1. Ethics in Research Rebecca Lunstroth, JD, MA
Assistant Director and Assistant Professor
McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics

2. Objectives Introduce ethical concepts in research
Examine why these concepts can be problematic
Explore plagiarism and data ownership

3. Principles Honesty Objectivity Openness Confidentiality Carefulness
Respect for colleagues
Respect for IP
Respect for the law
Respect for research subjects
Stewardship
Social Responsibility
Freedom

5. Scientific Misconduct and Misbehavior
Fabrication – Making up
Falsification - manipulating
Plagiarism
Selective Reporting
Redundant Publications
Hidden Conflicts of Interest
Authorship Misrepresentations

7. US vaccine researcher sentenced to prison for fraud

8. Incident Rate of FFP
Source: Ferric, FC, Steen, RG & Casadevall, A. “Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications.” Proc Natl Acad Sci (42)

9. Journals with most retractions#
Science 70
Proceedings of Nat. Aca of Science 69
The J. of Biological Chemistry 54
Nature 44
Anesthesia & Analgesia 40
J. Of Immunology 34
Blood 28
The J. of Clinical Investigation 23
Journal #
Cell 22
Biochem. & Biophysical Research 18
New England J. of Medicine 16
The EMBO J. 15
J. of Hazardous Materials
Molecular & Cellular Biology
Source: Ferric, FC, Steen, RG & Casadevall, A. “Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications.” Proc Natl Acad Sci (42)

10. Source: Ferric, FC, Steen, RG & Casadevall, A
Source: Ferric, FC, Steen, RG & Casadevall, A. “Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications.” Proc Natl Acad Sci (42)

13. Allegedly plagiarized 4144 out of 6033 lines in Henry VI
William Shakespeare
Allegedly plagiarized 4144 out of 6033 lines in Henry VI

14. Proven by a preponderance of the evidence.
Plagiarism
The appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit
Taking credit for someone else's words or works
If you use someone’s work, you must give them credit.
You should paraphrase and if you can’t you must use quotations.
Proven by a preponderance of the evidence.

15. The Web and citations 156+ E-only peered review journals.
Many have expanded on-line formats
Must properly cite:
Author
Title
Journal
URL in full or DOI
Year

16. How to Avoid Plagiarism
Give proper credit whenever you use:
Another person’s ideas, opinions or theories.
Facts, statistics, graphs, drawings, or other pieces of information that are not common knowledge.
Quotations when you are using another author’s exact words
Paraphrase and give credit

17. Data Ownership

19. Data Ownership – Who has the legal rights?
Sponsoring Institution
Funding Agency
Principal Investigator

20. Sponsoring Institutions
Maintains ownership (as long as PI is employed)
Distributes funding
Responsible for ensuring ethical conduct of research

21. Funding Agencies
May impose stipulations for how data will be retained and disseminated.

22. Principle Investigator
Steward of project’s data – physical custody
May have right to access and use data.
May take data with them if they change organizations

23. HOOP # 92

24. Concluding Thoughts
As scientists you have an obligation to society to conduct ethically constructed experiments.
You also have an obligation to your colleagues and the enterprise to be honest, open, objective, careful and confidential.
Data generated at UT is typically owned by UT (unless there's a contract)
There are forces that cause good people to do bad things: don't get caught up

25. Associate Director and Assistant Professor
Bringing Ethics and Humanity
to Health Care
Rebecca Lunstroth, JD
Associate Director and Assistant Professor