Ethics and Etiquette in Scientific Research - Introduction to Computer Science - Lecture Slides, Slides of Computer Science

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Ethics and Etiquette in Scientific Research

•  Rules of conduct for persons in authority
•  How to avoid improprieties
•  How to tell if you're being screwed

Research Ethics Covers

Many Areas

 Use of human subjects in research

− Informed consent, IRB oversight

 Use of animals in research

− Appropriate care/use, IACUC oversight

 Moral debates

− Stem cell research, impact of technology (nuclear weapons, genetic screening), etc.

 Professional issues (today's topic)

− Authorship, IP rights, confidentiality, etc.

Avoiding Ethical Dilemmas

• 3. Learn to recognize the most common ethical

mistakes. − Misappropriation of text or ideas. − Deceptive reporting of research results. − Breach of confidentiality.

• 4. Take steps now to avoid conflicts in your

research group. − Or resolve them quickly with minimal discomfort.

• 5. Learn from others' mistakes.

Ethics Education

 Scientific integrity training is now required

in many areas of the sciences.

 NIH and NSF training grants require it.

 Ethics training is a standard part of medical

school and business school curricula.

− But not computer science?

Resources (cont.)

 CMU's Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics and Political Philosophy

− Peter Madsen offers several ethics courses

 Many ethics education programs use case studies to foster discussion.

 Lots of good material on the web, e.g., http://bioethics.od.nih.gov http://onlineethics.org

Official Policies

 CMU Faculty and Student Handbooks contain policies on: − Plagiarism − Conflict of interest − Use of human subjects in research − Handling of allegations of misconduct in research − Ownership of intellectual property − Privacy of computer accounts − Sexual harassment

 http://www.cmu.edu/policies

Issue #1: Allocation of Credit

 Two forms of credit in a paper:

− Co-authorship − Acknowledgments

 Who gets listed as a co-author?

− Lab director is co-author on all papers?

− Student “owes” his advisor co-authorship on at least one journal paper?

Ordering of Authors

 How is the ordering of authors determined

in your field?

 First and last usually the key positions.

 Different disciplines/cultures follow

different conventions.

Co-Authorship in

Computer Science

 Generally: authors ordered by the amount of their contribution. − But in the Theory community, author list is sometimes alphabetical.

 Contributions may include:

− Providing key ideas − Doing the implementation − Running experiments / collecting data − Analyzing the data − Writing up the results

Co-Authorship in CS

 No special honor to be last author?

 No general consensus on lab directors getting co-authorship.

 Papers typically have 1-4 authors.

− Rarely see large author lists as in physics.

 But many computer scientists do interdisciplinary work: HCI, computational neurosci. Culture clash?

Acknowledge People Who...

− Contribute a good idea or coin a useful term

− Provide pointers to papers for the bibliography

− Help with debugging some tricky code

− Help with typesetting or illustrations

− Provide significant resources, e.g., loan of equipment, tissue samples, etc.

• Also acknowledge your funding agency!

Ask Your Advisor:

• 1. What are the authorship conventions in our field?
• 2. What are the authorship conventions in your lab?
• 3. Are students prohibited from submitting papers (even if sole-authored) without your approval?
• 4. Who owns the code/data/manuscript?
• See CMU policy on intellectual property.
• Some CMU cases: Godspell, SCRIBE

Issue #2: Misappropriating Text

 Borrowing “just a sentence or two” without

attribution is plagiarism.

 But plagiarism is easily avoided: give the

citation.

Misappropriation Example

• Smith:
• The parrot is a remarkable bird in many

respects. In terms of intelligence, humor,

and manual dexterity, it is unequalled in the

avian kingdom.