A series of two studies published in Research Ethics have found that most scholars believe themselves to be moral and predict they will continue behaving morally, that scientific misconduct is frequently noticed by both researchers and their managers, and that perceived publication pressure and willingness to engage in future scientific misconduct are positively correlated.
Yet another piece that highlights the toxic consequences and deleterious impacts that flow from assessing publication activity for evaluating performance, promotion and cash rewards stop – especially when academic salaries are low.
Scientific misconduct can manifest as selective reporting, the intentional deletion of data points, selective citing, salami slicing (i.e., splitting the data of a single project into multiple publishable slices), guest authorships, and flawed quality assurance or mentoring.
