Fraud Detection and Prevention in Online Research: Lessons Learned and Recommendations

Fraudulent research activity presents significant risks to data integrity, potentially leading to inaccurate conclusions, erosion of public trust in research, and harm to future research efforts. Investigators conducting online studies or using online recruitment methods must proactively develop strategies to prevent, assess, and address fraud. Literature on methods for fraud prevention, assessment, and remediation is emerging, but limited.

The objectives of this paper were to (1) describe fraud that occurred in 3 nursing research case studies that employed qualitative and quantitative methods and (2) provide pragmatic recommendations along with a customizable fraud protocol template that investigators can apply to assess and respond to fraud in online studies.Case Studies and Recommendations:For each study, we describe the study design, the fraud that occurred, and actions taken to remediate the fraud as well as assessing and preventing future fraud. We introduce a novel fraud protocol template that can be customized to the needs of individual researchers and studies. In this protocol, we offer investigators a tool to assess and address fraud. We also offer additional strategies to prevent future fraud. Investigators can adapt the protocol to fit studies of various methodologies and implement strategies according to institutional review board requirements.

Fraud is a critical concern in online research. We urge investigators to apply universal protections against fraud when conducting studies or recruitment online. The proposed fraud protocol template can be adapted for fraud detection with online studies of various methodologies.