Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
It is because of the possibility of misrepresentation that codes of conduct require
that scientists and departments retain their research data. A typical requirement is that
the datamust be held for 5 years from the date of publication andmust be accessible to
other researchers. In computer science, a reasonable interpretation of this guideline is
that it is necessary to keep notebooks, software, results, and descriptions of inputs—
the material that establishes that the research took place with the claimed outcomes.
Implementation of such guidelines is (at best) inconsistent, but a central lesson is
that it is reasonable for other scientists to seek to view your experimental setup as
reported in a paper.
Authorship
Deciding who has merited authorship of a paper can be a difficult and emotional
issue. A broadly accepted view is that each author must have made some significant
contribution to the intellectual content of the paper. Thus directed activities such
as programming do not usually merit authorship, nor does proofreading. An author
should have participated in the conception, execution, or interpretation of the results,
and usually an author should have participated to some degree in all of these activities.
The point at which a contribution becomes “significant” is impossible to define, and
every case is different, but neither code-cutting under the direction of a researcher nor
management roles such as obtaining funding justify authorship. Nor is it appropriate
to give authorship as a reward or favour.
A researcher who has contributed to the research must be given an opportunity to
be included as an author, but authors should not be listed without their permission.
On the other hand, involvement in an extended project does not guarantee authorship
on every paper that results from the project. Contributors who are not authors should
be acknowledged in some way.
Papers that are generated during the course of a student's research program are
often jointly attributed to both student and advisor. Usually the student has under-
taken the bulk of the task: capturing some idea in writing, running experiments,
and locating background literature, for example. However, often the work would not
have reached a reportable outcome without the involvement of the advisor. When
students work independently, the research is theirs alone, but a student who has put
in the majority of the effort while working under supervision should remember that
it is intellectual input that determines authorship. An advantage to inclusion of the
advisor as an author is that the advisor is committing to responsibility for the quality
and originality of the work.
It is not appropriate for an advisor to publish the work of a student without the
student's permission; if the student has completed a thesis reporting some research
results, then the student has earned authorship on papers derived from these results.
Nor is it appropriate for the student to publish without the permission of the advisor.
