Der österreichische Weg zur wissenschaftlichen Integrität

Abstract

The Austrian Agency for Research Integrity counts 37 research institutions as member organizations. It was established as an association in accordance with the Austrian Associations Act. The agency has two major tasks. One is the investigation of cases of alleged scientific misconduct. The other is to raise awareness for good scientific practice and its significance for the daily work of a researcher. Plagiarism is just one category of academic misconduct. The scientific community often evaluates plagiarism as being a lesser form of scientific misconduct compared with others, e.g. data fabrication or data falsification, because fabricated data could have a more misleading influence on research, e.g. on the development of medical drugs or therapies. Nowadays detection of plagiarism is much easier with the help of appropriate software products. Furthermore plagiarism can easily be avoided by taking part in courses for correct referencing and citation. Certainly it would be very helpful to start with the prevention of academic misconduct already at secondary school level.

Keywords

• Austrian Agency for Research Integrity
• academic misconduct
• plagiarism
• prevention
• good scientific practice