Exploring Open Science and Research Ethics in the Basic Sciences: Findings from a Qualitative Study

  1. Alejandra Manco Vega

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Abstract

New forms of questionable research practices (QRP) and even scientific misconduct practices are emerging in an open science environment. This work documents this transformation in three very different countries, Brazil, France, and Peru, using semi-structured interviews with researchers working in basic sciences: Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. The significant findings are that the hierarchical structure of academia contributes to the spread of research misconduct, and QRP and open science practices can potentially serve as effective tools for preventing and detecting these issues; however, it is the hierarchical structure of academia which undermines its effectivity as behaviours hiding misconducts go unnoticed. The main conclusion is that power relations between different actors in academia are still very present despite the countries' different ethical norms and the researchers' open science practices. The main recommendation is to work on aligning open science policies and policies on ethics and QRPs.

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  1. PREreview

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    General comments

    This study examines how open science practices impact research misconduct and questionable research practices in basic sciences across Brazil, France, and Peru, The researchers highlight the problem of research practices that exceed ethical boundaries, as well as the deeply rooted issue of the hierarchical structure of academia and the role that open science practices play in ethics. The paper is scientifically sound, professionally written, and well-presented. The conclusions are well-focused, and the recommendations are concise, they can be helpful for organisations to consider.

    Overall, we consider the work to be sound, well-researched, and interesting.

    Major comments

    • A total of 29 researchers were interviewed which is limiting for both qualitative and quantitative analysis. This should be noted as a limitation. The use of semi-structured interviews provides in-depth qualitative insights, but it is important to ensure the sample size is adequate to represent the diversity of experiences across different countries and scientific disciplines. Future studies could benefit from a larger sample size or a mixed-methods approach to enhance the robustness of findings.

    • The author did not categorize the results according to the country. Can they say why the three countries selected were chosen?

    • The abstract should contain more details and provide a comprehensive overview of the manuscript. 

    • It is important that the authors follow the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) checklist and clearly present this in the manuscript. 

    Minor comments

    • Please identify abbreviations throughout the manuscript or give references or links, e.g. Renacyt, WoS, COREQ, QS World University Rankings 2022, 

    • Introduction: "Given this changing landscape" it's not clear whether it is changing or simply that misconduct has become more visible. 

    • Table 1: Participant ID numbers are unnecessary in the table: a descriptive statistics table would be more appropriate. For the interview excerpts, instead of using interviewee codes use something more descriptive, e.g. "interviewee 34, male, from France"

    • Figure 1: The figure needs better visual organization and hierarchy to show relationships between each other. A description of the coding tree is required (check COREQ).

    • Section: "Country-specific literature on research ethics: Brazil, France and Peru" This is a strong section that gives a lot of good background information.

    • Armond and Kakuk, 2023a and Armond and Kakuk, 2023b are cited, but there is only one entry in the bibliography.

    • "This has resulted in a culture known as "publish or perish,"" - could this be said about France and Brazil as well?

    • "The author of this present manuscript, a female PhD student," does this data affect Positionality and reflexivity if yes please explain if not it is better to say the interviews were conducted by the author with no previous relationship with the interviewees.

    • There is no mention of how participant consent was obtained. Did the participants give written or verbal consent for recordings to be made? Was ethical approval required or obtained?

    • "Several people declined participation" can you give an exact number?

    • A table presenting descriptive statistics for the data should be included. 

    • Was the interview language English for all participants?

    • Can you clarify whether thematic saturation was attained?

    • It's a good point that conferences can be platforms for scooping, this hadn't been considered by some reviewers.

    • Preprints Prevent Possible Cases of Authorship Stealing: In this section or others you could mention the role of persistent identifiers (PIDs) such as ORCID.

    • Annex 1: it isn't clear what the counts refer to, e.g. the are 29 participants but up to 48 references. Are you counting multiple references per participant? Please provide a more comprehensive description of the table.

    Reporting

    • The findings could be better presented (we suggest:  Anderson C. Presenting and evaluating qualitative research. Am J Pharm Educ. 2010 Oct 11;74(8):141, https://doi.org/10.5688/aj7408141), and categorized per country.  From Anderson: "The researcher should select quotes that are poignant and/or most representative of the research findings. Including large portions of an interview in a research paper is not necessary and often tedious for the reader"

    Future studies

    • It would be interesting to see the same study carried out with interviewees from other countries across different continents, countries, and disciplines, and to employ a mixed methods approach. We recommend including sub-saharan Africa as well.

    • Similarly, we suggest conducting studies on countries with specific commonalities (e.g. geography or language) and compare the results between them.

    Competing interests

    The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

  2. Version published to 10.31222/osf.io/98yds on OSF Preprints