), and
Confusion to determine the level of sensitivity of the data.
Currently in Indonesia, ethics in research is identical to the ethics commission which only examines the ethics of using data related to human/personal and animal data.In fact, in ethics, the highest values are honesty, trust, justice, honor, responsibility, and determination, as stated in Article 2(2) of Permendikbudristek.
All research actions need to be compared from time to time for their compatibility with these values. Thus, “passing ethical review” is not the main goal. This is so that we are not trapped in the practice of “getting around the institutionalization of research and publication ethics”, for example covering up unethical practices for the sake of fulfilling certification and/or campus accreditation and in order to obtain funding from sponsors who have a strong desire to control the publication of research results for the benefit of the community.
Provision of research ethics is very much needed by lecturers or novice/early career researchers as part of the introduction of research integrity to be able to overcome the following three important problems below. We found three major problems in introducing the integrity or ethics of research and publications in Indonesia, which resulted in ethics not being fully integrated into the research/academic practices of Indonesian lecturers and researchers.
These three problems are related to the approach of Indonesian scientists to research which is:
westernized,
black and white (all or none), and
prioritizing punishment.
First problem
A literal approach taken by western university alumni. They bring literate research ethics and publications from their almamater to Indonesia. They compared the practices they witnessed, learned, and experienced in their place of study with practices in Indonesia, then expressed their disappointment that academic culture in Indonesia is not as ethical as academic culture abroad.
Furthermore, they organize various seminars and workshops with an ambition, to "clear up" the unethical practices of lecturers and researchers in Indonesia. What they forget is what we call “patience in understanding the Indonesian context”.
Various studies and studies have clearly found that cultural sensitivity is needed in understanding and managing practices that are considered “integrity” in the West but which are “as tolerated” in the East (such as in Indonesia). In terms of plagiarism, for example, empirical studies and studies by Adiningrum and Kutieleh (2011), Nash (2018), and TurnItIn (2017) have found that cultural sensitivity is needed in addressing ethical cases.
Second problem
The approach is related to the approach in the first problem. Universal understanding will only produce one point of view. We forget that ethics is not a matter of “may or may not”, “black or white”, but in essence ethics is an “accountability for why an action can be morally justified”.
Take for example, scientists who are accustomed to one-dimensional view will most likely be surprised to hear studies like
The study of Aydin Mohseni (2020) - who has a broad interest in Middle-Eastern philosophy - which actually accounts for his view that "HARKing (hypothesizing after results are known) can actually be good" and
Reflections on Andrew Gelman (2017) who provide a critical analysis that the term "p-hacking" needs to be challenged because it presents a prejudice that researchers who do it have a conscious intention to cheat. These two examples show that efforts to overcome the problem of "replication crisis" which are attributed to the practice of HARKing and p-hacking will not progress, especially in Indonesia, if we are not able to consider the complexities behind these practices.
Third problem
The punitive approach (punitive, retributive) is often heard in conversations when a case with ethical nuances "sticks out". In 2020, we have already called for, "Don't judge before we ourselves have made systematic efforts to literacy about practices that are considered questionable". Apparently, this is very much in line with the advice from COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), “COPE would always advocate educational rather than punitive action.”
Early debriefing steps for novice lecturers and researchers need to avoid the above-mentioned three approaches that are forming the problems.
Providing insight into ethics needs to be incorporated into the undergraduate curriculum, which is currently only filled with publication-related content, which is downstream from research.
The presentation needs to include real examples that occur in the world of research from upstream to downstream. The way COPE presents cases in the form of questions and answers can be adapted.