Swedish national academic integrity board posts 2020 report

Sweden started a new national academic integrity board, Npof (Nämnden för prövning av oredlighet i forskning, The National Board for Assessment of Research Misconduct) on January 1, 2020. It has been tasked with investigating cases referred to it by Swedish universities or by individuals who directly inform the body. They look at cases of suspected FFP (Falsification, Fabrication, Plagiarism) that arise, since at the same time a new law took effect: Lagen (2019:504) om ansvar för god forskningssed och prövning av oredlighet i forskning. All researchers in Sweden are now legally required to follow a codex for good academic practice, which is based on the ALLEA code of conduct. Universities are still permitted to examine cases themselves, but now have a place to refer complicated cases. Decisions of Npof can be appealed to the Administrative Court in Uppsala.

The vision statement of Npof is

Everyone should be able to rely on Swedish research. Therfore, every researcher must follow good research practices. Suspicions of research misconduct need to be examined in a legally secure, transparent, and clear fashion. [my translation]

The body is subordinate to the Swedish Ministry of Education. They are required to publish a report on the cases they have investigated every year. The report for 2020 is now published on their web page along with a few statistics. They still have 8 cases from 2020 to deal with, and 16 new complaints have been lodged in 2021 already. There were 46 cases in 2020, of which 11 were ones that were already being investigated by the universities and were handed over as part of the law coming into effect. In the decisions they only found 4 persons guilty of misconduct, the rest were either not considered (11) or found not guilty (10) of serious misconduct.

The current list of final decisions (with the names redacted) from both 2020 and 2021 are also available on the web site.

• 9 decisions concern both falsification and fabrication, 2 from Karolinska Institutet, 1 each from Lund and Umeå, and 5 registered from an individual.
• 1 decision is only about fabrication of data, from Linköping, and is the appeal of a researcher who was previously found guilty of research misconduct.
• 7 decisions are only about falsification of data, an appeal from Karolinska, 2 cases from Lund, 1 from Göteborg, and 3 registered from an individual.
• 14 cases have to do with plagiarism (and self-plagiarism). 3 are from Lund, 2 from Linköping, one each from Uppsala, Göteborg, Örebro and Umeå, 3 from individuals. One case involves an appeal from the individual in a case from Uppsala and one other is also an appeal by the informant. 
• They don't publish reports on cases they don't investigate.
  

The 68-page, richly illustrated report notes in the introduction that so many of the cases that were investigated actually involved personal conflicts or other kinds of problems, in particular authorship questions. But Npof only looks at FFP, not at the many other types conduct that could be considered academic misconduct, or at questionable research practices. They also note that when the preparations were being made for setting up Npof, they were only expecting about 15 cases a year. 

They report that the cases brought to Npof were in all fields with the exception of agriculture and veterinary medicine, but most of the cases were in medicine and health. The universities have to report back what they have done in the cases in which a researcher is found guilty of misconduct. In two cases, the researcher quit the university. In another, the university started a course on research ethics for the entire institution. A fourth case resulted in discussions about research ethics being conducted within the research group. 

Npof can also initiate their own investigations, but they had so much else to do, that they haven't yet had such a case. I do find it unfortunate that the person who informs Npof of a case is not considered part of the case and thus is not included in any future communication. 

The report includes much reflection on how the universities found this switch to a new body and how the body itself saw the problems that the universities have. It will be interesting to see how the work of Npof continues in the future!

News from the world of academic integrity

The school year is getting underway in the Northern Hemisphere, so there have been a number of links twittered or linked to in the past week that need linking:

• Radio Free Europe published an article by Alan Crosby: Montenegro Education Council Members Resign, Learn Lesson About Plagiarism. It seems their curriculum was plagiarized from the Croation one without reference. 
• In Australia the Daily Telegraph authors Chris Harris & Bruce McDougall report on a primary school teacher caught offering contract cheating: Cheating students on marketplace website offering to buy or sell work. It may seem that the practice of contract cheating is rather widespread in Australia, but I believe that is because there are researchers actively looking there. I did a quick search on eBay and found lots of offers and people looking for help in Berlin...
• Linked from another article I was reading was an article by Daniel Etchells from The Sport Digest from 2016 about South Korea: Moon Dae-sung Suspended as IOC Member Over Plagiarism. It seems that Moon, who had won an Olympic gold medal in Athens (2004) in taekwondo, had been awarded a doctorate in 2007 with a thesis on taekwondo. In 2014 Kookmin University rescinded his doctorate. Moon defended himself in the appeal, stating that he had the permission (!) of the author of the text he used to use it. 
• The Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan reported in June 2017 that there has been a record number of university students sanctioned for academic misconduct in 2016. There were a total of 33 universities questioned by the news agency TT, they reported 733 sanctions (an average of 2.5 per 1000 full-time equivalent students). In 2013 there were only 533 sanctions meted out. The increase in serious cases registered and sanctioned may be due to teachers doing more checking or getting better at discovering students who cheat on exams or plagiarize.

Clippings from Sweden

A good friend in Sweden was kind enough to send me some clippings from Swedish newspapers about the academic integrity issues that he has been collecting over the past year or so. Here goes my summaries of the articles:

• Uppsala Nya Tidning, 12 May 2016. Two professors of economics from the University of Uppsala and an assistant professor and a postdoc from the University of Stockholm, including one member of the Nobel Prize committee, have been accused of research misconduct. The accuser (named in the article) discovered his own work plagiarized in an article the accused published in 2011 that also somehow was used to prove an opposite result. The journal found the criticism correct, but decided not to take any action. The accused said that the plagiarized text was only in a preliminary version and was removed when they were made aware of it.
• Uppsala Nya Tidning, 18 May 2016. A doctorate in the immunology of crayfish that had been awarded by the University of Uppsala has been rescinded after it was discovered that there was extensive manipulation of figures. This is the first time that this university has rescinded a doctorate. No sanctions were imposed on the advisor, as there are no rules for doing so. The thesis was a collection of five published papers, four of which had to be retracted. All attempts to contact the former doctoral student were fruitless. He was last seen working on a postdoc at a university in Texas, but was apparently fired there after just a few months for academic misconduct. 
• Dagens Nyheter, 13 August 2016.  Three professors wrote an opinion piece on academic ethics demanding a reform of the current process of dealing with misconduct. Their four major points include a better definition of academic misconduct that differentiates between misconduct and badly-done research, making clear that the institutions understand that they have a responsibility to deal with academic misconduct, that there needs to be a national instance with sufficient resources to conduct investigations as necessary, and better protection the privacy of the whistleblowers and the accused. [Currently, the names of all concerned are open knowledge, according to the Swedish Freedom of Information laws.]
• Uppsala Nya Tidning, 9 December 2016. A record number of cases of academic misconduct (17) have been reported to the Swedish Central Ethical Review Board (CEPN) in 2016. There were only 10 in 2016, and only 1-3 cases a year since the board was set up in 2010. The head of the board is not sure what has caused the surge, but states that it could be a result of the press coverage of the Macchiarini* affair that is encouraging other whistleblowers to come forward. The head of the Vetenskapsradet (the Science Council of Sweden) believes that universities are now referring more cases to the review board, as the Macchiarini affair showed the problems that arise when an institution makes the wrong decision. 
• Dagens Nyheter, 23 February 2017. Commentary by the newspaper's medicine reporter Amina Manzoor about the suggestions proposed by Margareta Falhgren, the person appointed by the government to propose changes to how academic misconduct is to be handled in the aftermath of the Maccharini scandal. Her suggestions include a national body for investigating cases of suspected misconduct; forcing universities to register all cases with the body and permitting individuals to lodge complaints; the body taking a decision on whether misconduct happened or not, but leaving the sanctioning to the university; setting up a legal definition for misconduct to include FFP (falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism); other forms of cheating are to be dealt with by the universities themselves. It is expected that the changes will take effect by 2019. 
• Uppsala Nya Tidning, 7 May 2017 (other reports on 31 March 2017, 29 April 2017 and 12 May 2017) A long article describes a paper on research conducted at a research station on the island of Gotland about the effects of microplastic particles on fish larvae that was retracted from Science. There is also commentary thanking the whistleblowers in this case, some of whom are from the University of Uppsala.  They had attempted to obtain the raw data on the study, but the laptop with the supposedly only copy of the data was registered as stolen 10 days after the first request for the data was sent. There were various other excuses for why the data was not available. The whistleblowers had been at the research station at the time the experiments were said to have been conducted, but they did not see anything of the magnitude of the study taking place. The University of Uppsala had at first found no misconduct, but the CEPN found multiple issues, including missing ethical permission for animal experiments. The university now has to decide if and how they will sanction the researchers. 
• Dagens Nyheter, 7 June 2017. The number of students who are sanctioned for cheating is skyrocketing. 2016 there were 733 sanctions recorded, or 2.5 per 1000 full-time equivalent students. 2015 there were only 630 sanctions, 2013 only 533. The jurist in charge at the Universitetskanslersämbetet stated that the increase is due to the universities being more conscious of the problems and getting better and uncovering cheating.

I find it very encouraging that public discussions about academic integrity are taking place in Sweden. Other countries would be well-advised to follow suit.

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* The surgeon Paolo Macchiarini implanted artificial trachea in three patients in Sweden, two of the patients died and one was badly hurt and recently also died. Karolinska Institutet, the institution at which the research was done, eventually fired a number of people in 2016 after a TV documentary forced them to take action. 

Student in Sweden sanctioned for plagiarism

According to the Swedish daily Sydsvenskan from May 24, 2016, a student has been sanctioned by the University of Lund for plaigarism in a Master's thesis. Apparently, the thesis consisted almost entirely of text copied from other theses. Not only was the theory portion plagiarized, but interviews were also apparently falsified. The sanction meted out by the Disciplinary Board (disciplinnämnd) was suspension from the university for three months.

A suspension sanction is quite severe in Sweden, as this means that credit points are not earned during suspension. Students cannot continue to receive student loans if they do not earn enough credit points each semester and thus often must interrupt their studies.

New Approaches to Academic Misconduct in Denmark and Sweden?

There have been a number of high-profile cases of academic misconduct in the past few years, both in Denmark and in Sweden. The Swedish government has just issued a directive requesting that an independent examiner look at the necessity of changing the rules for investigating cases of academic misconduct in research. They request that a proposition be made for a timely and legally secure process for dealing with accusations of academic misconduct. ("En särskild utredare ska undersöka behovet av en ny hantering av ärenden som rör utredning av oredlighet i forskning och lämna förslag som säkerställer en tydlig och rättssäker hantering av misstänkt oredlighet.").

This comes on the heels of news (Retraction Watch reports) about a Swedish researcher who has been dismissed from the Karolinska Institut on multiple charges of academic misconduct

Denmark is a bit further along in the same process. They have had quite a number of scandals, so the UVVU (the Danish organization that looks at accusations of academic misconduct) has already prepared their own suggestions. They have a page with a number of links, and a relative thorough collection of the current practices in seventeen countries:Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Switzerland,  Sweden,  USA. Unfortunately, the report appears to only be in Danish. 

ScienceNordic has a nice overview of the the major scandals in Denmark and Sweden, including many links, in English.

The problems arise when lawyers are called into scientific disputes and judges decide what is and what is not good science. I think we need a sort of "Godwin's law" in science. If you involve a lawyer, you lose the argument. We need to focus more on peers discussing the science, although there do need to be sanctions for those found to have committed academic misconduct.

The Danish report lists the wide spectrum of possible sanctions found in the various countries (p. 20-21):

• Issuing a correction
• Reprimand
• Supervision of future research
• Suspension from scientific work
• Retractions
• Disciplinary sanctions such as being put on probation for future academic work
• Rescinding of academic titles
• Rescinding of the right to advise PhD students 
• Withdrawal of internal resources
• Repayment of research funding
• No permission to apply for research funding, usually for a set number of years. 

The report makes it clear that there does need to be a system for appealing such a judgement and in particular the whistleblowers need to be protected.  It will be interesting to see what the Danish government decides to do and whether the Swedish report will be much different from the Danish one.

Update: fixed Goodwin -> Godwin

576 Swedish students caught cheating in 2014

The Swedish news agency TT reported in March 2015 on the number of students caught cheating in the past year, according to the daily newspaper Expressen: 576, an increase of 50 over 2013. This is the number of students who were found guilty of cheating and sentenced to a lock-out from the university for between one week and six months. There are 28 universities and colleges in Sweden, the largest universities (Lund, Stockholm) also had the largest number of cheating students, 62 and 60. With 47,700 and almost 67,000 students enrolled, this number is quite small. These are the cases, however, that were brought before disciplinary boards, so they will have been quite critical cases. The minister of higher education and research points out in the article that cheating rather defeats the point of a higher education: to learn how to do something oneself.

A lock-out of even a week can be critical if that week happens to be an exam week. Sweden has a good system for financing students. They get a weekly allowance, a bit they can keep, the rest is a loan. In order to get the financing for the next semester, they have to pass enough courses. If they aren't able to take exams, they don't pass and thus can't get the student loans for the next semester.

Do other countries have national numbers on students caught cheating? I know Germany doesn't. I would appreciate pointers to other countries who publish such numbers. 

Swedish scholar to be disciplined for plagiarism

Retraction Watch noted in March 2014 that a 2012 paper by a Swedish scholar from Linnaeus University in Växjö had been retracted for plagiarism. A recent commentator on the article noted that the university actually investigated the case and determined that he was guilty of plagiarism. They put out a press release stating that plagiarism is a serious matter and that the scholar has been suspended from the university, pending a decision on the part of the personnel department about the extent of sanctions to be meted out.

The right-wing online press in Sweden, which is gaining much momentum in the current election year, posted the name of the researcher in question, making sure to comment that he was a "leftist" researcher investigating problems of racism, as if that somehow had something to do with the cases (I'm not linking to the publication in question).

It is quite disconcerting to have an academic discussion about good scientific conduct and plagiarism dragged into a political fight. This has also happened in Germany, where the media only seem to report on cases of plagiarism if they involve politicians. Many universities in Germany and Austria drag their feet when investigating allegations of plagiarism, and answer, as one did today, stating that on the grounds of official secrecy and data privacy no information about administrative processes will be published. It is important that we speak about academic plagiarism cases in the open, but we must be focused on the plagiarism itself and not on other details about the person in question.

Swedish Editor-in-Chief Steps Down in Plagiarism Row

Katarina Ekspong, the editor-in-chief of the Swedish daily newspaper Nerikes Allehanda, published in Örebro, stepped down the end of August/beginning of September over a plagiarism row. 

At first it seemed that she had only plagiarized one piece by a free-lance journalist published in January of this year about Örebro.  Upon closer inspection of her work, additional word-for-word plagiarisms were discovered.

She first just stepped down as publisher, but has since resigned from all positions. She declines all requests for comment or interviews.

Six Students Found Guilty of Plagiarism in Sweden

One of the advantages of having a central board at university to deal with plagiarizing students is that they can issue a press release on their current meeting. In the local paper in Sweden (Skånska Dagbladet, 24 May 2012) there is an article about the current decisions at Malmö högskola. Six students have been found guilty of plagiarism, copying large portions from the internet or other sources into their term papers. One insisted that she had not been taught the "intracies" of scientific writing, and she had change some words so that the text was "hers".

I'll repeat it slowly, in the hopes that everyone can follow: if you take something from somewhere - words, arguments, ideas - you mark where it begins, where it ends, and where it is from. Rewriting a word here or there does not make it your. BES - Begin, End, Source. Is it really that difficult?

The punishment for all 6 students is being locked out of the university for six weeks. No instruction, no cheaper beer at the student pubs, and above all: no examinations. This is a very good punishment, as students in Sweden get student loans based on passing a certain amount of credits. Everyone gets one year's worth of student loans. If you pass 75 % of the credits for a year, you can get money for the second year. Missing all of the examinations for one half semester can mean not getting money for next year.

I think it is a good idea to have an article like this in the paper (no names, just age and gender) reminding people what will happen if they get caughe.

Research and Progress

During a visit to Sweden I was made aware of this group blog that deals with research. One of the bloggers, retired associate professor in ethics Birgitta Forsman, wrote about scientific misconduct in Sweden.

It seems the government has put forth a new proposition about scientific misconduct. Her major criticism is that much of research today is done outside of universities, and that the local lords have a much too strong influence in the decision about what is worth being researched.

She discusses the STAN study which was published in Lancet. The inventor of a technology that was to be studied (and co-owner of the company that uses the technology and was financing the study) was monitor and responsible for the quality of the study, although he was not listed on the paper.

This is a different kind of scientific misconduct than what has often been linked to here. This is not someone who is not involved in the study putting their name on the paper in order to pad their CV. This is someone who was involved not being listed so that when Lancet asked if any of the authors had any connection to the company whose technology was being investigated, they could all truthfully answer "no".

An investigation into this research deemed it problematic, but not scientific misconduct, begging the question of where exactly scientific misconduct begins.

Purchasing a title

The Swedish daily newspaper Sydsvenskan had a free-lance reporter purchase a title at the "International Biographical Centre" in Cambridge. This is the place where a professor from Lund had purchased a title. The company insists, when interviewed on the record, that they fact-check all the details submitted by the "nominator". Nomination is free - but copies of the diploma and books and what not cost a pretty penny.

Christian Fredriksson purchased the award "2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st century" with the following CV:

• PhD in reproductive linguistics
  
• Secretary General of the Snapphanes, a 17th century pro-Danish guerrilla organization that fought against the Swedes in the Scanian wars, in Skyffladyngamåla, a mythical Swedish small town
• CEO, The Future Factory
• Regional Chancellor Exchequer
• Lecturer at the University of Eslöv (which does not exist, pretty much the only thing in Eslöv is the regional tax office)
• Swedish Honorary Veterinarian
  
• Supreme Pellejoens of Lundagaard

For just 2000-5000 SEK ($260 - $650), depending on the number of things he wanted to have with this title on it, the title was his. So much for fact checking.

"Die doppelte Pippilotta" banned

The Hamburg State Court ruled Az.: 308 O 200/09 on June 24, 2009, that the book "Die doppelte Pippielotta", published by the "Märchenbuchverlag Manfred Hueber", (the title is a combination of two popular children's books, Das doppelte Lottchen and Pippi) may not be sold on the grounds of it being a plagiarism of the works of Astrid Lindgren, the Swedish author of the Pippi stories. The heirs of Astrid Lindgren took the author to court.

In particular, the following similarities (among others) were noted, according to the "Titelschutz Anzeiger":

Das dopplete Pippielotta	Pippi Langstrumpf
Pippielotta	Pippilotta
a red-headed girl from Sweden	a red-headed girl from Sweden
with wild braids and Herkulean strength	with wild braids and Herkulean strength
Krumunkulus pills to keep from becoming an adult	Krummeluß pills to keep from becoming an adult
lives in the Villa „Kunterbund“	lives in the Villa „Kunterbunt“
has an ape called „Frau Karla vom Dach“ and a horse called "Pferd" (horse)	has an ape alled "Herr Nielsson" and a horse called "Kleiner Onkel" (little uncle)

The author insisted that this was a legal use of the book, because this Pippielotta has a twin sister (as in the book Das doppelte Lottchen) and combines the two stories with a critical reflection upon growing up.

The court begged to differ. Despite the occasional reflection, they deemed the book a plagiarism that needed the permission of the author resp. heirs in order to be published. They did not and will not give permission.

Update: Nadja aus Lübeck writes: Pippi's horse was really called "Pferd" (horse) in Astrid Lindgren's books. It was only for the film that Inger Nilsson came up with the name "Kleiner Onkel" so that the horse would have a proper name.

A Tongue in Cheek Plagiarism

One of the Swedish defendants in the Pirate Bay case in which the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, IFPI, took the owners of the Pirate Bay site to court and won millions of Swedish crowns) has set up a site http://www.internetavgift.se/ which is a plagiarism of the Swedish TV license site http://www.radiotjanst.se/. In many European countries you have to pay a license to watch TV, the fees are used to pay for public broadcasting. Many people feel that this is very problematic, as they do not watch public broadcasting, preferring the private channels (which have advertising).

On the page they present a very complicated formula for figuring out the tax - which amounts to one Swedish crown, which is the smallest amount that can be transferred from one account to the next. The account which is listed for payment is the account of the lawyers for IFPI.

In Sweden, your bank will charge you up to 20 crowns (about $2.50) for money put into your account. In addition, the lawyers are legally required to do all sorts of bookkeeping tasks around any money they take in. The lawyers have threatened to find some way of forcing them to take down this site.

Umeå Study of Plagiarism Detection Software

An article in a Lund, Sweden, student newspaper I found complained that the university's choice of plagiarism detection software was bad because it only found 25% of the plagiarisms in a study done in 2006 by the University of Umeå.

After some unsucessful Googling I entered in a few words from the article and quickly found them in the abstract of two reports from 2006:

• Anna Nordström och Susanne Sjöberg: UTVÄRDERING AV URKUND, ETT VERKTYG FÖR PLAGIATKONTROLL. Oktober 2006. Report 16 (yes, the names of the reports seem to be a sick joke of the IT department on this sociology unit)
  

• Anna Nordström: UTVÄRDERING AV GENUINETEXT, ETT VERKTYG FÖR PLAGIATKONTROLL. Oktober 2006. Report 17

The first is a report commissioned from CERUM by an organisational unit of the University of Umeå about a test of the Swedish plagiarism detection software Urkund. CERUM is the Center for Regional Studies at the University of Umeå.

The university purchased a license for Urkund for four departments at the school for a year and had CERUM look at the usability, effectiveness, and moral problems associated with the use of the software. They interviewed teachers and students prior to and after use and describe very clearly the issues found. Among them:

• Teachers found the system easy to use, as students send their papers to an email address at Urkund. They then send on the paper to the teachers and later send a report on anything found to the teachers. This does, however, pose a problem as student's email addresses are used as the subject line and were often difficult to connect up to real names.
• Teachers felt that the system was effective.
• Using the system didn't save any time, but they feel that it is important for them to deal with plagiarism.
  
• Teachers and students alike felt that using the system worked as a deterrent to plagiarism.
• Students were generally happy with the software and had no moral or ethical problems, as they felt that everyone was being handled equally, something that is very important for Swedes.
  
• There was no mention made of the copyright problems. Urkund keeps a copy of all papers unless the students answer their acknowledgement email and request their paper not be put in a database.
• Neither teachers nor students felt that there was a problem in their relationship with each other based on the use of this system.
  

In order to test the effectiveness of the system, CERUM requested the four departments give them some common texts from textbooks, online resources, and magazines from their field, as well as from the Internet. Urkund says that it checks the Internet, many publications (including the Swedish National Encyclopedia), and of course their own database.

The researchers added material on their own in order to have 20 sources for each department. They then constructed test material (it is not clear from the report if they put all into one text or made a few papers, the report states differently in different chapters) and ran it through Urkund. Only 18 of the 80 sources were found by Urkund, a rather sorry result.

While the investigation was being done, it was discovered that there were a handful of teachers at the school using the Genuine Text system. This Swedish system, which according to their web page is used in Sweden, Denmark, Russia, and some parts of Africa, only searches the Internet and its own database. It is a web-based system that has three ways of submitting: students upload a file, teachers upload files, or they copy and paste material into a field. They offer statistics for administrators and plagiarism reports that are suitable for submitting to the appropriate disciplinary bodies. It is not clear from the report if students have a way of opting out of having their material stored in the database.

CERUM was commissioned to have a look at this as well, and they interviewed the teachers and students who had similar responses as the Urkund subjects. Interestingly enough, although Genuine Text does not test publication data bases, they managed to score 22 out of 80 plagiarisisms found. There were only 14 plagiarisms from the Internet, Genuine Text found 7 of them.

Both reports lead me to the following conclusions:

• The software proved just as ineffective in these tests as in mine. They find about half of the Internet sources and very little else.
  
• Teachers are so happy to have something found, that they believe it to be effective.
  
• The major use of plagiarism detection software is in deterrance. I found many forums in which students wondered how good the systems really were and what their chances for being found out were. There were tips being given on changing around words so as to confuse the system. Unfortunately, this works for many software systems, although Google can often deal with changed word order.
  
• No one considers copyright (or patent!) issues in student works, universities and companies keep copies without explicit permission, as would be necessary by EU copyright law.
• If the students are informed properly (orally and in writing) about the use of the software, they are happy about it being used.
  

I am attempting to contact the authors, who are no longer with the department, to see if I can find further information about the study.