Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) – TENK guidelines

10.10.2019

In the previous recent posts, I introduced TENK, the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (post 1), overviewed their resolutions for alleged misconducts in past three annual reports (post 2, post 3, post 4), introduced the Retraction Watch (post 5), and, most recently, and blogged about plagiarism: “‘hands up for mistake, we were idiots’ – some words on plagiarism” (post 6). This post re-shares TENK’s numbered list of guidelines of how to conduct research responsibly. The list is directly copied from the TENK document that binds us making academic research in Finland, https://tenk.fi/sites/tenk.fi/files/HTK_ohje_2012.pdf. Each doctoral student, for example, should be aware of these – and, of course, academic personnel, too.

(From the TENK document, HTK-ohje 2012🙂 From the point of view of research integrity, the premises for the responsible conduct of research are the following:

1. The research follows the principles that are endorsed by the research community, that is, integrity, meticulousness, and accuracy in conducting research, and in recording, presenting, and evaluating the research results.

2. The methods applied for data acquisition as well as for research and evaluation, conform to scientific criteria and are ethically sustainable. When publishing the research results, the results are communicated in an open and responsible fashion that is intrinsic to the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

3. The researcher takes due account of the work and achievements of other researchers by respecting their work, citing their publications appropriately, and by giving their achievements the credit and weight they deserve in carrying out the researcher’s own research and publishing its results. read more >>

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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“Hands up for mistake, we were idiots” – Some words on plagiarism

8.10.2019

In the previous posts (post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5) related to research ethics, plagiarism was mentioned many times as a form of research misconduct. Plagiarism is among the “big three” in the international categorisation of research misconduct: Fabrication, Falsification, Plagiarism (FFP). Post 2 shared (at title level) several TENK cases resolved in 2018, where plagiarism was found in Master’s/Pro Gradu theses and in a scientific article; post 4 similarly shared TENK cases where plagiarism and self-plagiarism was found in doctoral theses. In this post, I want to discuss plagiarism – with students, with national and international colleagues in the scientific world, and – basically – with anyone interested.

Plagiarism, in my view, is like stealing – in scientific texts typically of words/thoughts, and sometimes images or other creative concepts. It is done without citing/properly attributing the original source. These days, plagiarizing is easy for the one who wishes to do it: electronically copy-paste from a source, and use it in your own work without acknowledging the source – done in seconds or minutes. Writing original text (and creating images, etc) is much more laborious and time-consuming. read more >>

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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Retraction watch – site on research integrity issues

7.10.2019

Following a series of posts on the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity  TENK (post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4),  this post shares information on a useful source of information related to research misconduct worldwide: Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/.

As reported in Wikipedia (accessed 7.10.2019), Retraction Watch is a blog that reports on retractions of scientific papers and on related topics, set up to increase the transparency of the retraction process. The rationale when launching the blog in 2010 was that “retractions of papers generally are not announced, and the reasons for retractions are not publicized. One result is that other researchers or the public who are unaware of the retraction may make decisions based on invalid results.”

New cases are regularly reported in the Retraction Watch webpage and Twitter. read more >>

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK – Annual Report 2016

7.10.2019

As a continuation of the previous posts (post 1, post 2, post 3) this post overviews the Annual Report of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK, year 2016, 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_2016.pdf. Non-anonymized information can be further requested from TENK.

3.2. Verified RCR Violations at Research Organisations

  • Case 1: Plagiarism led to the rewriting of a thesis
  • Case 2: Supervisors used students’ material as their own in an article
  • Case 3: One of the authors of an original article was omitted from the translation of the article

read more >>

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK – Annual Report 2017

7.10.2019

As a continuation of the previous posts (post 1, post 2) this post overviews the Annual Report of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK, year 2017, 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_2017.pdf. Non-anonymized information can be further requested from TENK.

3.2. Verified RCR Violations at Research Organisations

  • Case 1: Information security leak suspected by the media turned out to be plagiarism
  • Case 2: Unauthorised borrowing over many years by a teacher of a university of applied sciences lead to a serious warning
  • Case 3: RCR violation in the grant application of a postgraduate university student
  • Case 4: Self-plagiarism identified in an articlebased doctoral dissertation shortly before the public examination
  • Case 5: Plagiarism and self-plagiarism suspected in a doctoral dissertation suspended the doctoral examination process

read more >>

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK – Annual Report 2018

7.10.2019

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

read more >>

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK)

7.10.2019

Carrying out research in a responsible manner is at the core of university activities.

In Finland, we have the “TENK” – Tutkimuseettinen neuvottelukunta, Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (https://www.tenk.fi/en), which sets guidelines for responsible conduct of research (RCR) in Finland. The guidelines are openly available electronically and also in a printed book. The current guidelines, https://www.tenk.fi/sites/tenk.fi/files/HTK_ohje_2012.pdf, were published on November 14, 2012 and are applied from March 1, 2013. All Finnish universities, including Aalto University, and some other organizations, such as VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, have committed themselves to following these guidelines. All doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers and other research-active persons at the university should familiarize themselves with these guidelines. 

One of the tasks of TENK is to “act as an expert body working towards the resolution of ethical issues relating to research” (https://www.tenk.fi/en/tasks). Internationally, three categories of research misconduct are typically considered: fabrication, falsification and plagiarism (FFP). According to the TENK guidelines (14.11.2012), in Finland, “misappropriation” is separated from plagiarism and is considered to be a distinct category.

TENK’s annual reports are openly available, https://www.tenk.fi/en/annual-reports. read more >>

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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We are hiring! Looking for two doctoral candidates on the area of catalyst development and testing

19.08.2019

Reposted from aalto.fi: https://www.aalto.fi/en/open-positions/doctoral-candidates-in-catalyst-development-and-testing-at-the-department-of

Aalto University is a community of bold thinkers where science and art meet technology and business. We are committed to identifying and solving grand societal challenges and building an innovative future. Aalto has six schools with nearly 11 000 students and a staff of more than 4000, of which 400 are professors. 

We are now looking for two talented and highly motivated Doctoral Candidates in Catalyst development and testing at the Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering

The School of Chemical Engineering is one of the six schools of Aalto University and is located in the Otaniemi Campus (Espoo, Finland). In the Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, the Catalysis research group lead by Prof. Riikka Puurunen develops solid heterogeneous catalysts and evaluates their performance in test reactions relevant to the sustainable use of natural resources. The group aims for fundamental understanding of structure-activity relationships and strives towards more openness in science & teaching. Scientific publications by the group can be viewed in research.aalto.fi.

Job description

The Catalysis research group is now looking for two talented and motivated doctoral students to work on catalytic hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) in a collaborative Neste–Aalto University project, which is a strategic industrial-academic cooperation aiming to grow expertise in Finland in key areas of chemical industry. read more >>

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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Invited tutorial at the ALDfun(amentals…) workshop, TU Delft

23.07.2019

This summer, I was visiting TU Delft for a period of five weeks, invited by Prof. Ruud van Ommen. Interesting, buzy weeks – also because of the #CVDALD2019 conference, where we had posters (on ALD conformality and ALD history). Thanks for the invitation & opportunity!

One of the activities during my visit was: Workshop on Fundamentals of Atomic Layer Deposition: Modelling and Validation, July 3rd 2019, TU Delft, The Netherlands (link), organized by Dr. Fatemeh Hashemi and Prof. Ruud van Ommen. I had the honor to give the first invited tutorial-type talk, “Surface coverage in ALD”. Among the points which I wished to convey with the talk was that “(surface) coverage” may mean highly different things to different people and if the usage is not defined well in each case, it may create confusion. My presentation is accessible:

There was quite some tweeting activity during the event, with the Twitter hashtag #ALDfun. Here, one picture, from the post: https://twitter.com/rlpuu/status/1148523085110403072.

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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Experimenting with Zenodo (.org)

27.05.2019

Open Science, Open Data, Open Access, Open Code, Open Teaching, open … what else?

I am in favor of openness in science. However: if you want to publish e.g. a poster abstract, or a dataset, how to do it in practice? I have been scouting for a suitable easy-to-use place that fulfills the criteria of the funders, for years.

Now, I have started looking at Zenodo.org (by Cern). Will this be the place of my open datasets to come?

Maybe. First, I will try Zenodo in relation with opening up materials related to the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA), project website http://vph-ald.com (related blog: http://aldhistory.blogspot.fi). Read more on that in a recent blog in the ALD History Blog: http://aldhistory.blogspot.com/2019/05/new-zenodo-community-vpha.html.

Posted by Riikka Puurunen

Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, at Aalto since February 2017
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