Questions tagged [ethics]
On making a decision based on morals or common ethical codes instead of etiquette, rules, institutional or government policy, or technical or procedural reasons.
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Is it acceptable to write a reference letter for yourself?
If a student needs a reference letter for graduate admissions or that sort of thing, some profs will ask the student to write a reference letter for themself before sending it off to the prof for ...
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19
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I was caught cheating on an exam, how can I minimize the damage?
I got caught cheating in a two-hour engineering exam consisting of 100 multiple choice questions which was done online through the moodle e-learning software. I feel like my life is almost over.
...
user23292
130
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7
answers
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Asked again to review a paper, when the authors don't wish to modify it
I have received a manuscript to review for a journal. The interesting thing is, I had already reviewed this article (exact same title, abstract and author list, almost exact same content) for another ...
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128
votes
17
answers
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Is it okay to report classmates cheating on exams?
Is it acceptable or ok to report on students cheating? Many times during a test or an exam, I have seen students in front of me either passing notes, or otherwise collaborating whenever the professor ...
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53
votes
8
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Why don't all disciplines follow a double-blind review system?
I'm new to the journal publishing world, and I can't but help wonder why the review process isn't completely blind? By blind, I mean the reviewers don't know who performed the research or (more ...
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197
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4
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Rediscovery of calculus in 1994: what should have happened to that paper?
There's a well-known paper in academic circles that features a rediscovery of the trapezoidal rule for numerical integration by a medical researcher:
“A Mathematical Model for the Determination of ...
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64
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2
answers
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How to acknowledge a deceased advisor’s contributions to a paper?
One of my advisors suddenly passed away while I was in graduate school. We had some discussions and ideas about future publications, but he passed away before any of the work was completed. When the ...
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76
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4
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My advisor submitted a paper with my work without including me as an author
As you might see from my history I don't have a good relationship with my advisor. Recently we wrote a journal paper together based on my thesis. I wrote the introduction, analysis and the description ...
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133
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16
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Is it ethical to profit by having my students buy my textbook?
This question was suggested to me by How can I sell my text book to my students in e-book format? which asked about the practicalities but attracted many comments about the ethics. So this question is ...
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44
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6
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Is it ethical to withdraw a paper after acceptance in order to resubmit to a better journal?
I think the title asks the question, but once again in more words:
Suppose you submit a paper to a journal and it is accepted by the journal. By this I mean that the journal tells you that they have ...
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127
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Is it ethical/acceptable to give a lighter penalty to students who admit to cheating?
I am at the moment dealing with an academic dishonesty incident in a class I'm teaching (a few groups of students submitting identical code, when the class policy forbids getting help from another ...
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61
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4
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How to discourage irrelevant self-citation?
I once reviewed a manuscript whose authors cited many of their own published papers, which were not relevant to the subject of the manuscript. This kind of practice is evidently frowned upon by the ...
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4
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Should I waive my right to view my recommendation letters?
Most graduate applications provide a choice for applicants to view their recommendation letters at a later date. There is a mention of some US mandate alongside.
Is it a better option to forgo this ...
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5
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Will self-citation be viewed as self-promotion in academia?
As we know, citation counts are important to judge one's research activity. Is it good to cite one's previous works? Will it be viewed as an act of advertisement or self-promotion?
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Is it ethical to accept small gifts from students? And how small is small?
Is it ethical to accept small gifts from students? In past years I have one or two students have given me small gifts, generally a box of chocolates. I judge the size of gifts on my international beer ...
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35
votes
7
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Is it common to claim co-authorship by helping writing a paper without doing any research
In my research group, there is a researcher who usually approaches other PhD students who are about to write papers in order to offer his help. Normally, he does not actually do any research related ...
- 3,357
26
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6
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Worry about stealing of research ideas
I have gotten an idea in the field of Computer Science that it can result in a research paper. The problem is that I lack the adequate background in one part needed for this research, mostly ...
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6
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2
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What is the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement?
In this several times up-voted answer, it is suggested, among other things, that 'if someone using an image [...] that they do not own (it) is inappropriate and should be first reported to the PI of ...
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150
votes
5
answers
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What to do if a referee plagiarises the result after rejecting a paper?
I find myself in an awkward situation. Nearly two years ago I submitted a paper to a reputable mathematics journal. After 15 months it was rejected with the rationale that there had been papers ...
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107
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14
answers
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Is it ethical for a professor to get masters students to work on open source modules related to the professor's profit-making company?
My professor of Computer Science has a company (both based in Germany) that promotes an open-source software. Of course the software is free and open-source, but his company generates profits through ...
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77
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4
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During review, I found a superior solution. What now?
I received a journal paper for a review. The paper suggests a solution to an important problem, but the solution is very complicated and has mediocre performance. While reading the paper, I thought of ...
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40
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8
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Is it ethical to apply different criteria for graduate admissions based on country of undergraduate study?
We have undertaken a small statistical study of M.S. students in our department, including their application information and their eventual performance in our program. The goal is to develop criteria ...
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38
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4
answers
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Is it reasonable to collaborate with a professor when you are employed by a different professor?
How wise is it to collaborate with another professor while working as a staff under one professor? Is there a ethical conflict in doing so even if the other professor is from a slightly different area?...
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If an author declines authorship, may her co-authors publish without her?
This question was raised in discussion of answers on Is it better to submit a paper to an important journal without the supervisor name or to a less important journal with the supervisor name? There ...
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37
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6
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Is it ethical to obtain journal articles from places other than the publisher's official sites?
When I am at home and looking for journal articles I often find article PDFs through google that have been uploaded to various websites (e.g., universities, institutions, arbitrary websites, etc...). ...
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34
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7
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Publons - is it a serious thing?
Recently several different, unrelated publishers suggested on their websites to join Publons, which is meant to acknowledge referees for peer-reviewing submitted manuscripts.
Publons even suggests to ...
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28
votes
6
answers
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In single-blind peer-review, can you reveal your identity without the editor's consent?
In my field (chemistry), review is always done in a single blind process, i.e. the author does not know who the referees were, but the referees do know who the authors are. In ten years, I have never ...
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4
votes
1
answer
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What would be the possible consequence of concealing an incomplete degree?
I attended a 2y MSc mixed mode (Coursework+Thesis) program which is incomplete as of today. I have completed two semesters and still 2 more semesters to go.
I have dropped 3rd semester and never ...
user84565
147
votes
11
answers
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Is it ethical to submit a paper with the name of a co-author who cannot be contacted?
The paper in question is based on research my collaborator X and I did together some months ago. Our respective contributions to the research were around 2/3 for X and 1/3 for me. In terms of the ...
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90
votes
8
answers
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My first authorship is being turned into co-first authorship, what can I do?
I am currently submitting a paper for Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. I worked on this project for the last four years and was the only one working on this project. I had everything going ...
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28
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4
answers
4k
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What should I do when images in a publication appear to have been faked?
I just came across a paper published in a journal (IF < 2), which has used a couple of images without mentioning the source. This itself is not necessarily a problem. But they seem to be from a ...
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25
votes
4
answers
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Mentor trying to be first author?
I was on an internship with professor A at University B in China. We were working on a computer science project. During the internship I implemented professor A's idea and got some results. Three ...
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22
votes
5
answers
978
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How tightly enforced are open-access embargoes?
Many academic journals have copyright policies which forbid authors (possibly for a finite embargo time) to make their papers (either preprints, accepted manuscripts, or camera-ready versions) freely ...
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13
votes
3
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Compiling ethical standards for coauthorship across academic fields and regions
One of the hot-button issues on this site is standards for coauthorship, especially variants of the question "Must I automatically include my thesis advisor as a coauthor on all my papers?"
Since ...
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2
answers
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How/when to become independent in research as a graduate student?
I am in the last months of my MSc and I have done my thesis. I have published some conference papers but most of them were literature reviews. My MSc thesis is about solving wave equations by means ...
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338
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12
answers
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I don't want to kill any more mice, but my advisor insists that I must in order to get my PhD
When my supervisor pitched the PhD to me, it was all about analyzing "big data". I had BSc/MSc experience in wet-lab biology (mainly culturing cells), however I wanted to branch out into ...
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155
votes
4
answers
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Is Obama's JAMA paper OK?
As some of you may have heard, Barack Obama recently published a paper in JAMA describing the US health care reforms (link). First of all, I am not trying to start a discussion on the validity of the ...
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149
votes
6
answers
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My professor is rigging data and plagiarizing. What can I do?
I am a graduate student. My department head is manipulating data in his research papers and skillfully alters plagiarized text to avoid detection. I found this out while working with him on a journal ...
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88
votes
8
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Citing paywalled articles accessed via illegal web sharing
There are a few sites which offer paid articles for free. It’s something unethical, especially for those who upload to that site, but for me, it’s good for expanding knowledge.
As a readers, can we ...
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4
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10k
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Should I do anything if I am cited for something that wasn't in my paper?
I’ve just read a paper in which a previous paper of mine has been cited. The line in which the citation happens is something like:
It has been shown that technique X is successful in this problem [...
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76
votes
3
answers
5k
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A manuscript I refereed gave me an idea for a paper, not sure how to proceed
So, last week I refereed a paper for a journal. The paper in question is a reply to a previous paper by a different author: it points out a serious problem in the original paper and then proposes a ...
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75
votes
5
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Can I legally omit the fact I hold a Ph.D. degree?
I am about to complete a Ph.D. in Hong Kong and would like to study in the United States. I hold a first class B.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering. I have a CGPA of 3.67 out of 4 in my current PhD ...
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67
votes
13
answers
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Other students can easily cheat on a test and the grading system is relative - should I cheat, and what else can I do?
Amid the pandemic, a test that has traditionally been in-class is now planned to be held as follows:
The examiner starts a Zoom conference.
The students join the conference from their homes, turning ...
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58
votes
7
answers
15k
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Can a professor ask for money directly from students to print out handouts for class?
I'm currently taking a class that doesn't have a required textbook, which is why I took it. My professor is now saying that due to her scanning and printing out handouts for use we are each required ...
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6
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If someone conducts unethical research unbeknownst to anybody, but produces positive results, what would happen to the research once discovered?
I was just wondering about this specific scenario.
Say someone was researching nature vs. nurture, but his experiments involved keeping babies in a controlled environment for the first 10 years of ...
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56
votes
5
answers
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Should an Editor in Chief publish in their own journal?
An Editor in Chief of a journal ought to be proud of their journal and consider it a good place to publish their own work, so not publishing in the journal that they edit suggests a lack of confidence ...
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Is it unethical to accept extra time on exams when I still do well?
I have ADHD (real, diagnosed ADHD, not just "I-say-I-have-ADHD-because-it's-trendy" ADHD). I have never taken the extended time exams that are offered for ADHD students, because I have never needed to,...
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49
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4
answers
8k
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Inappropriate reference requests from Journal reviewers
A journal article I submitted to a highly reputable journal has been returned with a number of revisions requested, most of which are useful and helpful and will improve the quality of the article. ...
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44
votes
5
answers
12k
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Is it ethical to give (paid) private tutorials for a student in a module I am TA'ing?
My TAing mostly involves helping students working on their programming assignments during classes.
A student asked me to give him private, paid, tutorials for the module, being concerned that all '...
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votes
7
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5k
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Is it appropriate to ask colleagues opinions when reviewing a paper?
Several times my supervisor has asked me for my opinion on papers he is reviewing. I find this helpful as it encourages me to read things I otherwise would not, helps me understand how to review ...
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