Responsible Research Conduct
This topic contains discussion cases bearing on the responsible conduct of research, including both issues of research integrity and issues of the treatment of the research subject.
An Uncommunicative Research Supervisor
I need to publish some of my research but the supervisor who has worked most closely with me on it is failing to communicate so that we can publish togehter.
Credit among Co-authors
Works on research integrity commonly recommend that collaborators work out some understanding about authorship and other publication credit early in their collaboration. Members of an interdisciplinary research and development team have worked out some general understandings about publication credit. How responsible are these ways of handling credit?
Crediting Trainees for Writing Grant Proposals
A graduate student worries that her work, which is incorporated into a grant proposal, may be credited to someone else, since she is finishing up her work for this research supervisor and another graduate student is to be supported if the proposal is funded. This scenario is substantially the same as that to be found at http://www.onlineethics.org/cms/16234.aspx for which Anila Jahangiri was the primary author.
Crediting a postdoc on a grant
What should a postdoc do when his ex-boss uses his ideas to fund somebody else after he has left the lab?
Credit, rights and responsibilities of dissertation advisor
Against the program's guidelines,a doctoral student requests a summer defense within a few weeks of presenting her advisor with a first draft at the end of June. The student had intended to defend in the fall, apparently changed her mind and now wanted a defense the 1st week of August. Since committee members are entitled 2 weeks to read the document, the manuscript had to be ready for circulation two weeks after placing it in the advisor's mailbox. The advisor, who had supervised and provided support for all aspects of the program for over a year, was out of town when the student deposited the first draft in her home mailbox and sent an email to the advisor saying that she would set a date and defend if she did not hear from the advisor in a two week period. Upon arriving back in town, the advisor agreed to provide feedback but would not approve a defense until the start of fall semester, two weeks after the student's desired date. The student replied that she was sorry the advisor could not be present at the defense. Without consulting the advisor, the program's Director who was not involved in the research or on the committee, agreed to Chair the defense. After the defense, the student wrote a note requesting to join the lab of the Director and filled out new paper work with the Director's name instead of that of the advisor. In Dissertation Abstracts, the Director is listed as the Advisor/Chair of the study.
Reporting Plagiarism by Someone at a Different Institution
What are the ethical obligations applicable to the discovery of plagiarism within a textbook authored by an academic at an Institution other than my own?