Chapter 8: Research Misconduct Per Fors Luimar Correa Filho Zhen Qiu Fengzhen Sun

1 RESEARCH MISCONDUCT

theft of others’ ideas and data Narrow sense theft of others’ ideas and data plagiarism of other people’s texts manipulation (or falsification) of data Wide sense other forms of reprehensible behavior defamation of colleagues exaggeration of one’s qualifications in applications sabotage of colleagues’ work sexual harassment publication of the same study in multiple contexts

SUMMARY Fabrication & falsification Plagiarism & self-plagiarism Establishing & preventing plagiarism Addressing questions of misconduct

2 THE ETHICAL DILEMMA

You and another PhD student at your department is often discussing research and send each other unfinished papers research. One day, you find out that your colleague has used many of your data in a paper without citing or inviting you to co-write the paper with his. When you confront your colleague, he argues that the ideas are his alone. What can you do?

plagiarism ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS Plagiarism in research entails a researcher using material (texts, ideas, hypotheses, “designs”, methods, data, results or conclusions) consciously or through carelessness in such a way that it presents a misleading picture of the researcher’s contribution to the project at hand.

OPTION 1: Do nothing Pros Cons Sacrifice/Damage of your research project Low outcome perhaps leading to failure in following research funding applications Risk of repeated misconduct behavior Pros Keep friendship/collaboration

OPTION 2: Communicate with this person privately Cons Cannot compensate your loss Unable to realize this bad behavior profoundly Pros Keep your friendship/collaboration Let him realize his behavior is a kind of research misconduct Keep his research reputation.

OPTION 3: Talk to supervisors Cons Still cannot get any compensation from this behavior let his supervisor doubt his research attitude and responsibility Pros Protection of both sides’ reputation Avoid of this bad behavior repeated in some extents if the PhD student is educated Let your own supervisor know your work Help your supervisor choose cooperation carefully

OPTION 4: Report to the Journal Cons Break your collaboration Both of your reputation is at risk somehow Probable leakage of the privacy, such as the private information of patient in medicine research time consuming Pros Rescure your loss perhaps Combat against this research misconduct

Thanks for your attention!