Do Academic Libraries Have A Role In Ensuring Research Integrity?

By Dirk Pieper (Deputy Director, Bielefeld University Library, Germany) <dirk.pieper@uni-bielefeld.de> ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6083-9348

At a first glance, the matter seems clear: academic libraries are responsible for supplying literature for research and teaching. Research funders, universities and the various scientific disciplines themselves establish rules to ensure good scientific practice in order to guarantee trust in research results. However, with the advance of the open access transformation, in which academic libraries directly or indirectly finance the publication of research results by paying publication fees or providing or supporting publication platforms, the traditional division of tasks between libraries and research is becoming blurred. Academic libraries, as an important player in a research-supporting information infrastructure, now contribute through their actions to whether or not tendencies, that endanger the integrity of research, will intensify or not. This applies in particular to developments in the scientific publication system.

Trust is a fundamental mechanism for reducing social complexity. The vast majority of a society, including academic librarians of course, cannot check the research results of an ever more differentiated scientific system themselves due to a lack of specialized knowledge and must trust that research results, that manifest themselves in publications, are produced according to the rules of good scientific practice. Moreover, the sheer number of articles in scientific journals is unmanageable. The importance of research integrity for its social acceptance is expressed by various international and national rules and recommendations for ensuring research integrity. At the international level, the OECD Policy Paper “Integrity and security in the global research ecosystem”1 can be cited as an example; at the national level, the “Guidelines for safeguarding good scientific practice” of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) 2 can be cited as one example. In addition, special institutions such as the Office of Research Integrity3 in the USA or the Research Integrity Office4 in the UK, are intended to promote research integrity. Last but not least, universities and other scientific institutions have set themselves appropriate rules.

What is meant by research integrity? The German Research Foundation formulates:

“Scientific integrity forms the basis for trustworthy research. It is an example of academic voluntary commitment that encompasses a respectful attitude towards peers, research participants, animals, cultural assets, and the environment, and strengthens and promotes vital public trust in research. The constitutionally guaranteed freedom of research is inseparably linked to a corresponding responsibility. Taking this responsibility into full account and embedding it in individual conduct is an essential duty for every researcher and for the institutions where research is carried out. The research community itself ensures good practice through fair and honest attitudes and conduct as well as organisational and procedural regulations. In different roles, scientific and scholarly societies, research journals, publishers, research funding agencies, complainants, ombudspersons and the German Research Ombudsman also contribute to safeguarding good research practice; they harmonise their conduct in publicly or privately funded research with the principles of the Code.”5

The integrity of the research process is part of a broader scientific integrity. The latter includes general principles such as working lege artis, allowing critical discourse on research results, working according to professional ethical criteria, the responsibility of the management of scientific institutions and work units, and procedural rules in cases of suspected scientific misconduct. The integrity of the research process itself shall be ensured by following these guidelines:

• Continuous, research-accompanying quality assurance and compliance with subject-specific standards

• Clarification of the roles and responsibilities of the persons involved in a research project

• Carefully researching research that has already been made public on a proposed project. Consideration and acknowledgement of the current state of research

• Consideration of ethical and legal frameworks, consideration of possible misuse of research results, and clarification of rights of use

• Application of scientifically sound and comprehensible methods and standards in answering research questions

• Comprehensible documentation of all information relevant to the occurrence of a research result, in order to be able to check and evaluate results

• Establishing public access to research results, including the research data on which a publication is based, in accordance with FAIR principles, so that the traceability, connectivity and reusability of the research can be guaranteed

• Clarification of the contributions of individual persons and authorship to the research result

• Careful selection as well as examination of the seriousness of the publication organ in which the research results are to be published. In addition to publications in books and journals, research results can also be published in recognized repositories (subject repositories, data and software repositories, institutional repositories)

• Confidentiality to third-party material to which a reviewer or committee member gains access access to while taking part in review processes and discussions

• Archiving research data on which publications are based in an accessible and identifiable manner for at least a period of ten years.6

The exemplary rules presented by the German Research Foundation are similar to most international, national and institutional rules. The OECD also emphasizes the importance of international cooperation as well as open and transparent communication and the sharing of information and data:

“Scientific discovery occurs in an interconnected, international ecosystem that collectively leverages intellect, know-how, talent, financial resources, and infrastructure from around the world. Freedom of scientific research and international collaboration are cornerstones of scientific progress. Open and transparent communication and dissemination of scientific information and data and sharing of research materials are essential for the global science ecosystem to operate effectively. Global challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and other complex socioeconomic issues cannot be tackled without international research collaboration.”7

So, what roles do libraries have in maintaining the integrity of research? They support researchers in researching the current state of research. They ensure public access to publications through several activities: purchasing or licensing, indexing, archiving, and enabling access to non-open access publications, operating repositories for storing and archiving publications and research data, funding or providing publication infrastructures (for example for journals or book publishing), directly funding or financially supporting fee-based open access publications. Although researchers and their supporting institutions are primarily responsible for maintaining the integrity of the research process and scientific integrity in general, libraries thus contribute indirectly to ensuring the integrity of research.

Libraries, however, are more directly involved in the scholarly publishing system, especially because they substantially cofinance it and help drive the open access transformation of the publishing system. The careful selection of a suitable and reputable publication outlet for research results is rightly the responsibility of the authors themselves in most regulations for ensuring good scientific practice, because they are ultimately responsible for the publication. However, with their funding, libraries bear responsibility for ensuring that undesirable developments in the scientific publication system do not get out of hand. This includes the fact that both non-open-access- and open-access- publishers are increasingly having to withdraw journal articles.8 Organized paper mills attempt to publish special issues of journals with publishers, whose publication fees are often financed by libraries.9, 10

What can academic libraries do in this environment?

Academic libraries should at least reclaim the subscription and publication fees they have paid for retracted journal articles and delisted journals. Perhaps they should pay subscription and publication fees for journals only listed on the Web of Science in the future, and otherwise use their financial resources to operate and build alternative publication infrastructures that do not create economic disincentives to abuse the scientific publishing system. In doing so, they would also contribute to ensuring the integrity of research.

Endnotes

1. OECD (2022). “Integrity and security in the global research ecosystem,” OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers, No. 130, OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/1c416f43-en

2. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2022). Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice. Code of Conduct. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6472827

3. ORI – The Office of Research Integrity. https://ori.hhs. gov/

4. UK Research Integrity Office. https://ukrio.org/

5. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2022), p. 7.

6. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2022), guidelines 7-17.

7. OECD (2022), p. 4.

8. Retraction Watch Database. Blog: https://retractionwatch. com/ , Database: http://retractiondatabase.org/ RetractionSearch.aspx?

9. Grove, Jack (2023). Quality questions as publisher’s growth challenges big players. Analysis shows Swiss publisher MDPI set up almost 56,000 special issues with a closing date in 2023. Times Higher Education News, March 15 2023. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/ news/quality-questions-publishers-growth-challengesbig-players

10. Clark & Esposito (2023). —the brief: Not So Special, Issue 51, March 2023. https://www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/ not-so-special/