of 20 Responsible Authorship Responsible Conduct of Research Seminar George Mason University 2016 Jeff Offutt Professor of Software Engineering, VSE

of 20 OUTLINE © Jeff Offutt2 1.My Background 2.Authorship Rules 3.Plagiarism—What, When, How ?

of 20 My Background Professor of Software Engineering (VSE, CS) –> 165 refereed publications, H-index = 7 –Editor-in-Chief: Journal of Software Testing, Verif., and Reliability –Co-Founder: IEEE Intl Conf. on Software Testing –Author: Introduction to Software Testing –2013 GMU Teaching Excellence Award, Teaching With Technology –Mason Outstanding Faculty Member, 2008, 2009 –Advised 16 PhD students, 7 in progress Research Highlights –First model-based testing paper (UML 1999) –Distributed research tools : muJava, Mothra, Godzilla, Coverage web apps –Seminal papers : Mutation testing, automatic test data generation, OO testing, web app testing, combinatorial testing, logic-based testing, model-based testing © Jeff Offutt3

of 20 Your Background? © Jeff Offutt4 How long have you been in graduate school? Do you have a research advisor? Have you published anything yet? What is your field?

of 20 OUTLINE © Jeff Offutt5 1.My Background 2.Authorship Rules 3.Plagiarism—What, When, How ?

of 20 Authorship Rules © Jeff Offutt6 Everyone who makes substantial contributions to the results are co-authors on papers that present those results All co-authors should see the papers and have the opportunity to participate in the writing before submission The only exception is if a co-author explicitly declines being listed as a co-author

of 20 “Substantial Contribution” YES Would results be different? Ran the experiment Full editing rewrite (maybe) Built experimental infrastructure (lab, software, etc.) In the room ? (maybe) © Jeff Offutt7 How to determine “contribution” ? NO Experimental subject Grammar editing Provide funding Did work that was cut during revision Authorship must be discussed openly, objectively, and rationally

of 20 Authorship Rules © Jeff Offutt8 Two useful “rules of thumb” 1. Would the paper have been substantially different without that person? 2. When in doubt, including someone is usually safer socially than omitting someone

of 20 Authorship Rules © Jeff Offutt9 Can I add someone as co-author as a favor for helping me? Obtaining funding Obtaining funding Advisor Advisor Boyfriend Boyfriend No, that’s plagiarism Can I omit someone from the author list who angered me? No, that’s plagiarism

of 20 Authorship Order © Jeff Offutt10 Possible ordering strategies: Order of contribution Order of contribution Alphabetical order Alphabetical order Contact author first Contact author first “Primary” author first, then alphabetical “Primary” author first, then alphabetical My preferences: Students first (esp. their dissertation work) Order of contribution if possible Alphabetical

of 20 © Jeff Offutt11 What ordering strategy do you (or your advisors) use?

of 20 OUTLINE © Jeff Offutt12 1.My Background 2.Authorship Rules 3.Plagiarism—What, When, How ?

of 20 What is Plagiarism? © Jeff Offutt13 “To use the words or ideas of another person as if they were your own words or ideas” — Merriam-Webster Dictionary Self copying is not plagiarism (but possibly a copyright violation) “Taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own” — Oxford Dictionary

of 20 Types of Plagiarism © Jeff Offutt14 Copying key results Copying unpublished work Copying auxiliary text Copying figures Improper quoting Complete copying Submitting most or all of a paper as if it were your own Claiming someone else’s results, even with different words or unpublished Copying words or results from an unpublished source Copying sentences or paragraphs from related work, background, etc. Copying a figure from another paper Missing quotation marks or improper reference to quoted text

of 20 Why Do People Plagiarize? © Jeff Offutt15 Knowingly Desperation— They are required to publish and can’t Lack of Ethics— No sense of right and wrong, sociopathic Poor Judgment— They believe they won’t be caught Advisors Did— They think it’s normal Can’t Write— Copying text from better writers

of 20 Why Do People Plagiarize? © Jeff Offutt16 Unknowingly They don’t understand what plagiarism is Forgetfulness— They read it, forgot, and thought they invented it Laziness— They worked with the wrong co-authors Ignorance— They don’t know how to write citations Poor Planning— They are late and take a shortcut Paraphrasing— Thinking that changing 2 words in a paragraph makes it your own words

of 20 © Jeff Offutt17 Journal editors do not care why. All plagiarism is considered as knowing, willful, and intentional. We have “one strike and you’re out” policies.

of 20 How To Avoid Plagiarism? © Jeff Offutt18 Properly reference ideas that aren’t yours We are supposed to “stand on the shoulders of giants” Rewrite text that you want to use—even if your writing is not as good Redraw figures—and be sure to reference the original! If an idea is unpublished, either contact the author directly or forget it Understand plagiarism! Too many references is better than too few

of 20 Discussion Discussion : Which of these constitute plagiarism? © Jeff Offutt19 Yes No Yes No Yes 1.Copying your friend’s introduction, changing a few words? 2.Copying a figure from your previous paper? 3.Watching your classmate write a program, then going home and writing your own program from memory? 4.Reusing terms defined in a paper you reviewed and rejected? 5.Submitting a paper to two different journals at the same time? 6.Forgetting where you read something, so omitting the reference? 7.Adding additional material to your conference paper and submitting the expanded paper to a journal? 8.Copying background paragraphs from your advisor’s paper into your dissertation? Yes

of 20 Contact & References © Jeff Offutt20 Jeff Offutt Three of my editorials from STVR Plagiarism Is For Losers cs.gmu.edu/~offutt/stvr/25-1-January2015.html Who Is An Author? cs.gmu.edu/~offutt/stvr/25-2-March2015.html How to Get Your Paper Rejected from STVR cs.gmu.edu/~offutt/stvr/24-6-September2014.html