In recent decades, a number of high-profile cases involving fraud as research misconduct have been in the media and resulted in severe consequences for those convicted. According to the increased cases of allegations and coverage in the media, this reflects a heightened awareness that fraudulent actions exist. Nonetheless, the Office of Research Integrity data suggests that despite the growth in the number of the cases of allegation there has not been a commensurate increase in findings of misconduct. The purpose of this paper is to explore misconduct to better understand what it entails. An analysis of misconduct from the perspective of the definitions of allegations and fraud of is conducted and potential frameworks for understanding both are considered. The paper considers serial-positioning effects of primacy and recency on allegation phenomena, as well as supervenience theory and contextualism as a lens for understanding fraud. Discussion of the relational semantics of the core aspects of fraud and de facto grouping of forms of misconduct. It is concluded that the interrogative pronouns of “what” and “when” could be used to categorize forms of misconduct laying the foundation for the next paper that deconstructs the definition of falsification according to the Public Health Service.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI), in particular large language models such as ChatGPT have reached public consciousness with a wide-ranging discussion of their capabilities and suitability for various professions. The extant literature on the ethics of generative AI revolves around its usage and application, rather than the ethical framework of the responses provided. In the education sector, concerns have been raised with regard to the ability of these language models to aid in student assignment writing with the potentially concomitant student misconduct of such work is submitted for assessment. Based on a series of ‘conversations’ with multiple replicates, using a range of discussion prompts, this paper examines the capability of ChatGPT to provide advice on how to cheat in assessments. Since its public release in November 2022, numerous authors have developed ‘jailbreaking’ techniques to trick ChatGPT into answering questions in ways other than the default mode. While the default mode activates a safety awareness mechanism that prevents ChatGPT from providing unethical advice, other modes partially or fully bypass the this mechanism and elicit answers that are outside expected ethical boundaries. ChatGPT provided a wide range of suggestions on how to best cheat in university assignments, with some solutions common to most replicates (‘plausible deniability,’ language adjustment of contract written text’). Some of ChatGPT’s solutions to avoid cheating being detected were cunning, if not slightly devious. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The cumulative nature of knowledge in science in general and for social science in particular depends on research being conducted with integrity, with fraudulent research being one of the most harmful of questionable research practices. It has been observed that, in fabricated research, there is often a deficit of zeroes in the last digits of regression results. In research, authored by Dr. Eric A. Stewart, that has been retracted, there appears to have been a paucity of zeroes as last digits in his regression results. Eight hypotheses were tested to re-examine the relative lack of zeroes and possible increases in ones or nines as last digits. Some support was found for all hypotheses. It appears that in Stewart’s retracted research, ones and nines were substituted for zeroes as last digits. Furthermore, the increased proportions of ones and nines was found to be highly correlated with other anomalies in the same retracted articles, possibly indicative of fabrication of the results in the retracted articles. Further research in this area might use symbolic interaction theory or justification theory to guide our developing knowledge about this type of questionable research practice.

The concept of Research Integrity and research ethics are linked to the scientific research process and its communication. Presenting the results objectively is essential. It turns out that few scientists use manipulation of results and consequently other types of misconduct such as data Fabrication, Falsification, and Plagiarism (FFP). In this article, we show the definitions of these and different aspects of behavior that should be avoided, which affect principles of research reliability. We present, through a brief literature review, the concept of Research Integrity, FFP, and its relations with Publish or Perish. Editorial disputes are linked to the power that scientists have to remain in the field of research, governed by clear rules to increase their intellectual capital. We discussed that scientists tend to want their papers published in journals with better impact and well-evaluated, seeking prominence in the publishing sector. We have seen that both scientists and journals can have sequelae and problems in the face of the Publish or Perish movement, which can call into question the quality of the editorial process, peer review, and the journal itself.

Using the h-index to assess individual researchers is not only unethical and unfair but also inaccurate and misleading. This index fails to offer a reliable measure of a researcher's impact based on their citation scores. Beyond statistical and conceptual considerations, authorship practices, especially in the case of multi-authored publications, give rise to significant problems that often go unnoticed. While some modifications of the h-index have been proposed to mitigate these weaknesses, the fundamental deficiencies persist. Most of these flaws have been effectively addressed by the c-score, a composite citation index. The c-score excludes self-citations, normalizes the number of citations by considering the number of authors in each paper, and takes into account first, single, and last authorship. This approach provides a more realistic measure of the impact of each individual researcher based on raw citations.

The purpose of this paper is to critique the definition of falsification as research misconduct according to the Public Health Service (PHS) in order to better understand what it entails. In support of this purpose, the approach decided upon for analysis was philosophical including framing the issue borrowing from both mereological and epistemological perspectives. Through the consideration given to parthood relations of mereology, we gained insight from a cognitive imperfection standpoint about similarities that exist between the epistemic constraints on knowledge and the nature of violations concerning research misconduct. Findings from the examination of a case study include the significance of accuracy in representation in falsification as misconduct and the core dimensions comprising an instance of falsification, which are Deliberateness, Alteration, and Inclusion. Given that either behavior or actions must occur that violate these three aspects in order to qualify as an instance of misconduct under falsification, the author proposes that, at a minimum, any revisions made to the definition of falsification stipulate what he refers to as the Violation Imperative.