Research Ethics

Team ENicholas Adams Zhou Shuai Ni

David Givone Nathan O’Donnell

Keith Jabcuga Mangal Prasad

Karin Mak Tracy Whitmire

Jeffrey Membel Helen Yan

Engineering Ethics Hierarchy

ResearchEthics

InternationalEngineering

Ethics

Ethicalengineering/

fair tradepractices

Conflictinterests

&conflict ofinterests

Publicsafety

andw elfare

EngineeringEthics

Engineering Ethics Definition

Engineering Ethics will consider the ethical issues in the practice of engineering.

Rules of practice with respect to a single class of human actions:

– safety and liability

– professional responsibility to clients and employees

– legal obligations

– career choice

– code of ethics

Code of Ethics for Engineers

Preamble - Engineering is an important and learned profession. As members of this profession, engineers are expected to exhibit the highest standards of honesty and integrity. Engineering has a direct and vital impact on the quality of life for all people. Accordingly, the services provided by engineers require honesty, impartiality, fairness and equity, and must be dedicated to the protection of the public health, safety and welfare. Engineers must perform under a standard of professional behavior which requires adherence to the highest principles of ethical conduct.

Fundamental Canon - Engineers, in fulfillment of their professional duties shall.. 5. Avoid deceptive acts. 6. Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically and lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation and usefulness of the profession

Research Ethics

· Disciplinary differences in standards of practice

· Whistle Blowing

· Falsification· Fabrication· Plagiarism· Data Integrity

Misconduct

· Documentation

· Ideas· Ownership

Experimentation

· Golden Rule

· Allocation of Credits

Publication and Authorship

·Why Share ideas

· Idea Protection

Publicationand Openness

ResearchEthics

· References

· Paranoia

Misconduct

Misconduct Defined…

– In general, misconduct can be defined as an action which generally is not acceptable to the specific society of interest.

Origination of Misconduct

Learnt in school by examples of peers and educators. Human Nature:

– Fear

– Desire

– Sloth

Problems Resulting from Misconduct Plagiarism Falsification Fabrication Paranoia Degradation of the science as a whole

Responding to Violations

How to make a complaint

Seeking advice

Who to contact

Blowing the Whistle

Maintain professionalism

Written vs. verbal complaint

Dangers and Consequences

Possible Solutions

It is clear that the issue can be resolved only be individuals, in other words we must take responsibility to not do such things. Reason to do this are:

– Not fall in your own eyes

– Respect to colleagues

– Respect to the profession

Case Study:

Plagiarism

Experimental Techniques and the Treatment of Data

What is unethical data reporting and why?

Why is it important to adhere to certain techniques?

What are our professional obligations?

Key Terms

Data Selection - when legitimate data is selected for presentation on the basis of clear criteria.

Fabrication - In research ethics the term fabrication means making up data, experiments or other significant information in proposing, conducting or reporting research.

Falsification - In research ethics the term falsification means changing or misrepresenting data or experiments, or misrepresenting other significant matters, such as credentials of an investigator in a research proposal. Unlike fabrication distinguishing falsification of data from legitimate data selection takes judgement and an understanding of statistical methods

Experimentation

Development of Ideas Ownership of Ideas Start of Documentation

Golden Rule to Remember

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

Allocation of Credits

Provides:

– Fairness

– Personal Recognition

Places of Credit

List of Authors Acknowledgements of Contributions List of References

List of Authors

Authors and Co-authors:

– Significant contributions

– Share responsibility and accountability

– The earlier the name, the greater the contribution

Contribution

Definition of project Intellectual development of project New discovery during the process

Ethical Issues

Including a person in author list who has little or no contribution

Examples:

– Owner of company’s name included in the list

– Student’s advisor’s name appear earliest

“An administrative relationship to the

investigation DOES NOT of itself

qualify for co-authorship”

from

“Obligation of Authors” section of the Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research by the American Chemical Society (ACS)

Acknowledgement

Credits given to those who helped during the research process

Examples:

– those who gather data

– those who simulate results

List of References

Guide readers to refer to earlier work Give credits for people who developed the ideas that

influenced present results

Remember

Failure to properly allocate credits may lead to serious problems

Such as:

– Social Exclusion

– Legal Problems

Case Study:

Credit Where Credit is Due

Publication and Openness

Idea sharing and recognition External factors Protecting you and your ideas Publication process Clogging the system

Why do we share ideas?

To receive credit Forms of credit

– financial (ex bonuses)– economical (ex job promotions)– political (ex peer recognition)– self satisfaction

First three forms of credit are external factors while the last form is an internal factor.

The external rewards are more prominent in our present day system and they are the main reason for a lot of problems

Paranoia of Information Sharing

Cause:

– when someone infringes upon the external rewards by stealing an idea thus creating a paranoia

Stealing Ideas

– Probably starts in schools and carries over to the workplace

The element of contradiction:

– The person still stealing is for the same reasons why the other person does not want to stolen from.

Idea Sharing and Recognition

Problem:

– scientists of the latter half of seventeenth century were afraid to reveal work in fear that someone might steal their ideas and claim them for themselves

Solution:

– Henry Oldenburg, the secretary of the Royal Society of London, offered a swift publication time as well as a backing from the society about the author’s priority of the work. Also introduced the idea of peer reviewing.

Idea Sharing and Recognition

Results:

– Engineers and scientist are willing to share their ideas on the condition that when writing a paper the author would cite the person’s idea if used, thus giving the researcher peer recognition.

– Lead to a more universal knowledge.

– Other problems arose from it, such as the constant pressure to publish an idea first.

– Did not completely solve the openness problem.

Protecting Your Ideas

Intellectual property

– the ideas that you own Methods of owning your ideas

– trademarks

– copyright

– the right of publicity

– moral rights

– patents

– trade secrets

The Publication Process

Publication are a useful medium to express research because they usually off a collection of papers all on the same general topic

The typical process for submitting to a journal:

1 submit paper to journal editor

2 editor sends paper to peer reviewers (typically 3)

3 peer reviewers make comments and either accept it or reject it

4 paper is sent back to author to make revisions

5 paper sent back to journal editor who either publishes it or repeats steps 2 through 4

Publication Process

Advantage

– information can be filtered for its validity Disadvantage

– “back scratching”, the system of “if you ok my paper, then I’ll ok your paper”

Clogging the System

Problem

– The publication process from the time the paper is submitted to the time it is printed usually takes about one and a half years.

Result

– If some very significant ideas have been found it will take about a year and a half for the public to see them

Why are there so many papers?

External rewards depend on recognition and publishing prowess, so the researcher is required to publish a lot.

Some universities require the publishing of 50 papers or equivalent work in order for a promotion to full professorship.

Researchers write papers with “half results” to secure their ideas and get more than one paper from the research.

A lot of papers today perform very small transformation from a previous paper.

Possible Solutions

Have multiple ideas in one paper instead of small results. Only publish significant results

– This solution is VERY subjective thus not a realizable Have universities base promotion and recognition on other

standards also, such as teaching

– This solution is VERY realizable and can also benefit the students

– Takes the burden and pressure of writing so many papers

References

National Academy of Sciences, On Being A Scientist: Responsible Conduct In Research, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1995, http://bob.nap.edu/readingroom/books/obas

Sawyer, B, Dunne, A, Berg, T, Game Developer’s Marketplace, The Coriolis Group, Inc., Arizona, 1998.

American Chemical Society, Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research, http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/obas/contents