Scientific Ethics, Pt' 2:

1
Scientific Ethics, Pt. 2 Issues and Case
Studies
Alan Nathan and Celia Elliott
2
Scientific Ethics Issues
Observational selectivity and data manipulation
Plagiarism
Citation practices
?
Collaborator and Authoring Issues
?
Refereeing papers
?
Preparing Your Curriculum Vitae (CV)
?
Information Exchange (seminars)
3
Case Studies Responsibility of Coauthors
APS News, Ask the Ethicist (November 2003)
http//www.aps.org/apsnews/1103/110318.cfm
My former collaborators recently included me as
coauthor on a paper that I never laid eyes on
prior to its publication. I wholeheartedly
respect the authors and have absolute faith in
their work. I am also grateful that they feel my
earlier contributions warranted coauthorship.
However, is it ethical for them to add my name to
a paper if I didn't have a chance to review it?
What should I do to correct the record now?
Question How would you answer this person?
4
Case Studies Responsibility of Coauthors
APS News, Ask the Ethicist (November 2003)
http//www.aps.org/apsnews/1103/110318.cfm
My former collaborators recently included me as
coauthor on a paper that I never laid eyes on
prior to its publication. I wholeheartedly
respect the authors and have absolute faith in
their work. I am also grateful that they feel my
earlier contributions warranted coauthorship.
However, is it ethical for them to add my name to
a paper if I didn't have a chance to review it?
What should I do to correct the record now?
ATE Response In years past, your former
collaborators' generosity technically did not
reach the level of an ethics breach Recent,
highly publicized ethics violations, however,
have raised the bar with regards to assigning
physics paper authorship. The original APS
Guidelines for Professional Conduct, which were
adopted in 1991, state "Authorship should be
limited to those who have made a significant
contribution to the concept, design, execution or
interpretation of the research study. All those
who have made significant contributions should be
offered the opportunity to be listed as authors."
New language in 2002, however, complicates things
a bit.
According to the updated guidelines, "Every
coauthor should have the opportunity to review
the manuscript before its submission. All
coauthors have an obligation to provide prompt
retractions or correction of errors in published
works. Any individual unwilling or unable to
accept appropriate responsibility for a paper
should not be a coauthor."
5
Case Studies Responsibility of Coauthors
APS News, Ask the Ethicist (April 2004)
http//www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200404/eth
ics.cfm
A couple of years ago I was writing a paper and
disliked the look of a figure a collaborator had
made. Since I had set up the apparatus he was
using, I knew how to access the raw data and
downloaded it in order to make a more attractive
plot. When I did so, I was shocked to see that
the data that were presented in the figure as
being from one specimen were actually from three
different specimens. He had created a false
impression of reversibility by gathering together
data that were actually on different samples.
Questions What should the person do in this
situation?
6
Case Studies Responsibility of Coauthors
APS News, Ask the Ethicist (June 2004)
http//www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200406/eth
icist.cfm
At my previous postdoc position I worked on a
research project inspired by a discussion with a
senior collaborator, and then was carried out
exclusively by myself. I presented the work at a
conference, with myself, the senior collaborator,
and another collaborator as authors. After the
conference I wrote a proceeding paper, which my
collaborators reviewed. Months later, while by
browsing the Internet, I discovered that my
senior collaborator had submitted an abstract
that was nearly identical to the one published
earlier, only five sentences were different out
of seven pages. I contacted my collaborator and
asked him to either withdraw the paper or remove
my name. The paper has not been withdrawn. I am
not sure if my name has been removed.
Questions Should the publication of the
manuscript be stopped completely? After all it is
a copy of a different paper. Should this person
contact the editors of the journal?
7
Case Studies Responsibility of Coauthors
Online Ethics (Volume 4)
http//onlineethics.org/cms/16305.aspx
When his thesis is finally finished, Dr. Lee
feels that his student Mark should publish his
work. He also wants to make Mark's dissertation
available for immediate feedback from the
scientific community by posting it on the now
well-established national web database.
Mark is shocked. He had always planned to publish
a book for both the scientific and lay
communities. He feels publication of a book would
be an asset to his career, and he does not want
to publish it on the internet, for fear that easy
access to the information would reduce the
significance of his book. He does not believe his
professor has the right to tell him how the
information will be made available.
Questions What can Mark do? What should he do?
8
Case Studies Ownership of Data
When Bill Stanton completed his
post-doctoral study at the University last year,
he left behind in the lab raw data from a line of
work he had started but never written up or
published. Professor Franklin, in whose lab
Stanton was working, came across the results,
believed they were important, and wanted to
publish them. This work was funded by a federal
agency and he was feeling some pressure to
produce more publications from that funding.
Franklin tried unsuccessfully to contact Stanton
both by letter and telephone. When Franklin
heard from a colleague that Stanton might have
been out of the country, Franklin analyzed and
compiled the data and wrote them up in an
article. Still unable to reach Stanton, Franklin
submitted the article with himself as first
author and Stanton as second author.
Questions Did Franklin behave properly? Should
he have put his name first on the paper? Who
decides this?
Thanks to Tina Gunsalus for this case study
9
Case Studies Authorship Issues
Online Ethics (Volume 4)
http//onlineethics.org/reseth/appe/vol4/single.ht
ml
Mikes thesis advisor suggests that Mike
write-up a description of some calculations Mike
has made, and submit the paper for publication.
The advisor further suggests that Mike submit the
article as the sole author, in spite of the fact
that the paper would involve comparing Mikes
theoretical results to data obtained by another
student in the group, Lisa. Mike likes the
suggestion. He tells Lisa that his advisor
recommended his publishing results in a
single-author paper, and says, "I really think
that this would help my career, plus that's what
our advisor wants. How cheated will you feel if I
publish this paper alone using all the data that
your experiment provides?" Lisa and Mike are
good friends, and she feels obligated to help
him. Even though Lisa is disappointed, she tells
Mike to do whatever he feels is right. Mike
decides to submit the paper as the sole author.
Questions Are the actions of Mike and his
advisor appropriate?
10
Case Studies Authorship Issues
In your first week as department head,
Michael Breen, a graduate student, comes to see
you. He has with him an editors letter to his
major professor, Randall Plotner, soliciting a
chapter from Professor Plotner for an upcoming
book. Scrawled across the bottom is a note
saying Mike, take a stab at this. --RP Breen
has brought with him a stack of drafts of the
chapter which he says represents his work. He
shows you the dates on each draft, and the
handwritten marginal comments by Professor
Plotner making suggestions for revisions and
additions. You can trace the evolution of the
draft, as each of these suggestions is
incorporated in a successive draft. Breen
then shows you a final version with a note at the
end saying Mike -- this is fine. No more work
will be necessary. -- RP Breen says he found
out that Plotner submitted the chapter to the
editor of the book in Plotners name only. Breen
tells you he went to see Plotner about this, and
asked Plotner about credit as a co-author of the
chapter. He reports that Plotner told him Oh,
dont worry about that. This was a learning
exercise. Youll get to co-author things later.
Breen doesnt want any trouble with Plotner, but
feels that he has been unfairly deprived of
credit for work that he has done.
Questions Did Plotner do anything wrong? Can
Breen do anything about this? Should Breen do
anything about this?
Thanks to Tina Gunsalus for this case study
11
Case Studies Responsibility of Coauthors
In the course of drafting a paper for
publication, your coauthor from another
institution tells you that his funding agency
requires him to submit at least one paper in
which his funding agency is listed as the sole
funding source in the acknowledgments. In spite
of the fact that much of the work presented in
the paper was supported by your funding source,
your coauthor requests that he be allowed to list
only his funding source on the publication.
Questions Is this acceptable? What should you
do?
12
Case Studies Refereeing Scientific Papers
APS News, Ask the Ethicist (February 2004)
http//www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200402/eth
icist.cfm
While waiting for a referee's report on a paper
of mine, I received (from the same journal) for
review a paper with substantial overlap (but
obviously independent of mine). The subject was
a field of theoretical physics in which
reviewing is notoriously capricious and often
malicious. I was afraid that my paper would be
rejected, while I knew, based on a casual glance,
that I would write a favorable review of the
paper submitted to me. In that event, the author
of the other paper would receive priority and all
the credit, even though we had both done similar
work, independently and simultaneously.
Questions What should this person have done?
Should he/she have withdrawn as referee of the
paper?
13
Case Studies The Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Jones was asked by a former student,
who was in the process of looking for a faculty
position, to review the students CV. Upon
receiving a copy of the CV, Dr. Jones was
surprised to see that the former student had
listed experience with an experimental technique
that Dr. Jones knew was not in the students
experimental repertoire. Questions Is
this mistake a big deal? How should Dr. Jones
handle the situation?
14
Case Studies Information Exchange in Seminars
Online Ethics (Volume 5)
http//onlineethics.org/reseth/appe/vol5/seminar.h
tml
Every Friday afternoon, the faculty and
graduate students in the Department of Paper
Engineering meet for a seminar. At one of these
meetings, Bill Phillips, a graduate student, gave
a presentation on his partially completed
master's thesis. The topic was a new test method
he was developing for measuring water penetration
into a paper substrate. Tom Ackley, a
graduating doctoral student, attended the seminar
and immediately realized the great potential in
expanding Phillips test method from studying
water interaction to actual ink interaction with
paper. Upon graduation, he entered his new career
as a product development engineer in the research
facility for Trees-R-Us Paper Company. He decided
to refine Phillips's test method according to the
insights he had gained during the seminar.
Questions Was Ackleys attendance at the
seminar ethical? Is it appropriate for Ackley to
develop a new method without consulting the
originator of the idea?
15
Many ethics resources are available

• Online Ethics Center for Engineering and
  Sciencehttp//onlineethics.org/
• Applied Ethics Case of the Month
  Clubhttp//www.niee.org/case-of-the-month/
• Engineering Ethicshttp//repo-nt.tcc.virginia.edu
  /ethics/home.htm
• Fundamentals of Ethics for Scientists and
  Engineers, E.G. Seebauer and R.L. Barry (Oxford,
  Oxford University Press, 2000).
• On Being a Scientist Responsible Conduct in
  Research, 2nd ed., NAS Presshttp//www.nap.edu/re
  adingroom/books/obas/