Professional Conduct and research
milestones
Barts and The London
Joy Hinson
With thanks to Mike Watkinson & Caroline Wardle (S&E)
Today’s talk
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The School of Medicine and Dentistry
The Doctoral College
Your degree
Scientific Integrity
When things go wrong
About you….
• PhD or MDRes
• Full time or part time
• Home/EU or Overseas
Barts and The London SMD
Six Institutes
• Barts Cancer Institute
• Blizard
• Dentistry
• IHSE
• WHRI
• Wolfson
Academic Structure
Professor Joy Hinson
Professor Jon May
Director of Doctoral College
HSS
SMD
Professor Mike Watkinson
S&E
Directors of Graduate Studies
PhD Supervisory teams/Panels
Research Student and Postdoc
- Networking • We want to encourage networking
within and across department
boundaries.
• School research open days, poster
competitions, internal student
organised conferences…..
What are we working towards?
Successful completion of your research degree
AND
Success in making the next step in your career
PhD Thesis
• The thesis must form a distinct contribution to
knowledge of the subject and afford evidence of
originality, shown by the discovery of new facts or
by the exercise of independent critical power.
• Be of a standard to merit publication in whole or in
part or in a revised form (for example, as a
monograph or as a number of articles in learned
journals).
• Be the work of the candidate
Milestones in your study (FT)
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9 month report
18 month report
30 month report
39 months: submit thesis
Transferable skills training
What your School Expects from You
• Courteous and professional conduct
towards all Staff and Students
• To be ambassadors for the School
• To contribute to the research standing of
the School
• To complete your PhD in the agreed time
period
What to Expect from your School
• We want you to succeed hence the
monitoring process
• A pleasant and stimulating environment
• To encourage doctoral development
training
– to aid your employability
Transferable Skills from the PhD
• Technical research skills
• Information searching skills
• Turning your hand to a range of
technical and data analysis challenges
• Project management skills
• Presentation skills
• Networking skills
• Teaching/instruction of others
• Working to schedules
• Your career management
I can't believe it! Reading and writing actually paid off!
RESEARCH INTEGRITY/
SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT
Integrity of Science - as a Scientist
As a Scientist you:
• usually know what you ought to do when a moral
question arises in research;
• probably don’t as a rule reflect on why a particular
action is good or bad;
• realise that ignorance of an existing rule or law does
not exempt you from the consequences if you break it;
• may face moral problems not anticipated by your
discipline’s existing values, traditions and standards;
Integrity of Research - QM
3. Integrity
3.1 Academic staff, research staff, visiting academics and
research students should be honest in respect of their own
actions in research and in their responses to the actions of
other researchers. This applies to all research work,
including experimental design, generating and analysing
data, applying for funding, publishing results, recognising
any real or potential conflicts of interest and acknowledging
the direct and indirect contribution of colleagues,
collaborators and any others involved in the research.
Reference: Queen Mary Guidelines on Good Practice in Research
(2003).
QM’s definition of Scientific Misconduct
Piracy - the deliberate exploitation of ideas from others
without proper acknowledgement;
Plagiarism - the copying or misappropriation of ideas (or
their expression), text, software or data (or some combination
thereof) without permission and/or due acknowledgement;
Mis-representation - deliberate attempt to represent falsely
or unfairly the ideas or work of others, whether or not for
personal gain or enhancement;
Fraud - deliberate deception (which may or may not include
the invention or fabrication of data).
Reference: QM Guidelines on Good Practice in Research (2003).
Case Study
Evan has nearly finished his PhD. He
has been working in collaboration with
another PhD student and they have
produced quite a lot of joint data. Can
this data be used in Evan’s PhD thesis?
Case study
Ellie’s supervisor sent her a manuscript to
referee for a scientific journal. It was an
interesting paper right in the area of Ellie’s
research and described experiments that she
hadn’t previously thought of doing. Ellie
recommended that the manuscript was
rejected and quickly set up the same
experiments. Is this a problem?
Case study
Peter was presenting a poster at a
conference. Several people came up to
discuss the poster with him and one
person made some really useful
suggestions about what he might do as
a follow-up study. Would it be wrong
for Peter to use this person’s ideas in
his research?
Plagiarism
Presenting someone else’s work as one’s own
irrespective of intention. Extensive quotations; close
paraphrasing; copying from the work of another
person, including another student or using the ideas
of another person, without proper acknowledgement,
also constitute plagiarism.
Reference: QM Academic Regulations 2009/10, Part 2 –
General Regulation, §2.79.
Avoid plagiarism – use referencing
• A reference is used whenever your work contains someone else’s
words or ideas. A reference will ensure that the reader of the
assignment can identify and locate the source of the information.
• If you quote directly from another person’s work you must use
quotation marks around the entire quote and reference the quote.
• If you paraphrase – put another person’s work into different words
but with the same meaning – you must reference the work.
• If you use another person’s ideas, findings or research (i.e. facts they
have established) in your work you must reference the work.
• ...
Reference: QM Academic Registry and Council Secretariat: Plagiarism – ten
key points
Self-plagiarism
In writing, self-plagiarism occurs when
authors re-use their own previously
written work or data in a ‘new’ written
product without letting the reader know
that this material has appeared
elsewhere.
Reference: Miguel Roig (2006)
Copyright……..
Other Scientific Misconduct
QM’s definition of Scientific Misconduct
Piracy - the deliberate exploitation of ideas from others
without proper acknowledgement;
Plagiarism - the copying or misappropriation of ideas (or
their expression), text, software or data (or some combination
thereof) without permission and/or due acknowledgement;
Mis-representation - deliberate attempt to represent falsely
or unfairly the ideas or work of others, whether or not for
personal gain or enhancement;
Fraud - deliberate deception (which may or may not include
the invention or fabrication of data).
Reference: QM Guidelines on Good Practice in Research (2003).
QM’s Handling of Allegations of
Scientific Misconduct
2.88. Allegations of any of the following will be dealt with
according to the Assessment Offences Regulations;
i.Breaches of any sections of the Academic Regulations
relating to the conduct of assessment.
ii.Plagiarism.
iii.Fraudulent reporting of source material.
iv.Fraudulent reporting of experimental results, research or
other investigative work.
v.The use, or attempted use, of ghost writing services for any
part of assessment.
Reference: QM Academic Regulations 2010/11, Part 2, Assessment
Offences Regulations .
Must you report scientific misconduct?
If you think you have seen a case
of suspected research misconduct
at QM, must you report it?
Reporting Scientific Misconduct
One of the most difficult situations that a researcher can
encounter is to see or suspect that a colleague has violated the
ethical standards of the research community. It is easy to find
excuses to do nothing, but someone who has witnessed
misconduct has an unmistakable obligation to act.
Reporting suspected research misconduct is a shared and
serious responsibility of all members of the academic
community. Any person who suspects a scientific misconduct
has an obligation to report the allegation to a dean of the unit
in which the suspected misconduct occurred or to another
senior University administrator.
Reference: Gunsalus (1998)
You couldn’t make it up!
Hyung-In Moon, a South Korean plant compound
researcher made up email addresses so he could do his
own peer review.
35 papers now retracted as a result.
7 previous papers retracted several years ago for
unspecified errors, some of which the notices called
“major”.
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/re
traction-count-for-scientist-who-faked-emails-to-dohis-own-peer-review-grows-to-35/
Case study
In 2006 Professor Dalibor Sames retracted seven papers
from American Chemical Society journals published with his
PhD student Bengu Sezen. For six of these papers, Sames
and Sezen were the only authors. Sames had already
sacked five people from his group for not being able to
reproduce Sezen’s work, but had secured tenure based on
his published record. The University of Columbia
subsequently retracted the PhD degree awarded to Sezen.
She is now a PhD student in Heidelberg in molecular
biology.
What questions does this case raise?
Reference:
http://yclept.ucdavis.edu/course/280/SamesSezenCase.pdf
Food for Thought
“In the cases of scientific fraud that I have looked
at, three motives, or risk factors have always
been present. In all cases, the perpetrators:
1. were under career pressure;
2. knew, or thought they knew what the answer
would turn out to be if they went to all the
trouble of doing the work properly, and
3. were working in a field where individual
experiments are not expected to be precisely
reproducible.”
Reference: Goodstein, David (1996)
If things go wrong
• Talk with supervisor, or
– School PhD tutor, or
– School Director of Graduate Studies, or
– School Research Administrator
• Don’t do NOTHING!
Case study
Maria started her PhD three months ago. It hasn’t turned
out quite as she expected. Maria’s supervisor is very buy
travelling to conferences and she rarely sees him.
Although they had a meeting when Maria started and she
thought she understood what she was meant to do, she
hasn’t had a formal meeting since then and she feels
completely lost. Nothing that she tries seems to work out
and she feels that she is pursuing dead ends. Her project
seems hopeless. She is dreading writing the 9 month
report. What should Maria do?
Case Study
Ian is working towards his PhD. His 9 month
assessment went quite well but since then he hasn’t
been working on his studies very much. Ian’s personal
life is a bit of a mess and he hasn’t got enough time to
do his research. His parents are divorcing and selling
the house which means he will be homeless. His
girlfriend wants to move in with him but Ian isn’t sure
if that is a good idea. He spends a lot of time out with
his friends and often doesn’t come into college. What
should Ian’s supervisor do?
Do, or do not, there is no try.
Who to talk to
• Supervisor
• Second supervisor
• Director of Graduate Studies
• Head of Graduate School
…and finally
Studying for a PhD is a really exciting
period in your life – ENJOY!
References - 1
• Ahearne, John F, 1999. The Responsible Researcher: Paths and Pitfalls. North
Carolina: Sigma Xi, online at
http://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/ethics/publications.shtml, accessed 20.09.2011.
• Bebau M., Pimple K., Muskavitch K., Borden S. & Smith D. (eds.), 1995. Moral
Reasoning in Scientific Research: Cases for Teaching and Assessment, online at
http://poynter.indiana.edu/mr/mr.pdf, accessed 20.09.2011.
• RCUK 2011. Policy and Code of Conduct on the Governance of Good Research
Conduct, online at
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/managing/Pages/goodpractice.aspx, accessed
20.09.2011.
• Goodstein, David, 1996. Conduct and Misconduct in Science in The Flight from
Science and Reason, Paul R. Gross, et al., New York Academy of Sciences,
reprinted in Ahearne, John F. ,1999. The Responsible Researcher: Paths and
Pitfalls, Sigma Xi.
• National Academies, 2009. On Being A Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct
in Research, (3rd. Edition), Washington DC: National Academy Press, online at
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12192.html/
References - 2
• QM Academic Regulations 2009/10, online at
http://www.arcs.qmul.ac.uk/policy_zone/academic/academic_regulations_2009_
10.pdf, accessed 27.09.2011.
• QM Guidelines on Good Practice in Research (2003) online at
http://www.qmul.ac.uk/qmul/research/policies/docs/g-gpr.pdf, accessed
20.09.2011.
• QM Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes (2011), online at
http://www.arcs.qmul.ac.uk/policy_zone/academic/Code_of_Practice_for%20Re
search_Degree_Programmes_2011-12.pdf, accessed 27.09.2011.
• QM Procedure for Investigating Allegations of Research Misconduct (2009)
online at http://www.qmul.ac.uk/qmul/research/policies/docs/p-misconduct.pdf,
accessed 20.09.2011.
• QM Research Ethics Committee, 2011, online at
http://connect.qmul.ac.uk/research/ethicscommittee/index.html, accessed
20.09.2011.
• Roig, Michael, 2006. Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other
questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing, online at
http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm/plagiarism/, accessed 27.09.2011.