Individuals are primarily subject to the regulations of the institution at which they are enrolled or working. For JGU members, whether they are employees, doctoral candidates or students, the regulations on safeguarding good scientific practice and dealing with scientific misconduct at JGU are therefore relevant. National and international regulations, such as the DFG Code of Conduct or the European Code of Conduct, can be consulted if necessary and may be particularly relevant in the case of cooperation with other institutions.

When working scientifically, you should always follow a few rules in order not to misbehave scientifically. Every scientist has a great responsibility towards (scientific) society. Abusing trust in science can have serious consequences for science. Some rules of good scientific practice are subject-specific. However, there are also many general rules that apply across all disciplines when conducting scientific work or research. A code of good scientific practice summarizes these generally applicable interdisciplinary rules.

“Scientific misconduct is considered to be any behavior in scientific activities that is likely to damage the knowledge process or trust in science or the trusting cooperation of scientists. In particular, actions that compromise the integrity of data and information, lead to the false attribution of intellectual work, hinder the research activities of others or violate the relationship of trust between supervisor and supervisee or reviewer and reviewee fall under the concept of scientific misconduct.” (§ 15 para. 1 of the JGU regulations)

The types of misconduct include in particular

• False statements (§ 16 JGU Regulations),
• non-transparent handling of academic achievements of others (§ 17 JGU Regulations),
• Impairment of the research activities of others (§ 18 JGU Regulations)
• Misconduct in special positions of power or leadership (§ 20 JGU Regulations)
• Joint responsibility for academic misconduct (§ 21 JGU Regulations)

More detailed information can be found in the paragraphs indicated.

The Legal Affairs Office, the University Development Department and the Academic Integrity Competence Center have drawn up guidelines on how to deal with deception. You can find it in the toolbox “Communicating Academic Integrity” in the “Control and Sanction” section (access only with a JGU employee account). You can also find further useful information on the FAQ Examination Law pages, including on the topics of cheating, plagiarism and copyright.

In the event of suspected scientific misconduct, the ombudsperson and the Commission for the Investigation of Suspected Scientific Misconduct of JGU take various steps to clarify the facts of the case and possible sanctions. These are set out in the JGU Regulations for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice in para. Practice in paragraphs 22-27.

A diagram of the process can be downloaded here as a PDF file (or alternatively here in the printer-friendly black and white version).

“If errors or inconsistencies are discovered after publication, these are corrected by the authors themselves or the publisher or publication platform concerned is asked for correction or retraction and identification. This is the only way to ensure that research based on these errors is not impaired by previous errors.” (§ 4 para. 8 of the JGU regulations)

“When publishing research results, all persons who have made a genuine, comprehensible contribution to a scientific text, data or software publication must be named. Unless otherwise stated, all authors are jointly responsible for the content of the publication and agree to the final version before publication. Approval for publication may not be withheld without sufficient and verifiable reason.” (§ 10 para. 1 of the JGU regulations, ed. by AkIn)

“What constitutes a genuine and comprehensible contribution must be examined on a case-by-case basis and depends on subject-specific conventions. The contribution must be made to the
scientific content of the publication. In particular, persons who have contributed in a scientifically relevant manner to
1. the development and conception of the research project or
2. the preparation, collection, procurement, provision of data, software, sources or
3. the analysis/evaluation or interpretation of the data, sources and the conclusions drawn from these or
4. the writing of the manuscript
may be considered authors.” (§ 10 para. 2 of the JGU regulations, ed. by AkIn)

“All persons involved in a research project must be given the opportunity to obtain authorship, even after leaving a research group. The persons eligible for this should be named before the start of the project.” (§ 10 para. 3 of the JGU regulations)

“The naming of authors and the order in which they appear should follow subject-specific conventions and comprehensible criteria. An agreement on the order should be reached and recorded as early as possible.
Persons whose contribution is not sufficient to justify authorship may not be named as authors. Their contribution can be named and acknowledged in the form of footnotes, forewords or acknowledgements. Honorary authorship is not permitted for persons who do not meet any of the criteria listed in § 10 para. 2. A management or supervisor function does not in itself constitute co-authorship.” (§ 10 para. 4 from the JGU Regulations, ed. by AkIn)

“All information and work steps relevant to the production of a research result must be documented in such a comprehensible manner as is necessary and appropriate in the subject area concerned in order to be able to review and evaluate the result.

The documentation includes all relevant steps of the research process. In particular, the following are considered necessary

1. the collected research data and findings, their origin and use,
2. the methods, evaluations, analyses and interpretations used,
3. used intellectual property of others and
4. Source codes (in the development of research software).

In order to be able to review and evaluate results, individual results that do not support the respective research hypothesis or interpretation must also be documented. Ignoring such individual results is contrary to the aim of the review and evaluation and must therefore be avoided.

If, in individual cases, documentation or parts of documentation cannot take place or can only take place to a limited extent for professional, comprehensible reasons, this is explained transparently and comprehensibly and also documented.

Documentation and research results must not be manipulated and must be protected against unauthorized access and manipulation in the best possible way.” (§ 5 para. 1 – 5 of the JGU Regulations, ed. by AkIn)

“Researchers observe the legal framework conditions of a research project. This also includes documented agreements on the rights of use of the resulting research data and research results. Subject to copyright regulations, the use of research data belongs in particular to the person who collects it. In the context of research collaborations and within working groups, a transparent agreement on rights of use to the resulting research data and results must be concluded at the earliest possible stage. In the event of an upcoming change of institution, rights and conditions for the possible further use of generated research data for own research projects must be clarified at an early stage.” (§ 6 para. 4 of the JGU regulations, ed. by AkIn)

The JGU Research Data Competence Team is available to answer questions.

“The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is fundamentally open to the use of AI tools. However, each institute and each lecturer can decide for themselves whether AI tools may be used or not for each examination. Therefore, find out in advance whether you are allowed to use AI tools. If so, clarify which tools are allowed. Additionally, you should inform yourself about the citation requirements, specifically how to acknowledge these tools.

In order not to violate the principles of good scientific practice, which include compliance with transparency, it must be possible to trace which AI tools were used. Currently, these are considered tools that must be cited, provided their use is permitted in academic work. 
There are different ways to cite AI tools, e.g. :

• Directly after the corresponding text passage or text section with the indication of the tool used (see handout “Citing AI”)
• In tabular form, e.g. as an appendix (see declaration of originality)

You should clarify in advance with your supervisor how the citation should appear in your work.”

(Source: https://www.ub.uni-mainz.de/en/ai-tools-learning-companions, last checked: 23.02.2025)

Further information can be found here on the University Library website.

“There are now also AI research tools that you can use. They offer several useful features, like text summaries or evaluations, searching for research methods, or displaying related texts in a network format. AI may be able to do it all – but it’s still far from perfect. What you should generally pay attention to when using research AI tools, what they can and cannot do (keyword: data sources) you will learn about in Learning Unit 3 of the self-paced course “Effective Research for Seminar and Thesis Papers“.

The use of AI research tools is generally less problematic than that of text-generating AI tools, as long as they are only used for research and no texts written by the tool are used in the examination paper. To be on the safe side, it is advisable to ask the lecturers beforehand.”

(Source: https://www.ub.uni-mainz.de/en/ai-tools-learning-companions, last checked: 23.02.2025)

Further information can be found here on the University Library website.

“If you use an AI tool, you should be well informed about the legal framework and data protection guidelines.

The following must be observed: 

• Many AI tools require you to register to gain access to the content or all of the content.
• The servers are often located outside the EU – not GDPR-compliant.
• Do not disclose any private or sensitive information.
• Almost all publishers prohibit the uploading of electronic full texts of their e-books or e-journals to AI tools.
• Only upload texts to AI tools for which you own the rights or which are available in Open Access .

Be aware: If you upload texts to AI tools or create or edit texts/images using AI tools, you generally transfer all rights. “

(Source: https://www.ub.uni-mainz.de/en/ai-tools-learning-companions, last checked: 23.02.2025)

Further information can be found here on the University Library website.