I work in a Federal Lab and I know a coworker that is working on his PhD in Computer Science. A lot of the local colleges allow lab employees to complete their research in the Federal Lab rather than at the school. Pretty sweet gig if you can land it because you are essentially getting a lot of the research out of the way while doing your job and getting paid at the same time.

I became concerned recently because I have noticed that this individual has a contractor perform most of the computer programming for his research and he has a paid intern run most of the experiments. The bulk of what he has to complete then is writing the papers.

I do not have a PhD myself, so maybe this is actually very common, but it did not seem honest to me. I had always assumed that Universities expected students to be hands on with most of their research. Is this person doing something unethical? or am I just being overly critical?

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If the algorithms and ideas are his and he working with the contractor to create the programs, that may be okay as long as college are aware of this.  However, if he is letting the contractor do all the work and then passing the work off as his original contribution to his field, then it is not his work and he is not entitled to his PhD if he is awarded it.  I would consider his actions unethical.

It's basically up to your own conscience whether or not you raise your concerns.

As to how common it is, I couldn't say though PhD researchers in general I would say 99% are above board.  I would say the 'bad apples' are the exception rather than the rule. However, there are odd cases of supervisors and advisors using PhD candidate's data or even getting the candidate to write a paper and passing it off as their own work, without a mention of the person actually doing the work. So whether or not anyone would act on your concerns in academic circles, I don't know for sure.


Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

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This. Ian is right. I also have a degree in Computing, so I might be of some assistance.
What is his PhD about OP? Do you know? Did you see him developing those algorithms? Did you see him read the papers?

I'm not entirely sure of the "ethics" of letting someone "program" your ideas. The created program is not a big deal in my view. The idea behind it, is.

Although having said that, I do my own programs so that I know all the details as much as possible.

Here's one thing to think about OP; if I write a program using MATLAB, and MATLAB was obviously created by someone else, is that cheating? MATLAB was created by someone; not me. Should I create my own version of MATLAB so that "all" the work now belongs to me, and no one else?
Wouldn't that be similar to the guy you mentioned? He asked someone to write the code for him, which he pays I presumed, but the idea behind the code is his idea from his LR or somewhere he got his "enlightenment". If the ideas all came from him, isn't that similar to the software that I paid someone to build for me (MATLAB)? The only thing I did now is that I use the MATLAB program, express my ideas on it, and write it myself.

I'm open for discussions : )



Have you seen any of these bad apples before?

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MATLAB is the tool, the commercial program already in the public domain as would be, say, a C++ compiler. The code would be what the programmer fed into that compiler. The use of tools already available is not the issue. The issue is "Is the programmer passing the code fed into that compiler done by someone else as his or her own?"



A few:

1) A PhD student couldn't get his program working, so put in a piece of code that fired out the results he wanted when the program was run. A few years later after he was awarded his PhD, the project was revisited and someone put in different variables just to see the program throw out the same results regardless.

2) Another candidate could not get a piece of electronic kit working, which his PhD depended on. He therefore faked the predicted data, submitted and was awarded his PhD. The undergads knew, the only people who didn't were the candidate's supervisors. From what I can gather, the lad was open about his failure.

The Uni. in each case on finding out decided to let the candidate keep their PhD rather than attract bad publicity from revoking the PhDs.

3) I was indirectly witness to a senior researcher 'disregard' data that proved his technique didn't work. He went to journal with the 'preferred' data - the project involved an industrial partner and may have affected the lifespan of a critical component. Another colleague that did some work for him and was in a position to force retraction (I wasn't) noted what he'd done, but opted to remain silent as he did not want to become anymore involved.

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

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Damn the word limit on this thing!!!

To add to the below, the first two stories (the first I believe was the PhD student of a computing lecturer that had taught me, the second was someone one of my predecessors in my PhD project knew) smack of desperation to show something for the years spent on their repsective projects. I can sort of understand even if I don't agree with what they've done.

The third is more about boosting the profile of the senior researcher and the name of the colleague who did some of the work for him has gone on the paper resutling as a co-author. If someone repeats the same tests, they will get more negative results and the industrial partner will not be happy if they work out what has happened.

We all know of things that have happened and shouldn't. Some tales I know of have some humour value, with many happening because people working in academia either don't take enough notice of potential mispractice or malpractice, or choose not to notice. However, I'm coy about posting up a couple of the other stories as even if I don't name the Uni. involed, it's easily worked out from the events that transpired if a member of staff happens to read them. :-)

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

My goodness; how could they live with that? I could never do such a thing especially having the after feeling of guilt for the rest of my life : /

Share more if you have them! : D