Recently, Ken Pimple commented on the Institute of Medicine report,1 "Integrity in Scientific Research." I was a member of the panel that produced that volume.
While I also bemoan the document's public fate, our goal was to influence accrediting bodies to develop methods of addressing individual and institutional scientific integrity as part of the self-assessment component of their regular reviews. If some organizations tackle the issue, we will have been successful.
We concluded that self-assessment with external review was the best way to evaluate institutions and individuals because, under veiled threat of legislation, we wanted an efficient mechanism that permitted the scientific community to monitor itself. We were charged to identify elements of the research environment that promote research integrity, indicate how those elements can be measured, suggest appropriate methodology to collect the data, and cite measures of appropriate outcomes.
We could find no instruments that suitably measured integrity in ...
