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Case 2f :

Fabrication—"Fake it 'til you Make it" (or until you're found out)

Cara was always jealous of her twin sister May. May was a chemical engineering researcher working in the R&D department for a large petroleum engineering department at a major research university. May was well published, travelled widely, had many grants, and many students and post-doctoral fellows. Cara is an industrial-organizational psychologist teaching at a small engineering college. Cara has some publications, but she believes she is best as a teacher than a researcher.

Last year, tragically, May was killed in an automobile accident while at a conference in the Middle East. Their family was devastated. However, at May's funeral, Cara noticed how many researchers lamented her passing as well.

After the funeral, as Cara began to sort through May's files and notes, she began to wonder if the research world would notice if Cara "became" May. They were always confused for one another, even by relatives, and neither used their first names. "Would anyone notice if SM Zheng became SC Zheng?"

Over the next year, Cara revised some of the papers that May had begun. She invested her evenings, nights, and weekends to learning everything she could about May's research. Cara poured over the data that May's team had compiled, re-ran the analyses, and even contacted some of May's former students to ask their views on what they had been working on while May was alive.

A year and a half after May's unfortunate death, Cara sat in front of her computer and contemplated the next step—it was a big one—she was going to send two papers out for review as SC Zheng, but using the reputation and research of SM Zheng. At this point, Cara was convinced that she was "doing the research world a favor" by continuing the important research May had begun.

Cara thought to herself,

"The world needs people to study the longevity of petroleum reserves. No one needs another IO psychologist to tell them how to make an office run better".

For three years, SC Zheng published in the petroleum engineering and geophysical engineering journals. In many of the letters from editors accepting her pieces, they referred to Cara as May. By publishing as May, it was as if Cara had brought May back to life.

This morning, however, a critical thread in the web of tales Cara told was pulled out from under her: a reviewer, reporting to be one of May's former students, reported to the editor of one of the many journals May/Cara had submitted to, that his data had been purloined in the paper he was reviewing. The editor was demanding an explanation and she had cc'd the president of May's former university and the president of Cara's current university.

Imagine that you are Cara:

• How might you explain your actions?
• How would you explain what you have done with May's work?
• Could you make a case for a legitimate right to publish May's work under your name, and if so, how?

 

Imagine that you are the editor of the journal:

• What demands might you make of May/Cara?
• What might you request of the universities in question?
• How might you respond to the accusing reviewer?