Abstract
Objective
To give an overview of the available methods to investigate research misconduct in
health-related research.
Study Design and Setting
In this scoping review, we conducted a literature search in MEDLINE, Embase, The Cochrane
CENTRAL Register of Studies Online (CRSO), and The Virtual Health Library portal up
to July 2020. We included papers that mentioned and/or described methods for screening
or assessing research misconduct in health-related research. We categorized identified
methods into the following four groups according to their scopes: overall concern,
textual concern, image concern, and data concern.
Results
We included 57 papers reporting on 27 methods: two on overall concern, four on textual
concern, three on image concern, and 18 on data concern. Apart from the methods to
locate textual plagiarism and image manipulation, all other methods, be it theoretical
or empirical, are based on examples, are not standardized, and lack formal validation.
Conclusion
Existing methods cover a wide range of issues regarding research misconduct. Although
measures to counteract textual plagiarism are well implemented, tools to investigate
other forms of research misconduct are rudimentary and labour-intensive. To cope with
the rising challenge of research misconduct, further development of automatic tools
and routine validation of these methods is needed.
Trial registration number
Center for Open Science (OSF) (https://osf.io/mq89w).
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 22, 2021
Accepted:
May 12,
2021
Footnotes
Funding: This work was supported by Elsevier. Elsevier does not have a role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to submit for publication.
Conflict of interest: MS is the information specialist of the Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertiliy Group. BWM is supported by a National Health Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellowship (GNT1082548). BWM reports consultancy for ObsEva, Merck and Guerbet. MvW is coordinating editor of the Netherlands Satellite of the Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertiliy Group. All other authors have no conflicts of interest.
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