how to be a good researcher Flashcards
What are the important aspects for being a good researcher?
Consent procedures should be applied, confidentiality should be respected, disclosing and disseminating other information should be followed, where appropriate.
Why is the balance between openness and confidentiality important?
Openness is required to allow other people to benefit from your research, however confidentiality is essential to maintain intellectual property rights and data protection.
Which is the best model for peer review?
Neither author or peer reviewer know each other - the process is anonymised. This prevents bias.
What is restricted access?
This is when institutions or individuals pay subscriptions to journal publishers to gain access.
What is open access? What are the two types?
This is when no subscription is required - as long as you have internet access, you can gain access. You can have gold or green open access.
What is gold open access?
This is when you have complete unrestricted open access on a publication.
What is green open access?
This provides the author with the right to publish work in open access mode after a period of embargo. This occurs as publishers need to make money somehow.
What are the rules for publishing in low-income countries?
Some publishers may offer free open access publishing to authors from ‘low-income’ countries. This poses ethical considerations, as some people may be poor but in a developed country (e.g. UK). We still have austerity here, therefore it would be unethical to charge people who cannot afford it, just because they live in the UK.
What is the usual stance for charging for publishing?
Most publishers provide most authors with the opportunity to publish in open access on the condition that they pay a charge.
Should we not publish a paper incase it could be exploited by evil people?
I believe we should definitely publish articles which could be exploited, primarily because we cannot hold this information back from the public/other researchers, etc. What would happen if someone else discovered the same thing and published it? You have to ultimately abide by your core principles, for which most researchers would believe that publishing scientific information which could benefit society is essential. To prevent contradiction, I believe that papers should be published as we must assume that all medical researchers fulfil their duty to do what is best for society, therefore would not exploit information for evil causes. Anyone who does not fulfil this duty should not be allowed to practice.
What would you do in a situation where your patient has been receiving fertility treatment, however her husband informs you that he has actually had a vasectomy; it is not his wife who is infertile?
In this situation I think it is crucial that Nahar explains to the husband that it is her duty to act in his wife’s best interest as she is her patient. As a result she must withdraw all fertility treatments for her wife and explain to her the new found evidence which has been brought to light. Whilst many people might say this is a breach in confidentiality, not telling her patient would go against everything a doctor stands for; caring for their patient, preventing them from harm, and doing what is in their best interests. Not telling the wife would mean she would continue to receive treatment she doesn’t need, psychological harm, and harm from other individuals stigmatising her. Ultimately, telling the patient prevents harm to the wife.
Why might people disagree with Summary Care Records (SCRs)?
These are vital for healthcare professionals to carry out their job, especially in cases of emergency. There may be things on there which patients themselves are not aware of as they cannot remember, therefore without these records, there would be no way of the healthcare professionals to know this. Some people may disagree that these professionals should have such easy access to all of this information, however healthcare professional have a duty to protect patient information therefore it should be trusted that professionals adhere to this, specifically when the record is there for patient benefit.
What is the Research Excellent Framework (REF)?
This is an assessment about the quality of research that is undertaken by the 4 UK higher education funding bodies.
What are the assessment results from REF?
4 star = quality that is world-leading in terms of originality, significance, and rigour.
3 star = quality that is internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour but which falls short of the highest standard of excellence.
2 star = quality that is recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
1 star = quality that is recognised nationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
Unclassified = quality that falls below the standard of nationally recognised work, or does not meet the published definition of research for purposes of this assessment.
What legislation is available for confidentiality?
There is the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which promotes openness by public authorities (members of the public have a right to access a range of information held by public authorities).
