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Now I'm preparing my manuscript and have one article which is already published, and my thesis has been developed from my previous work.

For my thesis, I derived a model based on the literature review, but my advisor gave my model to his new student. Even though he is working his own, he has similar variables as my studies. And it seems like he is going to publish his article even earlier than me. Since the model has not been used that often in my field, I'm not really happy with this. My advisor also gave him my original manuscript file. What should I do? I cannot stop thinking about it.

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    You should make sure that you'll be a coauthour on his paper and then stop thinking about it.
    – user120011
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 16:24
  • How much has already been published about the model or using it? Published by you or others?
    – Buffy
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 16:30
  • @Buffy the model will be used for my thesis which I'm working on now and my previous article was published a few months ago. The model is a statistical model, just in case to prevent misunderstanding
    – eggy
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 16:45
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    Well go talk to your advisor about it. If it's highly derived from your work you probably should be a coauthor; if your work was only the launching point then a citation would be enough. Figure out which one and then stop thinking about it.
    – user120011
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 17:04
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    If you have published the model, I would expect others to use it. What am I missing here? Did the advisor give your code or something?
    – Dawn
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 19:24

1 Answer 1

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What is going on may be entirely ethical, though questions remain. Multiple papers based on a single model is fine, even typical. Such papers can legitimately be written by different authors. Still not a problem.

But the originator of the model needs to be credited with its creation in any papers that result. Citations need to be given when possible. Otherwise it is plagiarism.

I don't think you need to be a co-author on the other student's work but you need credit for your work in anything that results.

And, you also need assurance that you won't be plagiarized and you need to deal with that issue soon, since the other student is not experienced, I expect.

Even giving editable documents to the other student may not be as big a deal as you think, since information can be extracted from pdfs as well.

Talk to your advisor and make sure that appropriate assurances are in place. If the other student is publishing a variation or an expansion of your work it can be completely valid. Perhaps a meeting of the three of you can provide assurance here. If everything is ethical, then no one should object to such a meeting.

You need to assure yourself that no one is "stepping on" your current work or plagiarizing it. But, in general, creating a model is not a "hands off" signal to everyone else.

The question of co-authorship may still be open if parts of your work need to be included in the work of another. But that might also require some additional work on your part to complete the work of the other student. That can be part of any conversation.

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