Abstract
Considerable demand for academic research and publications is not a new subject of discussion in the academic field. In Indonesia, there is increasing challenge and pressure to conduct scientific publications, making it a very competitive field for academics, particularly for lecturers and postgraduate students. The present study examines Indonesian scholars’ perceptions of academic publishing as a demand from institutions and the government, as well as their understanding of academic misconduct. We conducted a survey with open-ended questions to 55 scholars. The results suggest that Indonesian scholars are knowledgeable about academic publishing and believe that this obligation is inevitable and beneficial for them. To what extent academic misconduct in publications falls under their understanding, though, is still unclear. When presented with information on academic misconduct, in particular using unethical publication services, they show an ambiguous and inconsistent manner, as if the misconduct is understandable. Interestingly, they also reveal other ethically dubious behaviors that appear to be common among Indonesian scholars. The findings indicate that the issue of academic misconduct is still addressed ambiguously by using publication demands as a scapegoat to justify certain unethical publication practices.
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Notes
This is according to our observation of some reviews on their e-commerce accounts.
See the questionnaire’s full items in Supplementary Material.
There were four themes in our earliest report. However, in order to focus on the topic raised in this paper and to shorten the length, we decided to omit the fourth theme “criteria for a qualified paper”.
Tridharma is three main obligations of higher education/university to organize and provide education, research, and community service.
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We thank all participants for their willingness to take part in the present study and wish to thank Maria Shafita for her contribution in language editing.
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Yuliana Hanami and Idhamsyah Eka Putra conceptualized and developed the idea and design of the present research. Yuliana Hanami, Muhammad Aldan Relintra, and Syauqiyyah Syahlaa contributed to the development and data collection of all studies. Yuliana Hanami and Idhamsyah Eka Putra contributed to the finalization of the manuscript. All the authors approved the final manuscript for submission.
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Hanami, Y., Putra, I.E., Relintra, M.A. et al. Questioning Scientific Publications: Understanding how Indonesian Scholars Perceive the Obligation to Publish and its Ethical Practices. J Acad Ethics 21, 625–647 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-023-09475-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-023-09475-7