Ethics in Research. The above website lists several topics. Below, only selected highlights are quoted: - Conflict of Interest

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1 Ethics in Research Compiled in 2010 by M.A. Van Hove (text in italics) with quotations from the American Physical Society ( underlined for emphasis. The ethical guidelines discussed below are of the greatest importance to scientists and engineers in general, not just physicists. Practicing researchers and teachers must apply them daily in their work. Students must familiarize themselves with these guidelines to become responsible professionals: they must apply them in their studies, theses and publications. Do you know what self-plagiarism is? Can you copy from Wikipedia without citation? Who should be included in a paper as co-authors vs. acknowledged? Are you responsible for all the statements in a paper? Can you replace raw data by fitted curves? Find out below! The consequences of unethical behavior can range up to loss of employment, loss of degree (e.g. PhD) or loss of reputation (Dr. Schön mentioned below suffered all three of these). Worse is possible when mishandling of money is involved: these cases can go to criminal courts. Nonfinancial cases are generally covered not by laws but by professional guidelines (e.g. the APS guidelines quoted below) and by institutional regulations; such cases are normally handled by the employer (universities, research institutions, etc., as in the case of Dr. Schön). The reality is that ethical behavior in some instances is compromised by pressures to publish and discover, as well as by the prospect of financial gain from commercialization of certain research discoveries. The problem is complicated because researchers may be confronted with choices in which the ethical route is not obvious. It is useful to draw the analogy between ethics education and safety training. Undoubtedly most physicists have an inherent desire to be safe, but the extent to which safety procedures are practiced in the lab depends on a range of factors, including prior experience and an understanding of what appropriate procedures are and what harm may come from failing to follow them. Formal safety training is often useful to fill in the gaps not filled by prior experience. Likewise ethics education can play the role of providing information not available from prior experience. This role is especially important for those just beginning in the field. The above website lists several topics. Below, only selected highlights are quoted: - Conflict of Interest Often in the research environment we are faced with situations in which we could stand to benefit personally. These situations can include for example, the use of University resources, telephone numbers, or web addresses to support or represent an outside activity, including businesses, hobbies and political activities. These situations constitute a conflict of interest. There are many professional activities of physicists that have the potential for a conflict of interest. Any professional relationship or action that may result in a conflict of interest must 1

2 be fully disclosed. When objectivity and effectiveness cannot be maintained, the activity should be avoided or discontinued. - Data Acquisition The results of research should be recorded and maintained in a form that allows analysis and review. Research data should be immediately available to scientific collaborators. Following publication, the data should be retained for a reasonable period in order to be available promptly and completely to responsible scientists. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances in order to preserve privacy, to assure patent protection, or for similar reasons. - Educational Concerns For students, it may be helpful to learn and discuss ethical standards before encountering them firsthand. - Health and Safety In the past, researchers and their supervisors have demonstrated a cavalier attitude towards these issues, which is inconsistent with current legal and ethical standards. It is essential that all researchers have training that prepares them for the hazards, and possible emergencies that they may encounter in the course of their work, and that all laws and regulations relating to safety are adhered to, and best practices be employed when there are hazards. This means that there should be compliance with all accepted safety standards. Researchers also have an obligation to carry out their work in a manner that does not threaten the health and safety of others, and to be forthcoming in identifying new risks and to be rapid in their response to hazardous conditions and emergencies that may arise. Health and safety standards are usually rigorously followed in large laboratory settings. It is important to recognize that they must be followed even in the most modest of research settings. - Human Subjects Research While it is not frequent, occasionally physicists perform research involving human subjects. Examples of such research include: educational studies, biophysics investigations, and surveys. See also Ethical and Professional Guidelines of the American Chemical Society at: - Issues of Bias Webster's New World Dictionary defines bias as a mental leaning or inclination; partiality; prejudice; bent. While it is probably impossible to eliminate bias, each person can strive to be aware of his or her preferences and alert to situations where the bias can be damaging to the science or ones colleagues. Also, one can become a careful observer of others and take 2

3 action to counteract the unfair or inappropriate consequences of biases, especially those that work to exclude or diminish people from different backgrounds than the majority. - Mentoring Group leaders, from department chairs to research directors, have an ethical obligation to create an environment that supports fair treatment and professional development opportunities for all group members. - Publication Practices The APS Guidelines for Professional Conduct state that authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution or interpretation of the research study. All those who have made significant contributions should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as authors. The sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Plagiarism [i.e. copying from others work without their authorization or acknowledgment] constitutes unethical scientific behavior and is never acceptable. Proper acknowledgement of the work of others used in a research project must always be given. Further, it is the obligation of each author to provide prompt retractions or corrections of errors in published works. Even when it is not clear who wrote the original text, copying without acknowledgment is plagiarism: for example, copying from Wikipedia without citing that source is plagiarism. Self-plagiarism is also unethical. An example is re-submitting a proposal that was already funded, to get a second round of funding for the same project. Hong Kong s RGC bans investigators who do this from submitting further proposals for 5 years. In any text it should be clear which words and which ideas are due to the author(s) and which are due to others. All collaborators share some degree of responsibility for any paper they coauthor. Some coauthors have responsibility for the entire paper as an accurate, verifiable, report of the research. These include, for example, coauthors who are accountable for the integrity of the critical data reported in the paper, carry out the analysis, write the manuscript, present major findings at conferences, or provide scientific leadership for junior colleagues. Coauthors who make specific, limited, contributions to a paper are responsible for them, but may have only limited responsibility for other results. While not all coauthors may be familiar with all aspects of the research presented in their paper, all collaborations should have in place an appropriate process for reviewing and ensuring the accuracy and validity of the reported results, and all coauthors should be aware of this process. 3

4 Every coauthor should have the opportunity to review the manuscript before its submission. All coauthors have an obligation to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works. Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a paper should not be a coauthor. Authors have an obligation to their colleagues and the physics community to include a set of references that communicates the precedents, sources, and context of the reported work. Proper referencing gives credit to those whose research has informed or led to the work in question, helps to avoid duplication of effort, and increases the value of a paper by guiding the reader to related materials. It is the responsibility of authors to have surveyed prior work in the area and to include relevant references. Proper and complete referencing is an essential part of any physics research publication. Deliberate omission of a pertinent author or reference is unethical and unacceptable. Well-known common knowledge (such as the laws of physics) need not be acknowledged. - Responsible Conduct of Research Scientists and educators have a duty to obey rules and regulations regarding the responsible conduct of research and ethical participation in the activities of their department, laboratory, or company. Fabrication of data or selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive is an egregious [i.e. very bad] departure from the expected norms of scientific conduct, as is the theft of data or research results from others. Collaborations are expected to have a process to archive and verify the research record; to facilitate internal communication and allow all authors to be fully aware of the entire work; and respond to questions concerning the joint work and enable other responsible scientists to share the data. All members of a collaboration should be familiar with, and understand, the process. Peer review [i.e. refereeing papers and proposals] can serve its intended function only if the members of the scientific community are prepared to provide thorough, fair and objective evaluations based on requisite expertise. Although peer review can be difficult and timeconsuming, scientists have an obligation to participate in the process. Privileged information or ideas that are obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for competitive gain. Reviewers should disclose conflicts of interest resulting from direct competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, and avoid cases in which such conflicts preclude an objective evaluation. In addition: All co-investigators of a research proposal should be given the opportunity to approve the final version of the proposal before submission. 4

5 It is unethical to add co-authors only to increase the chance of approval of a proposal and then to drop them to avoid sharing the funds. It is unethical to take someone else s idea, whether published or unpublished (e.g. spoken in a seminar or meeting, or written in a proposal or manuscript that you have been asked to review) and to present it as your own idea. In case of a dispute, the dates of publication or acceptance for publication of an idea are generally used to determine precedence. An instructive and famous recent case: Scientific misconduct by Dr. Jan Hendrik Schön of Bell Laboratories. This case gave rise to some of the APS guidelines quoted above. (The following text is quoted from the official 129-page report by an external committee, with my underlining for emphasis. That report includes numerous graphic examples of specific scientific misconduct.) In late May 2002, the management of Bell Labs formed a committee to investigate the possibility of scientific misconduct, the validity of the data and whether or not proper scientific methodology was used in papers by Hendrik Schön, et al., that are being challenged in the scientific community. These Final Allegations can be grouped into 3 classes: Substitution of data (substitution of whole figures, single curves and partial curves in different or the same paper to represent different materials, devices or conditions) Unrealistic precision of data (precision beyond that expected in a real experiment or requiring unreasonable statistical probability) Results that contradict known physics (behavior inconsistent with stated device parameters and prevailing physical understanding, so as to suggest possible misrepresentation of data) The Committee s main findings and conclusions can be summarized as follows. By all accounts, Hendrik Schön is a hard working and productive scientist. If valid, the work he and his coauthors report would represent a remarkable number of major breakthroughs in condensed-matter physics and solid-state devices. Except for the provision of starting materials by others, all device fabrication, physical measurement and data processing in the work in question were carried out (with minor exceptions) by Hendrik Schön alone, with no participation by any coauthor or other colleague. None of the most significant physical results was witnessed by any coauthor or other colleague. Proper laboratory records were not systematically maintained by Hendrik Schön in the course of the work in question. In addition, virtually all primary (raw) electronic data files were deleted by 5

6 Hendrik Schön, reportedly because the old computer available to him lacked sufficient memory. No working devices with which one might confirm claimed results are presently available, having been damaged in measurement, damaged in transit or simply discarded. Finally, key processing equipment no longer produces the unparalleled results that enabled many of the key experiments. Hence, it is not possible to confirm or refute directly the validity of the claims in the work in question. The most serious allegations regarding the work in question relate to possible manipulation and misrepresentation of data. These allegations speak directly to the question of scientific misconduct. The Committee carefully investigated each of these allegations and came to a specific conclusion in each case. The evidence that manipulation and misrepresentation of data occurred is compelling. In its mildest form, whole data sets were substituted to represent different materials or devices. Hendrik Schön acknowledges that the data are incorrect in many of these instances. He states that these substitutions could have occurred by honest mistake. The recurrent nature of such mistakes suggests a deeper problem. At a minimum, Hendrik Schön showed reckless disregard for the sanctity of data in the value system of science. His failure to retain primary data files compounds the problem. More troublesome are the substitutions of single curves or even parts of single curves, in multiple figures representing different materials or devices, and the use of mathematical functions to represent real data. Hendrik Schön acknowledges these practices in many instances, but states that they were done to achieve a more convincing representation of behavior that was nonetheless observed. Such practices are completely unacceptable and represent scientific misconduct. One of the most troublesome cases is that of superconductivity in polythiophene. Here, identical curves appear multiple times in whole or in part in a single figure. Hendrik Schön acknowledges that these data are not valid but cannot explain how they arose. In the view of the Committee, it is not possible that this set of curves represent real data and therefore this is a clear, unambiguous case of scientific misconduct. In the end, the Committee concluded that, of the 24 Final Allegations examined, Hendrik Schön committed scientific misconduct in 16, some of which were interrelated. Of the remaining 8, 2 were judged to have no clear relationship to publications, while 6 were troubling but did not provide compelling evidence of scientific misconduct. The Committee finds all coauthors of Hendrik Schön in the work in question completely cleared of scientific misconduct. The Committee also finds no evidence that the laboratory practices of any coauthor of Hendrik Schön in the work in question are outside the accepted practices of their fields. In addition to addressing the question of scientific misconduct, the Committee also addressed the question whether the coauthors of Hendrik Schön exercised appropriate professional responsibility in ensuring the validity of data and physical claims in the papers in question. By 6

7 virtue of their coauthorship, they implicitly endorse the validity of the work. There is no implication here of scientific misconduct; the issue is one of professional responsibility. The Committee found this to be an extremely difficult issue, which the scientific community has not considered carefully. Therefore, no clear, widely accepted standards of behavior exist. In order to proceed, the Committee adopted, for working purposes, a minimal set of principles that it feels should be honored in collaborative research. At its core, the question of professional responsibility involves the balance between the trust necessary in any collaborative research and the responsibility all researchers bear for the veracity of the results with which they are associated. The Committee does not endorse the view that each coauthor is responsible for the entirety of a collaborative endeavor: the relative responsibility of researchers with very different expertise, seniority and levels of participation must be considered. The Committee examined this question for each coauthor, considering the nature of their participation and their differing degrees of responsibility. The Committee concluded that the coauthors of Hendrik Schön in the work in question have, in the main, met their responsibilities, but that in one case questions remain that the Committee felt unqualified to resolve, given the absence of a broader consensus on the nature of the responsibilities of participants in collaborative research endeavors. 7