Co-creating research integrity education guidelines for research institutions

Abstract

Background: To foster research integrity (RI), research institutions should develop a continuous approach to RI education, addressing various target groups. To support research institutions achieve this, we developed RI education guidelines together with RI experts and research administrators, exploring similarities and differences in recommendations across target groups, as well as recommendations about RI education using approaches other than formal RI training. Methods: We used an iterative co-creative process. After exploring the literature, we conducted four half-day online co-creation workshops with 16 participants. In the first two workshops, participants generated ideas for guidelines’ content focusing on different target groups and various approaches to RI education, based on which we developed first drafts of the guidelines. Participants in the third and fourth workshop refined those drafts. We next organized a working group which further prioritized, reorganized, and optimized the content of the guidelines. Results: We developed four guidelines on RI education focusing on a) bachelor, master and PhD students; b) post-doctorate and senior researchers; c) other RI stakeholders; as well as d) continuous RI education. Across guidelines, we recommend mandatory RI training; follow-up refresher training; informal discussions about RI; appropriate rewards and incentives for active participation in RI education; and evaluation of RI educational events. Conclusions: Our work provides experience-based co-created guidance to research institutions on what to consider when developing a successful RI education strategy. Each guideline will be offered as a distinct, publicly available tool in our toolbox (https://sops4ri.eu/toolbox/) which institutions can access, adapt and implement to meet their institution-specific RI education needs.

How can research institutions support responsible supervision and leadership?

“…The guidelines presented in this paper result from a combination of iterative co-creative steps (Figure 1-Flowchart of the successive Guidelines development process). Since this study is part of a bigger project, the methodology described in this manuscript can also be found in parallel manuscripts (Labib et al 2022).…”

“…The co-creation workshops organized for the guideline development process consisted of the following steps: (1) creating inspirations, (2) content creation workshops, (3) the first round of analysis, (4) content refinement workshops, and (5) the second round of analysis (Figure 2 -Process of the co-creation study). More details about the approach to the co-creation workshops have been described in a related manuscript (Labib et al 2022). Workshop participants met only once during the workshop session lasting around 3,5 hours.…”

Promoting trust in research and researchers: How open science and research integrity are intertwined

“…It also means that the systems researchers need to work with to enable long-term storage of data or to request statistical support are user-friendly. In addition, institutions can support their researchers by providing state of the art research integrity training [20]. This training can also be done more informally through community efforts (e.g., ReproducibiliTea (reproducibilitea.org) or Open Science Communities (openscience.nl)).…”

Promoting trust in research and researchers: How open science and research integrity are intertwined

“…It also means that the systems researchers need to work with to enable long-term storage of data or to request statistical support are userfriendly. In addition, institutions can support their researchers by providing state of the art research integrity training (20). This training can also be done more informally through community efforts (e.g., ReproducibiliTea (reproducibilitea.org) or Open Science Communities (openscience.nl)).…”