selecting the right supervisor

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

How to select the right supervisor, or avoid the wrong one?

Does anyone know other sources similar to this:

https://sciencewatchblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/preventing-unethical-practices-in-science/

Edited October 11, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[Hope.for.the.best]

What do you mean by a "right" supervisor? If you mean finding someone without academic misconduct (from your link), then the publication record of your potential supervisor may give you some clues. Look for retracted publications. Someone with a sound record of retraction is more likely to have issues. Googling may help too because the press may be involved in some allegations of academic misconduct. You may also hear from colleagues of the same department if someone is suspected. 

If you mean finding a supervisor whom you work well with, then it is more like a hit-or-miss. Someone who works well with others does not necessarily work well with you. In this case, someone who is experienced and supervised a fair number of students may be the one to go for. 

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

7 hours ago, Hope.for.the.best said:

What do you mean by a "right" supervisor? If you mean finding someone without academic misconduct (from your link), then the publication record of your potential supervisor may give you some clues. Look for retracted publications. Someone with a sound record of retraction is more likely to have issues. Googling may help too because the press may be involved in some allegations of academic misconduct. You may also hear from colleagues of the same department if someone is suspected. 

If you mean finding a supervisor whom you work well with, then it is more like a hit-or-miss. Someone who works well with others does not necessarily work well with you. In this case, someone who is experienced and supervised a fair number of students may be the one to go for. 

Thank you for this reply.

I agree that searching for retraction history is one thing that may help. But many times, papers are retracted following many years of investigation, when already there many in the scientific community who suspect or even know that there is something wrong with the conduct in lab X, but wouldn't speak about it openly with their students. The story of Marc Hauser is one such example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Hauser

Moreover, not all bad lab supervision practices result in a retraction. This is one such example for how a professor can harm a lab member for actually being the victim and then doing the right thing to protect herself and the rest of the lab: https://www.nature.com/scitable/forums/women-in-science/misconduct-in-research-at-yale-118277028

What I'm suggesting is that there is a need for a place were we objectively, carefully and responsibly share knowledge about problematic labs. This forum may serve this task. But there might be a need for a dedicated platform. This blog is aiming at this, providing information on several cases that are not published yet, but we need to have more: https://sciencewatchblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/preventing-unethical-practices-in-science/

 

[_kita]

I wouldn't suggest using a public forum like this to discuss and/or report unsubstantiated ethical quandaries for several reasons:

• A public forum like this, in nature, is subjective. Ethical reporting needs to be objective for review
• You may end up 'leaking' a private investigation to the public - which is a different ethical dilemma
• There's no way to check the honesty or accuracy of a forum discussion

I would even be hesitant using this forum as a collection for substantiated ethical dilemmas as we are not set up for that type of database collection, and would end up missing problems. Academic and research honesty are big issues, but an open platform like this that doesn't verify and has such a narrow subject pool isn't the place for it.

 

[TakeruK]

In terms of research misconduct (e.g. fake results, etc.) then I would say that the number of "good professors" far outweigh the number of "bad professors". I don't think any special actions is necessary to determine who are the "bad professors". Typically, when you are deciding on an advisor, you will talk to a lot of people about it. You might talk to profs/mentors at your undergrad school, your fellow grad students in your program, etc. Usually people do this to find out who is a good "fit" for them, such as whether the prof micromanages or not, work expectations etc. However, sometimes, if you are talking to the right people, you'll find out other "red flags" about the prof as well.

Unfortunately, this "whisper network" method isn't great and plenty of cases of harassment by faculty members that have come to light in the past few years show that many people, especially those most vulnerable, aren't "in the know" about these bad actors.

I would agree with @_kita that public forums aren't a good way to "name" these bad actors. Our grad student organization used to run a "rate my advisor" type service where graduated students can leave feedback on their advisors. However, even this doesn't work well because 1) anyone can say anything, and 2) even if we withheld reviews for 5-10 years and then released them, advisors who find these reviews can probably figure out who wrote them.

I am not sure what the best action would be. I am in favour of formal investigation by an appropriate body (for the appropriate offense) and public announcements of persons found guilty of inappropriate action. For sexual harassment/misconduct, the school's Title IX office should be the appropriate body, however, some schools have Title IX offices that mostly exist to cover up and protect the University. In addition, these results are always confidential and if the offender moves to a different school, no record is transferred. I would like to see expansion of Title IX policy to include a publicly accessible database of investigations that lead to disciplinary actions. However, the current US Government is leaning towards reducing the scope of Title IX.

Another possibility is through the national societies for our discipline. Other professionals, such as doctors, have national regulatory bodies that report on professionals who have violated policy. At this stage, most academic national societies can't really function as regulatory bodies because academics are not regulated and they are not compelled to be a member of their national society. But, I think we can change that. In one of my fields, the American Astronomical Society is the main national society for Astronomy. Almost every faculty member is a member and you need to be a member to vote in their elections and give input which are used to drive national level policies that affect our research. So, it would be pretty strange for a faculty member at a research-oriented school to not be a member. If these societies have the resources to conduct investigations and maintain a database of offenses, that would help keep everyone in check. However, these societies are often reluctant to do such things because they don't have the staff, resources and they are concerned about liability (i.e. they need legal protection in case the offender decides to sue, and in the case where they come to the wrong conclusion about one of their members).

Although I am not sure how to provide these resources to the national societies, I think this is a possible solution. One society (the American Geophysical Union) took the step of including sexual harassment as a form of scientific misconduct (http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/scientific-society-defines-sexual-harassment-scientific-misconduct). I think this is a step in the right direction and I hope the other societies I interact with do the same.

Another way might be for funding agencies to develop their own code of conduct enforcement/investigation team. There could be one single body to regulate all federal public funds for all the public agencies. Private funders would have to set up their own system or perhaps they could contract the federal team to do the work. This would require some significant investment from the national government though.

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

1 hour ago, _kita said:

I wouldn't suggest using a public forum like this to discuss and/or report unsubstantiated ethical quandaries for several reasons:

• A public forum like this, in nature, is subjective. Ethical reporting needs to be objective for review
• You may end up 'leaking' a private investigation to the public - which is a different ethical dilemma
• There's no way to check the honesty or accuracy of a forum discussion

I would even be hesitant using this forum as a collection for substantiated ethical dilemmas as we are not set up for that type of database collection, and would end up missing problems. Academic and research honesty are big issues, but an open platform like this that doesn't verify and has such a narrow subject pool isn't the place for it.

 

Well said.

I do agree that public enclosure should be done in a responsible way. This why I wrote above "What I'm suggesting is that there is a need for a place were we objectively, carefully and responsibly share knowledge about problematic labs". I'm suggesting a platform where only factual information will be presented, and where the relevant administration failed at taking action.

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

1 hour ago, TakeruK said:

I would say that the number of "good professors" far outweigh the number of "bad professors".

 

I like to believe that this is true. Unfortunately, in recent years I learned of too many horror stories. It seems that as funding is getting harder to get, more and more Professor tent to cut corners.

"Title IX office should be the appropriate body, however, some schools have Title IX offices that mostly exist to cover up and protect the University. In addition, these results are always confidential and if the offender moves to a different school, no record is transferred. I would like to see expansion of Title IX policy to include a publicly accessible database of investigations that lead to disciplinary actions. However, the current US Government is leaning towards reducing the scope of Title IX. "

True, and this is why there is a need for us to act. You brought up the issue of sexual offenders, and how Universities may fail at taking care of even those cases, which are potentially criminal in nature. This one such example for a long saga: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-northwestern-student-sues-professor-book-20170517-story.html

"Another way might be for funding agencies to develop their own code of conduct enforcement/investigation team. There could be one single body to regulate all federal public funds for all the public agencies. "

Good point. For example even NIH/ORI has a limited jurisdiction to act. They openly acknowledge do not have the resources handling all cases they consider as unethical. Many other agencies inspector generals may luck the personnel investigating scientific misconduct, and may decide not to act whenever the missconduct does not directly involve an abuse of tax payer money.

 

Edited October 11, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[Sigaba]

On 10/10/2017 at 7:13 PM, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

How to select the right supervisor, or avoid the wrong one?

 

I recommend that you talk to the person's ABDs off the record.

I recommend that you put aside your aspirations to be a gate keeper to the profession you want to join and leave that task to the established professionals who have been there and done that.

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

54 minutes ago, Sigaba said:

I recommend that you talk to the person's ABDs off the record.

I recommend that you put aside your aspirations to be a gate keeper to the profession you want to join and leave that task to the established professionals who have been there and done that.

Thanks Sigaba.

But what if the administrators responsible to act are either indifferent, or help the Professor in a cover-up, instead of taking disciplinary measures?

[rising_star]

On 10/13/2017 at 12:30 PM, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

But what if the administrators responsible to act are either indifferent, or help the Professor in a cover-up, instead of taking disciplinary measures?

So what? Lots of things happen that don't result in disciplinary action for all sorts of reasons. If you really want to be in a position to stop this, become a renowned researcher then move into the administrative ranks and become a provost/dean.

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

6 hours ago, rising_star said:

So what? Lots of things happen that don't result in disciplinary action for all sorts of reasons. If you really want to be in a position to stop this, become a renowned researcher then move into the administrative ranks and become a provost/dean.

Interesting point of view.

So you say that as long as you are not a senior scientist, you should tolerate misconducts that you are aware of?

And what should you do when you are already known scientist, but taking an action may damage you politically?

You see, I'm afraid that there are always 'good' excuses not to act.

[fuzzylogician]

Frankly this thread is all a bit overly naive for me. You really think that you can become the watchdog of all of academia and uncover some hidden nefarious agendas, where power and politics lie, as an obscure student? Good luck. I personally don't know that I'd trust a random website to report on this; I also don't know that I believe that you have the ability to actually investigate allegations. Collecting allegations, unfounded or not, in one place, doesn't do much to help the situation. Universities already have procedures in place to lodge complaints and to investigate them, which have a lot more power than you do. If you don't trust the process -- justifiably or otherwise -- then what are we to make of a collection of claims that can't even be properly confirmed? "objectively, carefully and responsibly share knowledge"? but who's supervising you to ensure that allegations on your blog are actually well-founded? 

[TakeruK]

31 minutes ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

Interesting point of view.

So you say that as long as you are not a senior scientist, you should tolerate misconducts that you are aware of?

And what should you do when you are already known scientist, but taking an action may damage you politically?

You see, I'm afraid that there are always 'good' excuses not to act.

I think it's important to be realistic about your ability to make a difference and also the risks that comes to you for taking these actions. You are not helping anyone if you are acting ineffectively and harm yourself in the process.

I think it's admirable that you are passionate about these issues. I am too. But I think your naive approach here is likely to do more harm than good. More harm not only to yourself but possibly to the people you're trying to help as well. If you do get your idea up and running and people submit stories, how are you going to protect their anonymity? People often only come forward if they believe the offender (whether it's harassment or other misconduct) will be properly punished. If you promise or seem to promise this to people and you don't succeed, nothing good will happen. And the people that shared their stories are now at risk because of you.

No, the experienced people here aren't just telling you that your idea is bad because they want to protect the system or find excuses not to act. We are saying it's a bad idea because many of us have gone through similar processes or seen processes like this happen before. I completely agree with you that we should act when there is wrongdoing. I would even say that it is our moral imperative to do something if we have the power to do so. I just strongly disagree with your proposed method, mainly because I think it does more harm than good.

But I won't stop there. Let me tell you about what I know actually works! I spent 4 out of 5 years of my PhD program in my grad student government advocating for policy changes at various levels at my school. I am a big proponent of action and out of my colleagues on the government, I often land on the side of more action. We have had some successes in implementing important changes for our students. 

In addition, in my field, there were two major sexual harassment cases of faculty members that became public knowledge during my grad school career. In the end, both of these offenders are no longer employed at their schools. Student action definitely was part of the chain of events that led to these bad professors leaving their jobs, but it's not in the way you're proposing. So, instead, let me tell you a little bit more about what actually happened/worked.

First, it is important to remember that the people with actual power over the employment status of a professor are the administrators at their school. The specific administrators depend on how each school is governed. These administrators are charged with the duty of protecting their school and their community: that is, the faculty, postdocs, staff, students, etc. That is their priority and even if they have personal opinions otherwise, it would be in neglect of their duties to act against the interests of the groups they represent. 

So, an appeal for the administrators to "do something" has to take these considerations into account. What reason would these administrators have to entertain an appeal from random students across the country? It doesn't really matter what an external organization of students want---it would make no sense for a specific school's administration to cater to the requests/demands of a random group of students. Instead, the appeal must come from the groups the administrators represent or have consequences for these groups. So one external body that might sway the administrators would be the funders. Either the private organizations or the government (e.g. Title IX enforcement). These groups have impact on the campus community. This was what I was trying to leverage in my post above.

But another important group are the people at the schools themselves. The faculty at the school can influence the administrators. The students at the specific school can influence the administrators. And the students at the school can influence the faculty at the school to influence the administrators. But not an unconnected external group of students that have no power over the administrators.

In one of the cases I alluded to, the Title IX case found the professor responsible for sexual misconduct over several decades. The Title IX case complainants (the term for the people who bring the case to the Title IX office) were three people he harassed in the past and are now ranging from junior to senior scientists. After the investigation concluded and the result determined, the case became public knowledge and the media wrote about it. So there's no pretending it didn't happen. While the Title IX office determines the result of the investigation, it's another administrative body that decides the punishment. These bodies generally protect tenured professors so the original decision was a fairly light punishment. A lot of people in my field protested this injustice. Many from outside the department, but the things that caused a change were actions from people the administrators actually cared about. The grad students in the department all cosigned a letter stating that they do not feel comfortable with this faculty member in their department, advising students, teaching students. But perhaps the most powerful action, it was the faculty members in the offender's department that wrote a letter to the administrators that they lost confidence in their colleague to carry out his duties as a tenured professor and do not believe him fit for the department. This letter was signed by almost every faculty member in the department. Ultimately, because of these actions, the offender was asked to take early retirement, which he did. Note that despite these extraordinary actions against the professor, he was still not "fired". He "retired".

In another case, a very similar chain of events happened. The Title IX investigation found the offending professor guilty of sexual harassment. The administrators' punishment was a one year suspension and a committee would determine if the prof was ready to return after one year. During this one year off, the professor continued harassment via social media, so the suspension was extended another year. All of this published in the media. Even in the journal Science. Near the end of the two years, a committee of faculty members across campus was struck to determine if the professor was ready to return to campus. Through pressure from students on campus, the committee held many town halls and meetings with students to hear impact of this professor's actions on students. Many faculty members initially thinking the harassment was "minor" because it was not physical realised the mental and emotional damage done through testimony of students. I am not sure what their final decision was, but they noted to the professor that his return would cause a huge divide on campus. I don't know what else they said to him, but the offender decided to resign his tenured faculty position. Again, despite huge public and media coverage, strong testimony on campus against his return, the professor still resigned, he was not fired. And this result was an unprecedented outcome for a tenured professor.

In both cases, due process found the offender to be guilty. The administrators responsible for discipline chose something fairly light for the "convicted" tenured professor. There was public outrage and backlash from others in the field. People important to the administrators made arguments against the offender. And yet, the best we can get is that they were somehow convinced to resign or retire. And, still people in the field believe that this type of thing is not a problem. And there are still people who support the guilty party and think they were treated unfairly.

I don't mean to tell these stories to discourage you from taking any action. Or to make excuses for inaction. Instead, I want to make it more clear the obstacles in the way so that you can take proper actions that will actually help people. There is huge amounts of obstacles in the way and if you present yourself as a group able to help people, you really need to be able to deliver on your promise. If you are not doing your due diligence to ensure that you treat their information responsibly and actually lead to helpful results, you are going to cause more damage to the people that trusted you with their information. I also share these stories to convince you of a different path to action. I think the key step to convincing administrators is when their key stakeholders appeal to them for action. And their most important group are the faculty members. So instead of some likely ineffective watchdog type advocacy, I think it is far better to engage in efforts to encourage faculty members to support their students when one of them comes forward with information about a professor acting unethically and inappropriately. This could be education campaigns or other awareness. And when you do hear about a case in your field, you could provide moral and resources support for students in the affected department so that they can determine the best action they need to take for themselves.

[Sigaba]

3 hours ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

Interesting point of view.

So you say that as long as you are not a senior scientist, you should tolerate misconducts that you are aware of?

And what should you do when you are already known scientist, but taking an action may damage you politically?

You see, I'm afraid that there are always 'good' excuses not to act.

Then by all means, go ahead and act according to the dictates of your conscience.

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

12 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

 

The intention is not to change the entire system. The intention is to provide individuals with an opportunity to publish concerns about a specific incidence, where all other means turn to be ineffective. Importantly, publishing only facts that can be verified.

What will happen next? Maybe nothing. Maybe an administrator that had to act and so far didn't, will feel more committed to take action when evidences he previously ignored are now made public.

Maybe the path for changing the system involves making small changes, one at a time.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[fuzzylogician]

1 hour ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

The intention is not to change the entire system. The intention is to provide individuals with an opportunity to publish concerns about a specific incidence, where all other means turn to be ineffective. Importantly, publishing only facts that can be verified.

Verified, how? You don't have the authority to investigate, do you? Have you thought about issues of liability? 

1 hour ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

What will happen next? Maybe nothing. Maybe an administrator that had to act and so far didn't, will feel more committed to take action when evidences he previously ignored are now made public.

Maybe an accusation on some internet website will cause action. Maybe not. Maybe all administrators aren't male... 

1 hour ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

Maybe the path for changing the system involves making small changes, one at a time.

Yes. That much we can agree on. 

[_kita]

9 minutes ago, fuzzylogician said:

Verified, how? You don't have the authority to investigate, do you? Have you thought about issues of liability? 

@fuzzylogician's point here is probably the most important. I've been a part of ethics committees in the past. If someone released information about an ongoing investigation, they could be brought up on charges from slander to malpractice. Honestly, you could even be brought up on these charges if the violation is validated, and, for some reason, the professor's record was expunged.

If your career has any type of licensing attached to it, ethical violations of that degree (malpractice) could lead to being stripped of, or never allowed to get, your license. That's the same thing for anyone who reports these problems. I would instead encourage the schools ethics boards to start reporting violations to the public instead of going about it as an independent third-party. If these records were made public, a public platform like you're discussing would not be a professional violation.

 

 

[rising_star]

On 10/16/2017 at 7:41 PM, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

Interesting point of view.

So you say that as long as you are not a senior scientist, you should tolerate misconducts that you are aware of?

And what should you do when you are already known scientist, but taking an action may damage you politically?

You see, I'm afraid that there are always 'good' excuses not to act.

To answer your questions in order:

1) I never said that anyone should tolerate misconducts. Instead, what I pointed to was a realistic way to address the concerns you're interested in. A respected researcher and administrator is going to be more effective at addressing misconduct than an aspiring graduate student for many reasons including but not limited to those explained to you y TakeruK and fuzzylogician.

2) That's a matter of personal conscience. I cannot tell anyone else whether they should take actions which would damage their career but I know what I personally would do (some of which involves considering the effect it will have on others).

3) Yes, there are always "good" excuses not to act. Take all the people who did nothing while the KKK literally murdered people for the crime of having dark skin. But, that wasn't everyone. Some people spoke out. Some people did act. And, working together, they slowly pressured governments into enacting changes. Whether or not someone is too afraid to act is really an individual thing and, again, I cannot tell anyone else what they should do.

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

So I've been following this thread for a while and I hope, OP, that you take the advice of these responders to heart. It's good to want to change a corrupt system, but we must make sure we are not doing more harm with our actions. Think through every possible outcome and realize that, in such situations, it is far more complicated an endeavor to solve than what a third-party, non-professional website can fix. It's ok to want to act and figure out how to solve these problems, but the problems must be considered in their entirety and, most of the time, one umbrella solution will not solve such a complex system. Do not take action without considering its effect on the victims of these crimes. It's ok to want to improve a corrupt system, but taking action that could potentially lead to further harm to the victims is not ok in my opinion. Furthermore, if this risk is undisclosed, it is also unethical and will lead to potentially negative consequences for you, on top of the additional harm/trauma to the victims (sidenote: I want to call them survivors).