Establishing good collaborative research practices in the responsible conduct of research in nursing science

Team science is advocated to speed the pace of scientific discovery, yet the goals of collaborative practice in nursing science and the responsibilities of nurse stakeholders are sparse and inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to examine nurse scientists' views on collaborative research as part of a larger study on standards of scientific conduct.

Web-based descriptive survey of nurse scientists randomly selected from 50 doctoral graduate programs in the United States.

Nearly forty percent of nurse respondents were not able to identify good collaborative practices for the discipline; more than three quarters did not know of any published guidelines available to them. Successful research collaborations were challenged by different expectations of authorship and data ownership, lack of timeliness and communication, poorly defined roles and responsibilities, language barriers, and when they involve junior and senior faculty working together on a project.

Individual and organizational standards, practices, and policies for collaborative research needs clarification within the discipline.