IGDORE’s current code of scientific conduct is the TU/e Code of Scientific Conduct. This thread can host the discussions on how to adjust it to better suit IGDORE. To make things easier, here’s the TU/e code in an editable format: TUe_Code_of_Scientific_Conduct_21-1-2015.odt (22.3 KB)
@dbernt Could we perhaps move it to Google Docs?
2 Likes
Yeah, it will be more convenient. I guess we have to edit it collaboratively. I want to encourage everyone to suggest points and leave comments to support why one thinks this would be a good idea to add to the code.
1 Like
I’m glad that we’ve opened this discussion about scientific ethics. The sociology of science book Real Science states that ‘traditional’ academia (this is really referring to traditional academic practices, pre-1980s, when commercialization and applied research were less of a focus) embodied the following social norms (CUDOS, also known as the Mertonian norms):
- C - Communalism
- U - Universality
- D - Disinterested
- O - Originality
- S - Scepticism
Alternatively, industrial/commercial research embodies the following social norms (PLACE):
- P - Proprietary
- L - Local
- A - Authoritarian
- C - Commissioned
- E - Expert
The current state of academia in Universities is described by the book as ‘post-academia’ and represents a merger of traditional and industrial research practices. I think it’s interesting to compare how these social norms compare to what’s in the TU/e ethics statement we currently use. The main points in this are:
- Trustworthiness (pro-Scepticism, in that truth facilitates the scepticism)
- Intellectual honesty (~pro-Expert)
- Openness (pro-Communal, ~pro-Original, anti-Authoritarian, ~anti-Proprietary)
- Independence (pro-Disinterested, ~anti-Commissioned)
- Society responsibility
I added the norms that seemed to support (or oppose) the ethics statement. While scope (Universality/Localness) of research isn’t really addressed, I think that the TU/e ethics statement actually aligns quite well to the norms of traditional academia. Is it too early to tell what the norms of ‘new academia’ are? @rebecca, I’m interested to know what norms you expect to develop in our community? This seems like an important 1st step in considering our ethics.
2 Likes
I wonder why did IGDORE choose TU/e Code of Scientific Conduct ? Maybe there are some insights?
1 Like
Alexander’s question is easier to answer from the phone with a sleeping kid next to me so I’ll start with that. 
The main reason was that it was much easier and quicker than to develop an own CoC from scratch. Anne Scheel, PhD student in open and replicable psychological science supervised by @Lakens at TU/e, posted enthusiastically on Twitter about their CoC when she got accepted into the program a couple of years ago. And I agreed that the CoC pretty much covered the main visions I had for IGDORE. So I thought we could use it temporarily until we develop an own.
Now we’re looking into how to modify the TU/e CoC to make it a perfect fit for IGDORE (while of course crediting TU/e as the source). Previously my aim has rather been to develop some sort of ‘scientist’s oath’, similar to what Simine Vazire did here: https://sometimesimwrong.typepad.com/wrong/2018/01/oath-for-scientists.html
Etienne LeBel and Anne Scheel also wrote something in a joint blog post on such an oath, but I fail to find their essay now.
UPDATE: Something I really like with an oath for scientists similar to Simine’s is that I think it evokes emotions not only in me but also in others. Read the oath out loud, take it seriously, and something really happens inside of you, right? I feel responsible. I feel that my profession is important and that I need to handle it properly. This stands in contrast to a CoC, even one like TU/e’s, which most people probably won’t even read.
1 Like
For what it is worth, the TU/e code of research integrity is a sort of summary and slight adaptation of the Dutch code of research integrity (especially the newer 2018 one), and the European code of research integrity also shares many of these points. I think the TU/e code is very nicely written, clear, and maybe just a bit more ambitious, but otherwise not that special. I agree an oath has a different goal, which is more emotional. I think it is possible to have both.
2 Likes
I’d like to ping @alex.lancaster here, who’s also with Ronin Institute and has done quite some thinking on ‘new academia’ and also written an article (or several?) on it with colleagues from Ronin.
…
I started writing this post a few days ago. I have never actually read Merton before so I started to read up online and watched some online lectures on the norms. I do have several things to say about that. But right now, less than 40 hours after Jon’s passing, the only thing I can remember is my thoughts on Universality.
According to Wikipedia (on Mertonian norms),
[t]he two aspects of Merton’s universalism are expressed in the statements that “objectivity precludes particularism” and “free access to scientific pursuits is a functional imperative”.
Merton
saw universalism as “rooted deep in the impersonal character of science”
and
all scientists’ claims (" truth-claims ") should be subjected to the same ‘pre-established impersonal criteria’ regardless of their source (“personal or social attributes of their protagonist”)
He also argued that
restricting scientific careers on anything but lack of competence was to “prejudice the furtherance of knowledge”.
I would argue that the movement for justice oriented science, to which many open science proponents and organisations today belong, fails Merton’s universality norm in at least two ways: it argues against (1) objectivity and rationalism, and (2) impersonality (i.e. considering the claim only, never the person who made the claim).
Here’s an example from a widely spread blog post arguing for justice oriented science:
[The open movement] failed again and again and again when it chose to privilege a bizarre and fetishised rationalism over the lived experiences of embodied human beings.
The kind of thinking we need now recognises and respects Indigenous wisdom and ways of knowing. […] The extreme privileging of a specific kind of rationalism has dominated the open movement and its discourse for so long that other ways of knowing have been all but disappeared from our discourse. The kind of thinking we need now recognises and values emotion as an important aspect of how we understand and know the world.
I believe IGDORE does, can and should adhere strictly to all Merton’s four norms, including the universality norm. We could hopefully set a good example for other openness organisations who may not really want to adhere to the loud demands from the justice oriented science movement but feel unsure about what else to do.
2 Likes
This is gold. We could basically just adopt these templates.
Statements for institutional use
The UK Reproducibility Network supports responsible research evaluation, transparency in research, and appropriate incentives to promote open research. We have developed statements that can be developed and used by institutions and organisations. These common statements are intended to encourage uptake and promote a degree of interoperability across these institutions and organisations. We welcome suggestions for how these statements could be modified.
Ping @global_board
1 Like
The incentives part is not very useful, though. They say what to strive for but not the difficult part of how to actually do it.
“Integrate Open Research dimensions in their Human Resources and career frameworks as an explicit element in recruitment, performance evaluation and career advancement policies”
“Develop institutional policies for recognising and rewarding Open Research practice”
“Develop Human Resources criteria for recognising and rewarding Open Research”
“Embed Open Research principles in research assessment system”
Yes, but what do such policies, criteria and assessment systems actually look like?
2 Likes
Yes, I saw that too and agree with you:
The incentives part is not very useful
Neither is Statement on Responsible Research Evaluation very useful for IGDORE at the moment.
But the Statement on Transparency in Research is.
I agree, that Statement sets out a more concrete set of expectations around research openness and transparency than our current code of scientific conduct does and also includes reasonable exceptions. I like that it also has out some expectations for the institute as well.
1 Like
When looking into EU funding I came across a variety of resources on research conduct and ethics. I found skimming through them quite interesting, so I thought I’d post them here for future reference:
I thought that part 2 of this document, which described how different actors should perform good research practices in a variety of contexts was the most useful. https://allea.org/code-of-conduct/
The discussion forum on this site seemed useful for peer support, but unfortunately, it doesn’t look very active (but they use Discourse 
)
1 Like
The scientific CoC is now on GDocs and accessible for comments.
I was speaking to @Daniel-Mietchen about our CoC last week. One point that came up is that IGDORE could ‘fork’ the CoC from TU/e and update the link on our affiliation page to point to our own version. Although we don’t currently want to make substantive changes to the document, we could make some simple changes like changing the references from TU/e to IGDORE (while adding an acknowledgement to its origin at TU/e). This would also ensure that IGDORE has CoC remains consistent in the case the TU/e updates theirs.
1 Like