Questions tagged [research-misconduct]

On suspected or actual distortion of the research and/or research publication process through dishonest or otherwise unethical behavior. Includes (but is not limited to) issues such as fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, violation of ethical standards related to human subjects research, and theft of intellectual property.

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14 votes
3 answers
1k views

My former adviser published an article from my master thesis in a predatory journal without my consent, what should I do now?

My former master adviser published an article, which is derived from my master thesis, in a predatory journal without my consent. He put my name as the first and corresponding author and his name as ...
45 votes
5 answers
9k views

What is it called when authors trade citations?

Citation is one metric of researchers. That is why some of them lend citation to one another. For example, A writes a paper and cites B's work in it, and then B does the same for A, without the ...
1 vote
2 answers
644 views

Is it called research misconduct when someone publish his own work under the name of other people?

One of my friends has a lot of research works, but he is kinda of lazy in the publishing process. As a result, he has a lot of unpublished research materials. Right now, he is realized that he needs ...
20 votes
3 answers
5k views

Should one cite unethical research that may contradict one's current research?

Most people are familiar with the controversy over citing Nazi medical experimentation and related unethical findings. I'm not questioning that. Assuming that citing unethical research in order to ...
1 vote
1 answer
515 views

What should I do if someone published my old reserarch result without mentioning my name?

Recently, I realized someone, who was my friend in the past, published my research results related to an old project without mentioning my name. I'm wondering how he accessed to my results and why he ...
-2 votes
1 answer
2k views

Anything we could do for abusive PhD advisor? [closed]

I have wasted 6 years in a bad lab in some biomedical sciences PhD program in the US. Basically the PI is a MD with no training for science. I felt treated like a slave. In spite of significant ...
11 votes
2 answers
463 views

How to deal with potential data falsification?

TL;DR We cannot reproduce very good simulation results of our paper and the person who was responsible for writing the code and running the simulations does not have the code anymore and cannot ...
7 votes
2 answers
574 views

coauthor removed other author's name after reviews

I have discovered that a co-author has submitted a book chapter to a major publisher omitting my name of co-author list without me knowing. I was included in the first submissions, but corresponding ...
5 votes
1 answer
422 views

Authorship dispute after author was removed without their knowledge

My supervisor, two other students (C and G) and I were invited to write a paper for a journal. The paper was about a project in which we were all involved. (C) though, never engaged into any writing ...
8 votes
1 answer
3k views

Should I do anything when I see several references that are not used in the text?

In a linguistics paper I read, I noticed that several references in the bibliography are not actually used in the text. This is for about 10-15% of the references the case. Should I do anything with ...
8 votes
1 answer
291 views

Is it acceptable to author a paper just because you established collaboration with university that developed a product involved in the paper?

I’m a PhD student. An associate professor in my department has established a collaboration with another university. This other university has people who have developed a product. The professor does ...
5 votes
2 answers
1k views

Former PhD supervisor faked results and submitted a corrigendum two years after publication

During my PhD studies, I published a journal article (one of total four) in a prestigious journal of my field. I gave my codes to my PhD supervisor, but he messed up things in the lab and lost it (I ...
50 votes
7 answers
13k views

I have a strong suspicion and weak proof that the data in the paper are fake. What to do?

I reviewed a paper submitted for a smallish magazine. It presented an algorithm to perform some allocation task and compared its performance to that of several other algorithms from the literature ...
1 vote
2 answers
2k views

Reusing someone else's code in my own publication

I am about to submit a paper in which one of the algorithms I used is heavily based on the code available on one of the TensowFlow tutorials. In fact, I mostly copied the code from the page and made ...
8 votes
3 answers
641 views

In computer science, is omission of negative experimental evaluation results research misconduct?

In computer science, a large portion of people develop algorithms, and demonstrate their effectiveness by running experiments to compare with other existing approaches in their research papers. In ...
2 votes
2 answers
1k views

Is it okay to email the general/conference chairs if I feel the reviews are biased and unprofessional?

In a conference with an author rebuttal phase, I received a review from a reviewer (who gave a strong reject) asking to compare my work to a paper which is not even on the same problem as my paper. I ...
12 votes
2 answers
869 views

When a professor commits scientific fraud, are the journal reviewers and editors of the paper also discredited?

If a researcher publishes a paper found to be fraudulent, are the reviewers and editors of the paper also discredited for having approved the fraudulent paper?
20 votes
3 answers
821 views

Do we know what proportion of scientific reproducibility issues are fraud-related?

A few days ago there was an article on the LSE blog about scientific reproducibility which made little sense to me until I realised they were equating 'low reproducibility' with 'scientific fraud': ...
10 votes
2 answers
1k views

Excluding a coauthor based on data misuse and misrepresentation?

My graduate student utilized some particles produced by a collaborator's lab in some animal imaging experiments, which were designed and analyzed by my student and me. The protocol for synthesizing ...
1 vote
0 answers
141 views

Is there an independent organisation that oversees the professional conduct of researchers in the UK/EU?

By professional conduct, I refer to issues related to how a researcher manages his/her research group, including funding (both research and salary) and human resource issue. For example, there is the ...
1 vote
1 answer
248 views

Is this a case of data manipulation? What should I do if this is the case? [closed]

I come across this recent paper "Discriminating Traces with Time", which proposed a program analysis technique based on machine learning, with application to security (side-channel attack). Some ...
54 votes
9 answers
14k views

Is there such a thing as fraud in mathematics?

Can you commit fraud in a mathematics publication? Or is this a privilege of empirical sciences? If a mathematician jumps from one bit of information to another that does not follow logically, from ...
4 votes
1 answer
416 views

Where can I find examples of research misconduct reports?

I am writing a report documenting evidence for research misconduct. The report is to be submitted to the ethics board of a university. Are there publicly available examples of such reports? Not the ...
5 votes
3 answers
7k views

If I notice an error in a figure after manuscript submission, could I be accused of falsification of data during review stage?

I have submitted a paper to a reputed journal (computer science; computer vision to be specific). While i was keenly waiting for the reviews, they were getting delayed. So I began working on an ...
7 votes
1 answer
373 views

What to do when I suspect Research Integrity Office of covering up malpractice

Two years ago I read a paper that I thought had implausibly good results. The data were archived online so I examined them: they were clearly fake. The first author replaced them with other data which ...
0 votes
1 answer
185 views

Advice for somebody who considers to join a PHD program in order to go to research about the possibly negative sides

A friend of mine considers to join a PhD program in order to go to science. I think she has a very idealized view of science and the prospects there. (I personally am somebody who left science after ...
1 vote
1 answer
230 views

Is it plagiarism if I don't mention where I found a quotation originally?

Say author A writes on Topic B and in this context uses quotation C which is not from the same field and appears highly original in Topic B. I then read this article, and I am myself writing on Topic ...
14 votes
1 answer
2k views

Co-author submitted new data post-review without my (first author) consent

I am the first author of a manuscript that was recently "accepted in principle". The submission, peer review and revisions of this manuscript happened after I left the laboratory of the corresponding ...
39 votes
9 answers
18k views

What should PhD students do if they submit a paper to two journals and a reviewer notices concurrent submission?

I am in a desperate situation. I made a mistake and committed academic misconduct. I have submitted my article to two journals in parallel, let's say in j1 and j2. Once I received acceptance from ...
8 votes
3 answers
928 views

Unaddressed ethical violation I know about but have no connection to: Do I report it?

I've been made aware of a situation that blatantly violates the honor code at my institution (also every institution). However it does not involve my lab, and the folks in the relevant lab are not ...
20 votes
3 answers
975 views

Can intentionally omitting related work (citations) be considered as misconduct?

I've seen a recent journal paper that presents a solution to a problem, and it in the introduction it has a statement that the problem has not been solved yet. That wouldn’t be very strange if I didn’...
15 votes
1 answer
1k views

KAU is accused of hiring well-known professors to boost university rankings by adding affiliation. Is it ethical to accept this kind of offer?

For those unaware of the situation, here are some links: Messerly, Megan. 'UC Berkeley Professor Critiques Saudi University's Recruitment Process Of World's Top Researchers'. The Daily ...
13 votes
1 answer
840 views

Is scientific misconduct relatively normalised in some countries or academic cultures?

My question was provoked by this comment, and the fairly popular responses to it. I've seen similar sentiment expressed before, though always as asides rather than any direct 'accusation'. In my ...
4 votes
1 answer
284 views

How to spot problematic pictures in a publication? [duplicate]

A few professors from the National Taiwan University were caught manipulating experimental data in their publications on several prestigious journals this year. They were accused of using the same ...
21 votes
1 answer
2k views

How can I stop a "citation cartel" still active?

How can I fight against a "citation cartel" (still active)? They are manipulating citations (mostly through "coercive citation") from at least two journals. Two journal are used as "platforms" and two ...
8 votes
1 answer
207 views

How do you determine whether a case study is fraudulent?

I had recently read an interesting anthropological case study composed of interviews of Iranians before and after the Iranian Revolution. But after reading the case study, I started wondering whether ...
3 votes
2 answers
955 views

What to do if a coauthor lies?

My coauthor and I work at some organization. After I started working with him, people told me that he allegedly took some data (used in the paper) from the organization without authorization (He was ...
16 votes
1 answer
1k views

Should I breach peer-review confidentiality if I suspect misconduct and the editor is not willing to pursue it?

I was a peer reviewer for a paper that I did not find credible. The data were archived after the paper was published and show many curious or impossible (non-integer counts for example) patterns. I ...
6 votes
1 answer
291 views

What are typical examples of 'Reference Misuse' when defined as 'using references to support predetermined arguments rather than illuminate debate'?

A research ethics article recently appeared that described the results of a survey in which academics were asked whether they had participated in various forms of research misconduct. The responses ...
100 votes
12 answers
31k views

One of my student researchers is likely falsifying some results/data. What are the consequences?

Relevant info and background: I'm an engineering Post Doc at an American university. One of my roles is to basically function as a 'project manager' for a couple projects that have a number of ...
3 votes
5 answers
4k views

What is the difference between falsifying data and just being wrong?

I had to take a standard ethics seminar at my research lab (everyone in my lab must take the seminar). As one would expect, I learned that the charges associated with falsifying data are serious. ...
11 votes
2 answers
551 views

What consequences are imposed by an institution when a researcher commits plagiarism?

Not sure if you've been following the story of a South Korean Prodigy, who tried to get his PhD degree based on a proceedings article (copyright protected) that his advisor has previously published ...
61 votes
2 answers
8k views

Researchers had a paper retracted due to plagiarism and no one at their university is aware of it

A year ago a professor at my department and her grad student had plagiarized a journal paper and published it. The paper was retracted, and the journal published a clear notice that it was due to ...
32 votes
4 answers
6k views

How can an author get assurance that his work will not be stolen by journal staff or reviewers?

Suppose some author provides his original research article to a journal for publication. In this way, he is disclosing or revealing his confidential research work to that journal. Now, consider the ...
20 votes
4 answers
3k views

Is it ok to get independent feedback before handing in thesis?

I have a thesis to hand in at my university. Am I allowed to ask a grad student who is an expert in my field to have a look at my thesis and give me feedback (more than merely grammatical / ...
8 votes
1 answer
376 views

When applying for a new job or fellowship, how to protect your ideas from being stolen by the lab you are applying to?

If you want to change fields you have to explain the reason why you want to do that. In case of fellowship, you need some professor to host you and support your application, so you must contact him by ...
1 vote
2 answers
583 views

Within social science research, which research practices are generally regarded as problematic? [closed]

I am very interested in understanding the aspects of current social science research that are generally accepted as being problematic (by researchers and other commentators). I regard problematic ...
39 votes
6 answers
14k views

Who is responsible for detecting plagiarism in a PhD thesis?

Background I am asking this question in the context of the long running plagiarism scandal in Germany.The most prominent victim of the scandal of plagiarized doctoral dissertations by politicians was ...
19 votes
5 answers
3k views

Are P-hacking and hypothesising after results are known considered misconduct in academia?

This question is inspired by a comment to another question where I asked for help on how to argue against P-hacking and hypothesising after results are known (Harking). Someone questioned the ...
120 votes
8 answers
11k views

How to argue against questionable research practices such as P-hacking and Harking?

I have come into conflict with co-authors when being asked to do things that I consider to be questionable. Once I was told to try every possible specification of a dependent variable (count, ...