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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How to mitigate harm caused by unfounded allegations?
Someone spread nefarious but completely unfounded ethical allegations against me. That person said he/she was told that I forced a student to plagiarize his/her paper whereas I was the one who ...
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Is humor unacceptable in referee reports?
I am from a country where humor is a part of the culture, and I recently prepared the following referee report:
The manuscript solves an interesting problem, but, unfortunately, the
authors are a bit ...
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Do you need permission from the gov't of a town to conduct a questionnaire survey there?
I'm conducting a study in which people from a particular town will fill out an opinion questionnaire (Likert scale stuff, questions about road signs). I was going to do this in front of a grocery ...
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The academic lifestyle and climate change [duplicate]
I've got a friend who's currently travelling around the US visiting collaborators, attending conferences, giving talks, and building a giant carbon footprint. Considering our planet is on the verge of ...
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Is it plagiarism to adopt specific questions from a pre-existing questionnaire?
I’m currently required to make a questionnaire for my research. Is it okay to use only specific questions from previously published questionnaires as these questions perfectly apply to my research ...
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Is it ethical for a student to earn a PhD by working as a team leader?
I know several doctoral students in the field of deep learning. Their main job is to be the technical leader (full-time job, even not taking doctoral courses) in the company. They only propose ...
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Submit a paper even if you know it will be rejected
Your student is writing a paper and you think it will be rejected with a probability of 99%.
Your student would like to submit it anyway.
Would you submit it? Why?
More specifically:
Is it ok to ...
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Can I omit my department's name to express my dissenting opinions?
My full affiliation is:
Abacus Beard Department of Underwater Basket-Weaving, Calvin Doofus Division of Ocean Science, University of Watering-Down.
A. B. is the name of a big donor. C. D. is the ...
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As an editor should I suggest inclusion of acknowledged contributors as co-authors?
I am editing a manuscript for a journal that I just received and which hasn't been sent out to reviewers yet. To me, there were two aspects of the paper that irritated me a bit. The first being that ...
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I was excluded from an article - what can I do?
Prior to starting my Ph.D., I initiated a project with my former boss. We both wrote proposals and secured funding from an international foundation for a two-year period. The following year, I began ...
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Will clicking on Google document mistakenly from other students in a class that I did not enroll in can be considered as academic misconduct? [closed]
I'm a visiting student in a public university in Idiana.
Last Feburary, March and May, a student from another class shared with me a Google document multiple times:
a group work from a course which I ...
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Can corresponding author withdraw a paper after it has accepted without permission/acceptance of first author
A is a corresponding author for a paper (PhD work) that has been submitted to a journal. I am the main and the first author, while he is the second author. Recently, he has withdrawn a paper after it ...
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Postdoc vs Research Associate title on resume for job application and ethical inquiry
This thing happens in the USA. I am working as a R&D research engineer in the industry, not academia.
Recently, our group recruited a research scientist, and we finally made an offer to a guy. In ...
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About Consent for publishing in conference
I'm a first year PhD student. I never have any record of publication or conference paper before.
In my PhD, I worked as a coauthor for the post doctoral fellow's paper. My post doc work 24x7 sundays ...
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How should fair credit assignment work in this situation?
Person A suggested to person B that they implement a certain existing methodology, X, to solve problem Y. And offered to lead by advising while B be the driving force. Now B found another key question ...
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I am reviewing a very bad paper - do I have to be nice?
I received a paper to review that I can only describe as very bad. Not only are there structural issues that anyone that has previously published a paper in a respectable journal should know to avoid (...
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My old advisor won't let me go ahead and submit my paper. What do I do?
I am a PhD student currently needing advice on a paper submission issue with a previous supervisor (or advisor/mentor in some countries).
Last year, I discovered that my supervisor had not gotten ...
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Withdrawing a paper after acceptance modulo revisions?
I have seen the questions here and here, but my reasons for wishing to withdraw are utterly different than theirs, so I don't think they're especially relevant.
I work in mathematics, say in field A. ...
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My abstract was accepted at a conference but my supervisor is the first author without my consent
What is the best approach for resolving this issue with the help of the supervisory committee, when my main supervisor decided to be the first author on an accepted abstract without my consent?
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Talking to a professor about a potential research idea [closed]
I am a Master's student in the US. I am in a course and was discussing an idea with the professor and TA for the course. Both of them seemed pretty excited about the idea and said it can become a ...
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Should my advisor be an author when I found the research question and answered it?
My master's advisor proposed to me a research point that was already published. I found another question, modified the methodology, and got new results, and I am planning to publish the work. He didn'...
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How to list publication in special issue dedicated to a conference in a CV?
I have presented in conferences A and B. The work presented in A is published in the conference proceedings (in case it is relevant, it is indexed by IEEE), and the work presented in B is published in ...
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Not included as an author in 2 publications [duplicate]
Tldr: I was not included as one of the authors of 2 papers. What to do?
History: Around 2.5 years ago I started a PhD. I was producing very good results and my supervisor was very happy because there ...
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Why don't Russians see cheating as something that must be eradicated? [duplicate]
This is a counterpart question to How is cheating viewed in Western universities and why is it seen as such a big deal?
To me it seems obvious that the direct goal of any exam or test is to check the ...
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Courses arming students to become whistle blowers in their future career if needed?
QUESTION:
Are there any universities currently offering courses arming students to become whistle blowers in their future careers (or even while they are still a student at the university), if needed? ...
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How is cheating viewed in Western universities and why is it seen as such a big deal?
Summary: Coming from Russian university student, cheating at exams seems normal and encouraged. Why is it so much more frowned upon at the North American/western universities?
Ok, I assume that most ...
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(When) Is it appropriate to give a "thank you" gifts to a professor who is not your advisor or teacher?
As a grad student (or postdoc), past taking classes, is it ok to get a thank you gift for a professor who :
has helped you with something (e.g. introduced you to someone for a collaboration or wrote ...
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2
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1
answer
148
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Competing Interest while working in private-public partnership
This is a question about work and publications that happen in public-private partnership. I am currently employed by a University, and seconded half of the time in a startup. I am working on a ...
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answer
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Refereeing an arXiv preprint
I accepted a request to referee a mathematics paper (available as an arXiv preprint long before it was submitted), but haven't started to write a report yet. Before receiving the referee request I'd ...
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How do I handle a conflict with my former mentor about a potential paper correction?
During my postdoc, I published two research papers as the first author, with my mentor (a Professor at an Ivy League institution) as the corresponding/senior author. Months after publishing the papers,...
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Can I add new coauthor after submitting the paper in arxiv? [duplicate]
At first I suggest readers to look this question. My current question is related to that.
In this question, I said that my coauthor is not replying/submitting the paper in arxiv.
Now the issue is that ...
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Pay fees to get your name on the paper
I have received an email from a researcher, who work on topics related to my field of research. The researcher asked if I'm interested in collaboration, and then explained that they have an almost ...
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Are there any ethical or legal issues when printing large texts from primary sources? [closed]
I am writing a secondary History textbook. It is quite nearly done, but I am required to integrate some primary source materials, such as diaries, log entries, letters, etc.
The textbook spans the ...
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Do I have to mention that I used ChatGPT to polish my paper? [duplicate]
Just finished my paper writing for my PhD. My supervisor is not happy with my academic writing and suggested using ChatGPT to polish my writing.
Does that go against any writing ethics and may result ...
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Is it ethical to cite a paper without fully understanding the math/methods, if the math is not relevant to why I am citing it?
I'm writing an article for a university assignment, and I am essentially looking for sources to support fairly surface level points. Two of the points I am searching for is evidence of diffusion ...
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3
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Authorship decisions after data collection and analysis
I am a graduate student in a STEM field. I collected and analyzed data for another graduate student (different PI) and they are now refusing to include me as an author on a research paper. I optimized ...
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Can I request access to a database from another university if it is not available at my university?
For my PhD (finance) I need access to a scientific database. The problem is that my university unfortunately does not offer this database in its library. Another university (in the same city even) ...
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Advisor published some of my ideas (that I am working on in my master's) without informing me
My advisor gave me a broad topic to research. I found a really good question and have done a big part of the work answering it but, have not finished yet, then applied to a prestigious conference to ...
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Is a 166 point exam due in 30 mins too short? [closed]
Our professor gave us a long exam worth 166 points. It was composed of 130 items 10 of which were identification and 120 were multiple choice. A lot of the questions required ethical analysis as out ...
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Missed a citation which has a solution to the problem that I worked on
About 4 years ago, before I started my PhD, I published a paper which used a method to improve an existing result. There were 2 papers on the existing result and method which I used for my work and ...
13
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5
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When is a student's failure to pay their editor an ethics violation?
Some years ago, I was stiffed for $100, but I let it go and took steps in my business model to be sure it never happened again. However, my colleague, is being stiffed for $600, an amount that is ...
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To whom can I report an instructor who is teaching 35+ credit hours across five universities in one semester?
I have a prof who is teaching between five universities, full-time at one and adjunct at the others. This semester alone they're teaching over 35 credit hours, which is double a regular full-time ...
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Saving an article from a broken collaboration
Background: In 2022, I was introduced to a professor belonging to the UK who recommended me for getting a job at an Institute "A", in India. The professor also trying to get some ...
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PI asked me (undergraduate research assistant) to be involved in hiring other undergraduate/graduate student workers
I am an undergraduate student research assistant in the US and have been working with my PI for less than a year. Recently my PI asked me to help her in hiring other student research assistants. Not ...
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7
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Do conference organizers make a good profit?
I was shocked to learn that the participation fee for a large annual European conference almost didn't change when the host country changed from one of the most expensive Western European countries to ...
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Do famous people really have the power to ruin the career of unrelated researchers?
I am a graduate student in some subdiscipline of mathematics and have had the following impressions. One of the senior faculty members (a professor) at my (not too famous) university mentioned, when ...
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Must my name be in the authors of paper (By giving the idea and creating the first research team)
I have introduced the idea and basic information of one important research field to one psychology experts.
Also I have created some other connection for that psychology experts by one phd master.
The ...
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Prevalence of (systemic) corruption in Academia
Summary
Similarly to how gerrit asked "Is there any research on the prevalence of academic theft?", I am wondering if there are any surveys or studies on the forms and prevalence of "...
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Using URL Shorteners to Track Who Viewed My Application
Some URL shortening services allow users to see very basic information on who has clicked-through the link. If I remember right, it documents the visitor's web browser, computer's OS, exact date and ...
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2
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Advisor Withholding Publication of Meaningful Data
Some details will be omitted for anonymity's sake, but, hopefully, the information provided is adequate.
I am a graduate student that finished the collection of a complete dataset over 2.5 years ago. ...
