As a continuation of the previous post, this post overviews the Annual Report of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK, year 2018, related to misconducts in responsible conduct of research (RCR). The titles of the report’s Section 3, Handling of allegations of RCR misconduct, are repeated here. More detailed information on the anonymised case and statement descriptions can be found in the original report: https://www.tenk.fi/sites/tenk.fi/files/TENK_Annual_Report_2018.pdf. Non-anonymized information can be further requested from TENK.
3.2. Verified RCR Violations at Research Organisations
- Case 1: Negligent anonymisation of research subjects showed disregard for responsible conduct of research
- Case 2: Suspected plagiarism in a professionally oriented licentiate thesis was not considered as misconduct
- Case 3: University researchers disregarded the RCR by failing to identify the designers of a figure
- Case 4: Some members of a research group disregarded the RCR by publishing common results under their own name
- Case 5: Deficiencies in the referencing practices of a Pro gradu thesis considered an RCR violation
- Case 6: Member of a research group guilty of disregard; published the group’s results under their own name
- Case 7: Plagiarism in a pro gradu thesis more extensive than what was initially suspected
- Case 8: Submitting a joint article to the publisher without consent from the other authors was considered disregard for the RCR
- Case 9: Publishing the results of a joint article in another article both plagiarism and self-plagiarism
- Case 10: References of another thesis to original sources used in a Pro gradu thesis
- Case 11: Plagiarism found in a Pro gradu thesis
- Cases 12–18 were all cases of plagiarism found in Master’s theses in universities of applied sciences
3.3. RCR Statements Requested from and Issued by TENK
- Statement 1 (TENK 2018:1) Deficiencies in the management of research projects, but no disregard for the responsible conduct of research
- Statement 2 (TENK 2018:2): Suspected falsification of research result turned out to be a difference of opinion
- Statement 3 (TENK 2018:3): Preliminary inquiry should be initiated with regard to a researcher’s right to author status
- Statement 4 (TENK 2018:4): Conducting research on the same area of study does not obligate reference to a specific study
- Statement 5 (TENK 2018:5): Inadequate reference in a figure not considered as disregard
- Statement 6 (TENK 2018:6): Allegations of stealing and plagiarism of research idea unfounded
- Statement 7 (TENK 2018:7): Investigation proper should be initiated to determine the roles of authors in a publication
- Statement 8 (TENK 2018:8): Misleading nature of application documents should be investigated
- Statement 9 (TENK 2018:9): The need for ethical review of a project should be determined in an investigation proper
