Ethics and the Welfare of the Physics Profession

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Ethics and the Welfare of the Physics Profession

• Kate Kirby, Frances Houle, Joe Hamilton, Peter
  Meyers, Rocky Kolb
• APS Task Force on Ethics

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An awakening
APS issues ethics statements mainly addressing
publications www.aps.org/statements Ethics task
force charged with assessing the state of ethics
education in physics and APS ethics-related
programs, and recommending new actions
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Scope

• Definition of ethics
• The APS Task Force on Ethics
• Concerns of the physics community
• Lessons learned from investigations into data
  falsification events
• APS actions in 2004 and beyond

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What does Professional Ethics mean ?

• Federal (legal) definition of misconduct centers
  on reporting of research results Fabrication,
  Falsification, Plagiarism
• Task forces definition
• Truthful, careful handling and reporting of data
• Responsible, respectful interactions with
  colleagues and subordinates
• Adherence to APS publication guidelines,
  including proper recognition of research
  contributions

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What is not a violation of professional ethics

• Honest error in recording or analysis of data,
  provided errata and retractions are made promptly
• Honest differences of opinion
• Personality clashes

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Ethics issues outside of the scope of this talk

• Ethical application of the results of physics
  research
• Consideration of environmental impacts of
  research in physics
• Conflicts of interest
• Use of scarce research resources

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Sources of information
Surveys, interviews, Web research APS
Units POPA Ethics chair Physical Review Related
Societies

• The Task Force probed
• ethics education
• ethics awareness
• occurrences of ethics violations
• other ethics concerns
• suggestions for effective ethics training

Surveys Physics dept chairs SPS Junior members
Surveys Selected corporations Large
collaborations
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APS Ethics activities prior to 2003
Surveys, interviews, Web research APS
Units POPA Ethics chair Physical Review Related
Societies

• Units focus on technical programs only
• Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) Ethics
  subcommittee writes statements in response to
  events
• Council approves statements on what is ethical
  and what is not
• Physical Review editors investigate publication
  issues (mainly plagiarism and authorship)

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Academic Sector
Surveys Physics dept chairs SPS Junior members
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Where do young physicists learn about ethics?
Junior members
Undergraduates
Ethics education in physics is largely informal
the silence that exists now
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Keeping a lab notebook Do young physicists learn
how to record and analyze data?
Junior members (all settings)
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Undergraduates
In research groups (if they participated in one)
In lab courses
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The laboratory notebook

• Its the freakin electronic age, dudes! Formal
  training in keeping a laboratory notebook is so
  19th century. With little exception my data were
  acquired electronically, analyzed by computer
  (with pertinent results printed out) and are
  stored electronically. Of course in future
  decades the data will be unreadable, but as there
  are millions of bits of data no one could
  possibly read them anyway.
• an APS Junior member

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What is a research record today ?

• What constitutes original data? What is the best
  way to conserve original data in electronic form?
• What sorts of records should be kept of a
  research project? What if the project involves
  multiple groups and multiple institutions?
• What is the best type of research record when
  most of it is in electronic form? How can the
  record be preserved for the future when
  electronic formats are constantly changing?
• Does teaching undergrads how to do labs and
  report the results help them create a record in
  todays research settings?

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How ethics-related topics are addressed in
physics departments
10 of department chairs reported having
knowledge of ethical violations 80 of chairs
said the 2002 events did not lead to increased
emphasis on ethics
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Jr. Members Responses to Open-ended Questions

• 36 (267 respondees) wrote about what they felt
  were the most serious professional Ethics issues
• 30 (227 respondees) wrote about what Ethics
  training or educational activities would be
  valuable Anything is better than the silence
  that exists now

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Ethics concerns of Junior Members of APS

• Mistreatment by research supervisors
• abuse of grad students
• exploitation viewed as cheap labor, not as
  students
• Lack of credit for work done (inclusion as
  co-authors)
• 8 reported pressure to do unethical things

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Ethics concerns (Jr. ) contd

• 62 of Jr. members thought APS guidelines on
  ethics should include treatment of subordinates
• 39 have PERSONAL knowledge of ethics violations
  during their time as a graduate student

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Career Pressures

• Pressure to publish a high volume of papers
  quickly in elite journals (Science, Nature,
  PRL) contributes to
• less than careful treatment of scientific data
• lack of careful referencing of previous work
• desire to cut corners
• Unfair refereeing practices

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Recommendations of the APS Ethics Task Force

• Follow-up actions in 2004

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1. APS guidelines and statements

• Recommendations
• Expand ethics statements to include topics other
  than publication Treatment of subordinates,
  social responsibilities, intellectual property
• Amend current APS guidelines to address
  additional issues in publication
• Actions
• New statement approved in 2004 on ethical
  treatment of subordinates
• Addendum to guidelines approved covering proper
  referencing

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2. Education

• Recommendations
• Sponsor ongoing discussions of ethics
• Develop long-term and short-term ethics education
  programs
• Work to help department chairs and group leaders
  proactively address ethics issues
• Collect database of model programs and materials
• Actions
• Ethics education is important new focus for APS
  task force on ethics education to be appointed
• To be addressed
• Best way for educational institutions to promote
  awareness of ethical standards
• Who should receive training and when
• Development of resources and materials
• Promotion of educational events at APS meetings
  and articles in APS publications

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3. Recommended practices for data documentation
and retention

• Recommendations
• Protection of the research record in the
  electronic age
• Awareness of legal requirements
• Actions
• Proposal for NRC study made in the National
  Academies
• Sources of funding to be identified

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4. International ethics standards

• Recommendations
• Work with responsible organizations (eg IUPAP,
  other international scientific unions) to develop
  common standards
• Include all areas of physics activity
• Actions
• Focus is on working toward common ethics
  standards and practices in all countries
• International association of physics editors
  currently working on
• Investigation protocols
• Responsibilities of authors institutions
• Alerts to plagiarism
• Legal differences between nations
• Frequent meetings to exchange information
• Some societies creating task forces like the APS

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5. Ethics committee

• Recommendation
• Consider whether to have formal standing
  committee on ethics
• Actions
• Possible committee discussed
• Proceed with focused task force for education and
  reconsider later

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Open issues raised by surveys and misconduct
reports

• What are the responsibilities of coauthors?
• How do we deal with the pressures to do
  sensational work?

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What are the responsibilities of co-authors?

• Discussed in Report of the Schoen Investigation
  Committee, Report of the Ninov Investigation
  Committee
• Relationships based on trust but also the first
  line of defense against misconduct how to
  strike a balance?
• Researchers unable or unwilling to accept
  responsibility for a paper should not be
  co-authors

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Responsibilities of co-authors (contd.)

• Joint responsibility for a work shared credit
  must be matched with shared responsibility
• Maintain a complete research record
• Check each others results
• Complete and careful verification of every
  manuscript that carries ones name
• Circulation of manuscript to all authors prior to
  submission for publication
• Issue corrections if needed

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What earns the status of coauthor?

• Generation and analysis of data
• Supplying critical materials
• Analysis of data taken by others
• Construction of apparatus or writing computer
  codes used in work
• Interpretation of data taken and analyzed by
  others
• Securing funding for the project
• Membership in long-term team with multiple
  related projects
• Loan of equipment or codes
• Consultations and discussions about project
• Original idea for project with little
  participation in execution
• Honorary coauthorship
• Authors management or Director of institute

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Seeds of professional misconduct

• The perpetrator thinks she/he knows the answer
  and is just having a little problem with the data
• Experiments are poorly reproducible anyway so
  whos to know?
• Career pressure
• D. Goodstein, Physics World, 11/2002

Junior members voiced loud concerns over a
system that rewards visibility over quality and
provides incentives to cheat
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• Harris Poll, October 1, 2003 Scientists top list
  of most prestigious occupations
• Prestige Strongly associated with
  respectwidely seen to do great work which
  benefits society and the people they serve.
• survey of all US adults

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Thanks to

• The many APS members who answered our surveys
• Roman Czujko, AIP Statistics department
• Judy Franz, APS Executive Director
• Martin Blume, Editor in Chief, Physical Review
• Myriam Sarachik, APS President, 2003
• Helen Quinn, APS President, 2004
• Arthur Bienenstock and James Tsang, APS POPA
  chairs
• Ken Cole and Amy Halsted, APS staff