Exhibition Poster Download Pack: How Trustworthy? An Exhibition on Negligence, Fraud, and Measuring Integrity

How could notorious art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi get away with his dubious activities for so long, why do published images from space do not directly reflect what Hubble Telescope captures, why are predatory journals a threat to the reliability of academic research and why did Diederik Stapel make up many of his studies?

Questions like these are dealt with in the exhibition “How Trustworthy?”. The exhibition presents real-world cases from a wide variety of different fields and has four parts. One has to do with image manipulation and falsification, ranging from art works to tests used in medical studies. Another focuses on research data, including human errors, bad choices, and complete fabrication. A third is concerned with text-based information and discusses plagiarism as well as fake journals and censorship. The last section covers detection and the nuanced analysis needed to distinguish the grey zones between minor problems and gross negligence in case of fraud.

The goal of this exhibition – developed by the HEADT Centre in 2018 – is to increase awareness about research integrity. After the exhibition was shown in Berlin in the foyer of the Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm Zentrum (the main university library) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2018/2019, it is now available for public and educational use and can be downloaded from the Humboldt Store.

The exhibition has four chapters: Text and Integrity, Images and Integrity, Data and Integrity and Detection (which includes a greyscale model for evaluating plagiarism, developed at the HEADT Centre). It can serve as a learning tool in classrooms or can be used as a presentation for larger audiences.