Timeline for Did my professor act unethically by publishing a paper with a figure from my thesis without any acknowledgement?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 7, 2022 at 20:09 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | Depending on your location, even if you make minor alterations, it would still count as plagiarism and potentially copyright infringement if you do not cite the original source. @ZeroTheHero The figure in the thesis is a redraft of a figure from an older study. The figure in the professor’s text comprises a direct copy of the figure from the thesis plus an extra expounding section added by the professor. | |
| May 23, 2022 at 11:36 | comment | added | ZeroTheHero | @rowrow what’s the deal with the “older study” then? | |
| May 23, 2022 at 6:30 | comment | added | rowrow | Wrote the following on a different comment, but think it's useful on this discussion too to clear any doubts. Half of the published figure is definitely the figure from my thesis (he has the files, as he asked for them at the end of my time there). Also, to explain further, think of the figure my advisor published as two halves. The bottom half is the exact redrafted figure on my thesis. The top half is a sorta "blown-up," more detailed look at the process that the bottom half is alluding to (albeit, with my advisor's slightly own take on it). | |
| May 22, 2022 at 19:29 | comment | added | ZeroTheHero | @Era it’s not so clear. Here (as I understand), a similar figure using different data but the same template was used, thereby NOT modifying the student original work, but independently producing instead alook-alike. I still think it lacks decency (to use wording of another comment) and in very poor judgement. | |
| May 22, 2022 at 19:22 | comment | added | ZeroTheHero | @Trunk Absolutely! | |
| May 22, 2022 at 18:57 | comment | added | Era | If you use or modify another person's nontrivial work (the question author stated it was clearly from the specific file they had) without permission or acknowledgement, then it is plagiarism. The similarity of the end result is not the only consideration. | |
| May 22, 2022 at 17:51 | comment | added | user104446 | Any professor with a shred of decency would not seek to publish anything related to his student's work till the student had first published the primary paper - a paper in which the professor presumably would be a co-author anyhow. By getting a sole author paper out ahead of his student's paper he is making the student's work look like that of a frontman rather than that of an independent researcher. | |
| May 22, 2022 at 13:38 | comment | added | ZeroTheHero | @Trunk Clearly here by using the same figure template with an old data set rather than the most recent data, the goal is (at least in my mind) to avoid technical plagiarism, and it will lessen the impact of the thesis once the embargo has ended | |
| May 22, 2022 at 13:34 | comment | added | ZeroTheHero | @Trunk I don’t disagree and I would never do this myself but people do and they argue they rejigged the figures to avoid technical plagiarism. Again I think it’s particularly insensitive to do this to your student, but simply because it’s stupid doesn’t mean it’s unethical or illegal. | |
| May 22, 2022 at 12:25 | comment | added | user104446 | You miss the point that, in some fields, figures/graphs/etc can have an instant impact on the reader, can say in a second what loads of text painfully aggregates. This is especially so in showing an anomaly to a previously presumed trend. By using the OP's - as yet unpublished - adapted figure (which in itself may include additional interesting data and/or perspectives) as well as his own changes, he may be to some extent pre-publishing and credit stealing, in my view. This is unacceptable in an academic environment where a relationship of trust must exist between colleagues. | |
| May 22, 2022 at 1:30 | history | answered | ZeroTheHero | CC BY-SA 4.0 |