Development of clearance approval process for Department of Disease Control’s academic products

Abstract

Implemented by Department of Disease Control (CDC), DDC clearance is one of the policies that is primarily intended to support and monitor quality of academic products before dissemination. A small number of DDC researchers engaged in policy practice. The explanation of this problem is still unknown.
To address this gap, we conducted this research to understand the reason why most DDC researchers have not participated in DDC clearance and to develop a more practical process of DDC clearance. This research was designed based on action research methodology. It contained 4 steps which were: (1) identify problems,
(2) develop process (model), (3) try out the model, and (4) evaluate the model by subject matter experts. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches was used in the data analysis. The result indicated that all stakeholders have not fully understood the DDC clearance process. A possible explanation for the problems may be the lack of communications. DDC clearance is not compulsory and has unclear procedures; therefore, most researchers tend to disregard the process. This study developed the DDC clearance process based on publication ethics consisting of (1) authorship, (2) plagiarism, (3) conflict of interest, (4) privacy and confidentiality, (5) redundant publication, and (6) salami publication, as well as reducing the time
required for consideration procedure. This developed DDC clearance was tested on 52 people. Moreover, the developed procedure and assessment form were approved by subject matter experts in the final step.
Communication strategy might be used to increase the number of researchers who comply with DDC clearance. The developed DDC clearance from this study should be implemented and further evaluated in order to improve DDC clearance in an effective manner.