The creators of a game of research-integrity puzzles hope to open up discussions among scientists
Credit: Mathieu van Kooten/Erasmus University
An app that makes a game out of resolving research-integrity dilemmas has been downloaded by thousands of people since its launch in 2020. The project, presented at the World Conference on Research Integrity in Cape Town, South Africa, last week, is designed to get researchers talking about issues they might previously have had to grapple with alone.
More than 12,000 people have used the Dilemma Game app over the past 6 months, and researchers in Belgium, Nigeria, Italy, Estonia, Czech Republic, India, Denmark and Turkey are among its top users.spoke to Nick den Hollander, a senior policy officer at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where the game was developed.The app presents different scenarios for people to think and talk about. These dilemmas are written from the perspective of a PhD student, lecturer or journal editor.
You get four options. Option one might be: “I should reject this offer and file a complaint to the ethical committee, because my supervisor is trying to commit fraud.” Another could be: “I should add his name — it’s not that bad if the content of the paper is still the same, and sometimes you have to accept a bit of help.” And there will be two other options.