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Case 10b :

Falsifying and Fabricating Authorship

Periodically, Professor Hammond is able to offer his students easy publications. In today's laboratory meeting, he offers up an opportunity to a new group of students, reporting before adjourning the meeting:

"The CRO (contract research organization) has given us the paper and is asking us if we would like to publish it through our laboratory. I asked Natalia to review the paper for any major problems in the data and methods, and Raj has re-run some of the analyses. I looked over the final paper and I think this is sound. It will not go to the best journal, but we can certainly get this into a well respected journal and it may help us to be successful in the next round of GRF funding. Could you all please let me know if you wish to be included on the list of authors for this paper by tomorrow? I need to reply to them shortly".

Jessie, a new MPhil student in the group, exclaimed,

"Woohoo! Free publications! My boyfriend will be so jealous. They have to write for years in medical humanities and just hope something is accepted. I just have to come to work and publications fall into my lap".

Herman, a new PhD student shot an annoyed look at Jessie,

"I think this is a bad idea, Jessie. Nothing is for free, and what if we are asked to give presentations about this research in our next post? Sure, what we do here is similar, but it's not exactly the same… is it Raj? Natalia?"

Both Natalia and Raj concurred that the research in the "free" paper was similar to that on-going in the lab and that it was generally well done. Natalia added to her technical explanation the more world-weary explanation that,

"They just want Professor Hammond's name on it so they can get a better deal with the Food and Drug Administration when it comes time to file for a New Drug Application. The company will benefit from the prestige of Professor Hammond. We will benefit from the publication".

Raj, despite being known as the skeptic in the group on almost all matters, stated his technical explanation, adding that,

"It's a win-win. We publish, they publish. Sure we didn't do the work as such, but we did design the study and re-run their analyses. That took almost a week! We're not stealing another person's work, so it's not plagiarism. They are giving it to us. What is that phrase: 'do not look a gift horse in the mouth'?"

• What is the distinction to be made between plagiarism and ghost authorship?
• If the CRO is giving you the paper, and you have re-run the analyses, what is it that might be wrong here?
• To whom might you ask questions like this in the university?
   

Imagine you are Herman:

• How will you make your case against accepting the piece ghost written by the CRO?
• What are the risks and rewards of accepting this piece?

 

Imagine you are Jessie or Raj:

• How will you convince Herman that this is acceptable?
• What are the risks and rewards of accepting this piece?