engleski

Measuring Prevalence and Characteristics of Scientific Plagiarism: Design of the Study.

Research integrity is fundamental value of both scientists and science, medical especially, because results usually have immediate impact on human health. Thus, integrity and honesty of scientific work are its inherent characteristics that define the meaning of science, whilst dishonesty and fraud restrain it. Plagiarism is a form of dishonesty, “illegitimate appropriation of intellectual property, ideas, methods, results, text, speech or thought for the purpose of displaying as its own.” Plagiarism does not enlarge human knowledge at all, but brings to perpetrator (author) undeserved credits. The problem has been recognized worldwide, as well as at the Rijeka University by the Forum for Ethics and Development of Science and Higher Education by expressing the view that plagiarism is a "sign of universal prostitution in which cheating becomes legitimate way to earn money." Act of plagiarizing has been explored by our team from the Department of Medical Informatics for the past fifteen years. Following our previous research we set three-year study with three main objectives: to measure attitude of scientists towards plagiarism and identify factors that determine it, in parallel by measuring personality characteristics, to research the prevalence of plagiarism in three Croatian biomedical journals (Croatian Medical Journal, Biochemia Medica, and Acta Stomatologica Croatica), and to determine the characteristics of scientific plagiarism in overall international scientific community by systematic review and meta-analysis of published scientific studies that measure the prevalence of plagiarism using questionnaires or computer programs to detect plagiarism. Design of the study will be presented with expected research objectives, methodology and proposed statistical analysis of data. (Study is supported by the project 13.06.1.2.29 of the Rijeka University.)

Medical Informatics; Meta-Analysis; Plagiarism; Research Integrity; Questionnaire; Scientific Misconduct; Software

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