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EDUCATION AND DEBATE: Drummond Rennie, Imogen Evans, Michael J G Farthing, Cyril Chantler, Shireen Chantler, and Povl Riis Dealing with research misconduct in the United Kingdom • An American perspective on research integrity • Conduct unbecomingthe MRC's approach • An editor's response to fraudsters • Deception: difficulties and initiatives • Honest advice from Denmark BMJ 1998; 316: 1726-1733 [Full text]

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Fraud at an Open University Summer School

William Stevenson   (25 September 1998)

Fraud at an Open University Summer School 25 September 1998
William Stevenson, Consultant Radiologist Victoria Hospital, Blackpool FY3 8NR Send response to journal: Re: Fraud at an Open University Summer School	Rennie(1) is right to caution against UK institutional denial where research fraud is concerned. My own experience cautions me against optimism. Fraud is popular because it works. The Open University is the largest University in the UK. It describes it’s BIOL777 3rd year Degree level Summer School as preparation for research work in the Biological Sciences, and this was the only Summer School I attended in the two years I was studying for my degree. This rather suggests that fraud in OU Summer Schools is not uncommon. It was immediately clear to me that the research report of a previous student, which was distributed as a model of how the experiment should be done and which gained a high mark, was fraudulent. I directed my own experiments to provide proof. The fabrication was not even subtle: dimensions of biological structures determined by optical diffraction were quoted to an accuracy of 2% of the wavelength of the light employed, and were very similar to textbook values which apply only to different experimental conditions. No data were presented in the report, which is supposed to be an account of genuine research, and further incredible claims were made. My fate as "whistleblower" ran along similar lines to those described in recent medical cases, except that I was not professionally vulnerable. I sent the incontrovertible evidence to the OU Regional Science Tutor and the months passed. The Tutor said he had referred it to the OU Centre, which then denied having received it, and which also declined to reply to my offers to send another copy. The Tutor confirmed that he had indeed sent the documents months before, but I was never able to elicit any specific comment from the OU on either the fabricated research or my criticism. The only response to my repeated promptings was that there was no problem and a refusal to further discuss the matter. If this is the OU contribution to the development of the British Research Ethic, then there is still a problem: why bother to struggle with inconvenient experiment when perfect answers can be obtained with ease? Yours faithfully, 1 Rennie D. An American perspective on research integrity. BMJ 1998;316:1726-28