Question

Identify strategies that can be used for executing research responsibilities?  

Answer 1

Ans) 1) Data management:

- Acquisition and maintenance of research data should be addressed since they provide the foundation for scientific discovery and experimentation. Research data include detailed experimental protocols, primary data from laboratory instruments, and the procedures applied to reduce and analyze primary data.

Subjects to be addressed:

Availability of data to scientific collaborators or supervisors

Retention of data for specified periods of time

Accessibility of data after publication

Examples of good practice:

Research data, including the primary experimental results, should be retained for a sufficient period to allow analysis and repetition by others of published material from those data.

Custody of all original primary laboratory data must be retained by the unit in which they are generated. An investigator may make copies of the primary data for his/her own use.

All primary data are to be entered into a notebook provided by the institute for this purpose. The investigator is responsible for all data entries. The notebook will contain lined, numbered pages; no pages are to be removed or made illegible. Entries must be dated and signed.

All data, even from observations and experiments not leading directly to publication, should be treated comparably. Research data should always be immediately available to scientific collaborators and supervisors for review. In collaborative projects involving different units, all investigators should know the status of all contributing data and have direct access to them.

Publication practices. Science is a cumulative activity in which each scientist builds on the work of others. Publication of results is an integral and essential component of research because it enables others to gain access to each scientist's contribution.

Subjects to be addressed:

Methods of publication and disclosure of new findings

Correction of errors and retraction of published findings

Treatment of fragmentary results of a scientific investigation

Multiple publications of same or similar findings

Completeness of publication so that repetition and evaluation are feasible

Examples of points to be kept in mind:

Certain practices make it difficult for reviewer and reader to follow a complete experimental sequence. Among these are the premature publication of data without adequate tests of reproducibility or assessments of significance, the publication of fragments of a study, and the submission of multiple similar abstracts or manuscripts differing only slightly in content. In such circumstances, if any of the work is questioned, it is difficult to determine whether the research was done accurately, the methods were described properly, the statistical analyses were adequate, or appropriate conclusions were drawn. Investigators should review each proposed manuscript with these principles in mind.

In a publication, all data pertinent to the project should be reported, whether supportive or unsupportive of the thesis or conclusions. Except for review articles, publishing the same material in more than one paper should be avoided. Unnecessary fragmentation of a complete body of work into separate publications should be avoided. Prior work in the field should be referenced appropriately. (University of Michigan Medical School, 1989)

Authorship: Authorship and allocation of credit are primary benchmarks of achievement and rewards for scientists.

Subjects to be addressed:

Criteria for authorship and identification of contributors

Order of listing of authors

Responsibility for authorship: collective and individual

Examples of good practice:

For each individual the privilege of authorship should be based on a significant contribution to the conceptualization, design, execution, and/or interpretation of the research study, as well as a willingness to take responsibility for the defense of the study should the need arise. In contrast, other individuals who participate in part of a study may more appropriately be acknowledged as having contributed certain advice, reagents, analyses, patient material, support, and so on, but not be listed as authors. It is expected that such distinctions will be increasingly important in the future and should be explicitly considered more frequently now.

Criteria for authorship of a manuscript should be determined and announced by each department or research unit. The [Harvard University Faculty] committee considers the only reasonable criterion to be that the co-author has made a significant intellectual or practical contribution. The concept of “honorary authorship” is deplorable. The first author should assure the head of each research unit or department chairperson that s/he has reviewed all the primary data on which the report is based and provide a brief description of the role of each co-author.

Peer review: Peer review is used to guide decisions on the funding of research and on the publication of research results. It is an essential component of the scientific research process.

Subjects to be addressed:

Responsibility to participate in the peer review process

Considerations of confidentiality and proprietary interests in peer review

Conflicts of interest and need for disclosure in peer review of competitive proposals

Objectivity of peer reviews; inclusion of nonpublic information

Examples of good practice:

It is important that reviewers and readers be informed of the sponsorship of research projects in order that they may be alert to possible bias in the research arising from a sponsor's financial interest in the results.

The reviewer has the responsibility for preserving the integrity of the review process. In receiving a manuscript or a grant proposal, he is entrusted with privileged information that is unavailable to anyone outside of the laboratory of the submitting scientist(s). It is of obvious importance for the reviewer not to make use of information gained in the review for his own purposes until it is published or, prior to that, only by consent of the author. The contents of a work under review should not be distributed to other colleagues. There are certain exceptions to this general rule, however. For example, it should be permissible to discuss parts or even all of a submitted work with trusted colleagues to obtain a second opinion in instances when the reviewer is unfamiliar with the methodology or considers the author to be mistaken. (University of Michigan Medical School, 1989)

Training and supervision. Scientists in universities accept the obligation to pass along knowledge and skills to the next generation of scientists.

Subjects to be addressed:

Assignment of mentors to students

Availability of mentors and appropriate forms of supervision

Degree of independence and responsibility for students and postdoctoral trainees

Types of duties assignable to students by mentors and supervisors

Appraisals and communication of student and trainee performance

Examples of good practice:

Each trainee should have a designated primary scientific

mentor. The mentor has the responsibility to supervise the trainee's progress closely and to interact personally with the trainee on a regular basis in such a way as to make the training experience a meaningful one. Mentors should limit the number of trainees in their laboratory to the number for whom they can provide an appropriate research experience.

The preceptor should provide each new investigator (whether student, postdoctoral fellow, or junior faculty) with applicable government and institutional requirements for conduct of studies involving healthy volunteers or patients, animals, radioactive or other hazardous substances, and recombinant DNA.

The preceptor should supervise the design of experiments and the processes of acquiring, recording, examining, interpreting, and storing data. A preceptor who limits his/her role to the editing of manuscripts does not provide adequate supervision.