What would you do if your University Professor cheat?

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

Would you trust as your Professor someone who use false information in his resume to advance his career?

How would you handled yourself if you find yourself in the situation described in this link ?:

https://sciencewatchblog.wordpress.com/what-would-you-do-if-your-university-professor-cheat/

[hats]

As a graduate student advised by this person?

1) Wow this is not my business.

2) I do not have anywhere near the level of institutional power, influence, or support, to do anything about this.

3) Gee I will wait with my head down for my professor's colleagues to sort this out. When I say "with my head down," I especially mean that I will not gossip.

4) I trust they will sort this out fairly, even if this means severe consequences for my advisor, like firing them.

5) This seems like a good time to strengthen my relationships with other faculty members in my department, to see what I can do about making a Plan B for if they do fire the guy.

[TakeruK]

My first reaction was: Yikes. I am sad to hear about cases like this.

My second reaction was: Is this website/article the only report of this case or has it been reported elsewhere and details corroborated by another source? After the initial reaction, I went to see if I could find instances of this reported elsewhere, but did not find anything. I would be concerned that the author of this article has some personal vendetta against this person and is digging up pretty obscure details of their past. (I'm not sure if you, @Ibn Al-Haytham, is also the author of this article, or if you're just linking to it).

Summary: I don't think this is a big deal at all and I think the author of this article is presenting minor mistakes as motivated wrongdoing without any substantial evidence. Please see below for a fact check of the article. Since this post is now super long, I'm presenting my main summarized thoughts up here.

In the linked article, the author brings up a concern of CV fabrication and coverup by universities. However, the case in question is hardly clear evidence of this happening. Based on my fact-check below, there is only one instance where there could have been a deliberate attempt to claim credit for something the professor did not do, although there are plenty of benign explanations that also fit. This seems much more like a case of sloppy CV record keeping and making mistakes one really shouldn't make. And although I agree with the linked article's author that integrity is extremely important and once someone does something academically unethical, their other actions do become suspect. However, one clearly cannot group all questionable acts together. Even if the prof in question did knowingly leave the one incorrect item in their CV in an attempt to boost it, this is a very minor offense that does not lead me to question everything else the professor did. In addition, I do not think such small differences gave the prof in question any real unfair advantage. Overall, I think the linked article contains a lot of speculation, especially about the prof in question's motives, which the author cannot know. It also presents minor issues as major ones with little argument to back that up and arbitrarily decides on the worst possible outcome when facts are unknown (without acknowledging other explanations). Altogether, it seems like an irresponsible article to have published.

---- Here's what I did to fact-check the article ----

It was a long article but the two main problems the author pointed out with the CV is 1) the person in question put some conference abstracts under conference proceedings in the CV and 2) the person in question claimed authorship of 2 articles they did not author.

For #1. I don't think there is any wrongdoing here at all. Looking at the archived CV, under "peer-reviewed conference proceedings", the professor makes it clear that there are two types of things being listed, "Talk presented at ..." and "In Proceedings....". To me, this clearly shows that the ones with only "Talk presented at..." are not published proceedings. It's legitimate to call them peer-reviewed because conferences use peer review to select which abstracts are going to be scheduled as talks. In the article, the author uses their own definition of Proceedings and cites Wikipedia, but these are certainly not the only (nor the only acceptable) definition. 

For #2. I decided to do my own digging since I could not find details corroborated by any other source. The article's author objects to two publications: 

A.      Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.

B.      Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.

I started with Publication A. Unlike the article's author, I was able to easily find this publication within 5 minutes of searching. Here's what I did. I went to the journal's website. I searched back issues to look for Volume 72, Issue 2. It turns out that there was a meeting and the abstracts of presentations were published in the Biophys J. As a special issue, probably (normal in my field too). With the page number being "A370", it was just a matter of searching through the long list of PDFs organized by session to determine which one A370 belonged to. I found it on Page 22 of this file: http://www.cell.com/biophysj/pdf/S0006-3495(97)78745-9.pdf

The main problem with this line in the CV was that the published issue of Biophys J. is February 1997 but the CV says June 1997. Benign typo, or perhaps misunderstanding of dates. I have a conference presentation from 2013 that was accepted for publication as proceedings but did not appear in print until 2014 (appeared online in 2013).

The secondary problem is that despite publication in a peer-reviewed journal, at least in my field, this is not a typical peer reviewed journal article. However, this is minor issue at the level of "CV padding", not a grave ethical breach that would cause me to doubt everything about this person. It is far less serious than the original claim that the person in question simply fabricated the manuscript.

In any case, nothing to ring alarm bells about at all.

Publication B is a little more tricky. I was not able to find the publication as cited by the person in question. It may not exist or I might just not be familiar enough with this field's journals (I notice that the American Journal of Physiology has many subdivisions). The author of the article claims that Publication B as cited is a misrepresentation of another article with a similar title but a different author list. I noticed that Publication B, as cited, quotes page numbers H1-H14. Volume 268 doesn't have page H1-H14 and it doesn't even have Issue 32, as far as I know. This makes me suspect a typo. Also, while it's possible to be the first 14 pages, sometimes drafts/proofs are numbered from page 1 (or A1 or H1 or whatever). Perhaps the person in question, in 1995, when they are at an early stage of their career (an undergrad) simply did not know that the page numbers on a draft manuscript did not actually represent the final published page numbers and they just continued to copy and paste the same CV line for decades. I also know from experience that sometimes as manuscripts and projects evolve, author lists change. Maybe the person in question was removed from the author list but didn't know it. Or maybe there is another article out there and this was just a typo. Note that these page numbers and the author list appear very similar to a 1998 publication also on the CV (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9649363). Maybe the 1995 project that the person in question contributed to was split into two works, one published in 1995 and the other part (where the author got moved to) was published in 1998. Sometimes this happens in my field because the project hit some snags or the lead author had to prioritize other things. So maybe at one point, the person in question was a co-author on the 1995 work but then failed to remove the listing from the CV after the project evolved.

Again, this is careless behaviour and disappointing to see in another academic. But at this time, the person in question was a undergraduate student and I know I made lots of dumb mistakes like that. This person should have corrected their CV once they knew better but I don't know all the details, so I can't really judge. That said, I can't rule out malicious intent like the article linked here suggested, but that's certainly not the only plausible explanation. I don't think it is a good idea for the article's author to only present the worst possible scenario and then conjure up some motivations that are not backed up in any way. It's fine to point out that the prof in question should have known better but it's a little far fetched to make the other claims. And I think it's downright irresponsible to present the worst possible case as the only scenario without even considering other explanations.

[fuzzylogician]

Thanks for doing this serious investigative work, @TakeruK. It's more than a little alarming that someone can publish this kind of slander with very little fact-checking, ascribing all kinds of malicious intent to people without any proof. Yes, there are some things that I definitely agree that this professor could and should have done better. But we're talking about two relatively minor mistakes that were made when the person was an undergraduate student. I don't think that we should cast aspersions on a person's entire career because of something like this. In particular, I don't think that this has any relevance to the person's current research, or how they obtained their job, or how they obtained any government funding. I don't think this could be considered serious enough padding (if it's that at all) to influence decisions at that level. Suggesting otherwise is unfair at best. 

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

TakeruK

I disagree with your conclusions.

Neither one of the two listed papers  exist in the form of a manuscript. If you find such a manuscript (not a title or abstract), please attache it here.

The replacing of someone else name on the 1995 manuscript is no less than outrages.

A conference abstract or a talk are not a substitute for a full length conference proceedings.

Look carefully for how long these wrong details have been used in this guys CV, across how many versions. This is not being sloppy. It is intentional.

 

[Sigaba]

53 minutes ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

TakeruK

I disagree with your conclusions.

Neither one of the two listed papers  exist in the form of a manuscript. If you find such a manuscript (not a title or abstract), please attache it here.

The replacing of someone else name on the 1995 manuscript is no less than outrages.

A conference abstract or a talk are not a substitute for a full length conference proceedings.

Look carefully for how long these wrong details have been used in this guys CV, across how many versions. This is not being sloppy. It is intentional.

 

What have you done with your findings? That is, other than starting multiple threads on a BB.

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

Honestly, I find the article concerning. There are many emotional arguments being made (made especially clear by the author's contempt of the accused's allegedly privileged background) and those arguments are masqueraded as fact. Ultimately, there isn't enough evidence presented to condemn the professor (and I think TakeruK presents a nice alternative interpretation of how this "attempt to deceive" could have just been a far less egregious infraction of sloppy records-keeping). There could be, however, enough evidence in this "article" for a nice case of libel should the accused choose to go that route. Investigative reporters work to uncover hidden fact and, in the best case scenario, keep us safe from immoral and illegal practices. However, they can't just accuse people without evidence. The wording in this article is accusatory without enough evidence to back up its assertions, which could lead the author to be in much more trouble than they are trying to get the accused in.

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

1 hour ago, GreenEyedTrombonist said:

 

For a start, please provide a full copy for one of these presumably journal manuscript:

A.      Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.

B.      Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.

 

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

5 hours ago, TakeruK said:

@Ibn Al-Haytham

 

"...Or maybe there is another article out there and this was just a typo. Note that these page numbers and the author list appear very similar to a 1998 publication also on the CV (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9649363). Maybe the 1995 project that the person in question contributed to was split into two works, one published in 1995 and the other part (where the author got moved to) was published in 1998. Sometimes this happens in my field because the project hit some snags or the lead author had to prioritize other things. So maybe at one point, the person in question was a co-author on the 1995 work but then failed to remove the listing from the CV after the project evolved."

 

This is not honest mistake.

The 1995 and 1997 papers appear in multiple versions of the CV, for more than decade.

In the 1995 paper the second author name was replaced.

You have a simple task - provide a full copy for these two manuscripts with these authors:

A.      Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.

B.      Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.

 

Same with the conference proceedings (short papers, not abstracts for oral presentations!) in the Human Brain Mapping, Vision Science Society, or The Society for Neuroscience.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

2 hours ago, Sigaba said:

 

 

Edited November 15, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

4 hours ago, TakeruK said:

@Ibn Al-Haytham

 

I started with Publication A. Unlike the article's author, I was able to easily find this publication within 5 minutes of searching. Here's what I did. I went to the journal's website. I searched back issues to look for Volume 72, Issue 2. It turns out that there was a meeting and the abstracts of presentations were published in the Biophys J. As a special issue, probably (normal in my field too). With the page number being "A370", it was just a matter of searching through the long list of PDFs organized by session to determine which one A370 belonged to. I found it on Page 22 of this file: http://www.cell.com/biophysj/pdf/S0006-3495(97)78745-9.pdf

This is an archived abstract for a conference presentation. This is not a Journal Manuscript. Big difference in terms of acceptance rate and the effort invested.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

"Publication B is a little more tricky. I was not able to find the publication as cited by the person in question. It may not exist or I might just not be familiar enough with this field's journals (I notice that the American Journal of Physiology has many subdivisions). The author of the article claims that Publication B as cited is a misrepresentation of another article with a similar title but a different author list. I noticed that Publication B, as cited, quotes page numbers H1-H14. Volume 268 doesn't have page H1-H14 and it doesn't even have Issue 32, as far as I know. This makes me suspect a typo. Also, while it's possible to be the first 14 pages, sometimes drafts/proofs are numbered from page 1 (or A1 or H1 or whatever). Perhaps the person in question, in 1995, when they are at an early stage of their career (an undergrad) simply did not know that the page numbers on a draft manuscript did not actually represent the final published page numbers and they just continued to copy and paste the same CV line for decades. I also know from experience that sometimes as manuscripts and projects evolve, author lists change. Maybe the person in question was removed from the author list but didn't know it. Or maybe there is another article out there and this was just a typo. Note that these page numbers and the author list appear very similar to a 1998 publication also on the CV (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9649363). Maybe the 1995 project that the person in question contributed to was split into two works, one published in 1995 and the other part (where the author got moved to) was published in 1998. Sometimes this happens in my field because the project hit some snags or the lead author had to prioritize other things. So maybe at one point, the person in question was a co-author on the 1995 work but then failed to remove the listing from the CV after the project evolved. "

Why there are three publications, 1995, 1997, and 1998, in multiple versions of a CVs written between 2008 and 2015?

I never heard of a graduate student/postdoc with less than half dozen publications (as for 2008, the earliest referred CV)  who is incapable tracking which manuscript he has been an author of (to include one non existent first author manuscript).

Please provide a full length copy of the 1995 and 1997 manuscripts.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

7 hours ago, TakeruK said:

@Ibn Al-Haytham

Again, this is careless behaviour and disappointing to see in another academic. But at this time, the person in question was a undergraduate student and I know I made lots of dumb mistakes like that. This person should have corrected their CV once they knew better but I don't know all the details, so I can't really judge. That said, I can't rule out malicious intent like the article linked here suggested, but that's certainly not the only plausible explanation. I don't think it is a good idea for the article's author to only present the worst possible scenario and then conjure up some motivations that are not backed up in any way. It's fine to point out that the prof in question should have known better but it's a little far fetched to make the other claims. And I think it's downright irresponsible to present the worst possible case as the only scenario without even considering other explanations.

The details are important.

Some of the copies of the refereed CV are from 2008 and 2014 , when this guy was a postdoc and then a Professor. There are multiple distinct copies with the references to the two non-existent papers, including from a grant proposal.

http://web.archive.org/web/20141222010849/http:/people.ucsc.edu:80/~ndaviden/ndaviden_cv.pdf

 

Edited November 15, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[PokePsych]

interesting its now password protected. Just got my popcorn. 

[PokePsych]

article B; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7535005 ---> if you go to pubmed and search for the jalife dude; this shows up under 235. Seems he was just taken of the author list - but was maybe promised. Maybe he was supposed to help with the manuscript but turned out to be too busy in grad school in the end. Who knows. Maybe he's bene using the same old resume over an dover and forgot to take it off (Unintentionally)

 

Am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for A. Probably a grad student mistake. There is an actual document sorta there. 

 

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

35 minutes ago, Psygeek said:

article B; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7535005 ---> if you go to pubmed and search for the jalife dude; this shows up under 235. Seems he was just taken of the author list - but was maybe promised. Maybe he was supposed to help with the manuscript but turned out to be too busy in grad school in the end. Who knows. Maybe he's bene using the same old resume over an dover and forgot to take it off (Unintentionally)

 

Am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for A. Probably a grad student mistake. There is an actual document sorta there. 

 

Are you kidding?

You used the word "MAYBE" three time, but you didn't provide a copy of those two papers with N Davidenko as an author.

If someone has been so 'negligent' in writing his CV with such errors ( to include in his NIH bio-sketch, and likely in his grad school applications, postdoc applications, , grant applications, applications for faculty positions...) , consistently for almost two decades, multiple versions, can this person be trusted when he reports the findings from a research study?

These non-existent papers are from 1995 and 1997. The versions of the CV that can be found online are from 2007 onward. Don't you think that by 2007 he should have know if he is an author on a paper or not? Since when one includes a paper in his CV as a PUBLISHED PAPER (with page numbers and everything) before even knowing if he is going to be included as a contributor???

 

 

Edited November 15, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[fuzzylogician]

This feels dangerously close to feeding trolls, but in the interest of others reading: 

I bet you'd be the kind of math teacher who gives a student 0 on a problem that has a simple arithmetic error that's carried across multiple lines of calculation because LOOK there are mistakes ALL OVER. I would be inclined to mark the error and deduct some symbolic point but then grade the rest of the problem taking this error into account and if the result is correct *given this mistaken early calculation* then the student will get most of the points, maybe even all of them. 

We say MAYBE because we don't actually know what happened. You don't either, nor does the author of the blog post, but you seem determined to interpret everything only one way, whichever is the most nefarious and ill-intentioned one. But most of us can easily imagine making an error or two as an undergrad or even a grad student and ending up with something inaccurate or even plain wrong on our CVs. And since the way we update our CVs is by adding new stuff, not re-vetting old stuff, it's not at all shocking that something that was on a CV in the 90s would be carried over to later ones. It's also not a stretch to see how it'd end up on an NIH CV, which is presumably simply constructed based on the person's professional CV (that's how I'd do it..). So yeah, we're not saying that there were no errors made, but we are willing to calibrate our outrage-meter to the size of the error and its timing. Undergrads do all kinds of stupid things. If all someone with a vendetta can find is a couple of questionable decisions from two decades ago, I'd feel pretty encouraged that there's basically nothing to see here. 

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

28 minutes ago, fuzzylogician said:

...

We say MAYBE because we don't actually know what happened. You don't either, nor does the author of the blog post, but you seem determined to interpret everything only one way, whichever is the most nefarious and ill-intentioned one. But most of us can easily imagine making an error or two as an undergrad or even a grad student and ending up with something inaccurate or even plain wrong on our CVs. And since the way we update our CVs is by adding new stuff, not re-vetting old stuff, it's not at all shocking that something that was on a CV in the 90s would be carried over to later ones. It's also not a stretch to see how it'd end up on an NIH CV, which is presumably simply constructed based on the person's professional CV (that's how I'd do it..). So yeah, we're not saying that there were no errors made, but we are willing to calibrate our outrage-meter to the size of the error and its timing. Undergrads do all kinds of stupid things. If all someone with a vendetta can find is a couple of questionable decisions from two decades ago, I'd feel pretty encouraged that there's basically nothing to see here. 

Including in your CV  a manuscript that doesn't exist, and/or to which you didn't contribute (after placing your name instead of someone else name) is a very interesting error to make, to begin with. Specifically when you only have a handful of publications, and given that the publication list is one of the most (if not the most) important aspect of an academic CV.

I don't know. Maybe there are some cultural issues here. this sort of CV 'mistakes' may become the norm in some cultures : https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/lying-your-cv-facts

...It is after all the post-truth era.

It is way too comfortable to include false details in a CV for years, that just turned to boost your qualifications, and when being discovered claiming it was an 'honest typo'.

I will be willing to accept the omission of couple of publications as an error. But making up publications with your name on them?? How can this be an honest error?

 

Edited November 15, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

18 hours ago, hats said:

As a graduate student advised by this person?

1) Wow this is not my business.

2) I do not have anywhere near the level of institutional power, influence, or support, to do anything about this.

3) Gee I will wait with my head down for my professor's colleagues to sort this out. When I say "with my head down," I especially mean that I will not gossip.

4) I trust they will sort this out fairly, even if this means severe consequences for my advisor, like firing them.

5) This seems like a good time to strengthen my relationships with other faculty members in my department, to see what I can do about making a Plan B for if they do fire the guy.

You will do great as a politician.

More seriously. Clearly, as  a graduate student you are most vulnerable, and you should hope someone higher-up will do the job.

Too often they will not. What then?

 

Edited November 15, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[TakeruK]

@Ibn Al-Haytham:

In my response above, I did provide a link to "Citation A", which you did see later (since you responded to it):

11 hours ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

This is an archived abstract for a conference presentation. This is not a Journal Manuscript. Big difference in terms of acceptance rate and the effort invested.

I agree with you that there is a big difference in terms of acceptance rate and effort invested. In my field, when a journal publishes abstracts in an issue like this, they are usually just accepted with very little review (but not zero review) and modifications. However, it is still published as an article in a journal. I linked directly to the PDF where you can read the scanned abstract from the published journal.

I also agree with you that this is not a traditional Journal Manuscript. However, that is not what the CV says it is. I have to assume that since it appears in an issue of a peer reviewed journal then it is a peer reviewed article (even if it was only a cursory review).

In any case, my problem with your depiction of this offense (I'm assuming you are the author now, but correct me if I'm wrong). You claim this is making up a publication. I would say the offense is not being clear in the CV that this publication is not like the other peer reviewed ones. This is a very minor CV padding offense that is very far from the offense you're claiming. A similar offense might be a graduate student / postdoc who lists some "invited talks" even though they were not "invited" in the traditional way. For example, they might be in town for some other reason and contacted the university there. The university says, "sure, come give a talk at our seminar series while you're here" since as a multiple-time seminar organizer, I know how nice it is to have speakers we don't have to pay for. The seminar organizer sends out the typical "invite to speak" paperwork and voila, you're an invited speaker! However, this is quite different from other invited speakers, where the seminar organizing committee sits down and debate who should be invited because we have limited funds. But in the end it doesn't matter: both speakers can list their seminar as an "invited talk" if they want to, since the details are fuzzy enough to count either way.

If you don't agree that it is minor, then fine, that is your prerogative. But you are not the gatekeeper that gets to decide what is minor and what is major. I'm not either---I'm just providing my perspective.

For "Citation B", I don't have anything new to add but neither do you. I don't think we can get any further by repeating what we've found, so I will just say what I said above: you're choosing the least charitable scenario and asking everyone to believe your version when there isn't enough proof for it. For cases like this, those making the accusations should be the one responsible for providing the evidence. Your version has just as many "maybes" as the more innocent interpretation. So without evidence either way, why should the community believe the worst possible scenario?

Again, it may not be a minor mistake to you but it's not up to you to decide what is right and what is wrong.

----

To add something new to the discussion. My philosophy for breaches like this is that the consequences of a breach of integrity should be 1) designed to protect the community from further breaches and 2) be proportionate to the severity of the breach.

Protecting the community has several facets. One of them is to reverse whatever wrongdoing/harm that has been done as best as possible. For this case, the wrongdoing was 20+ years ago, so it might not really be possible to reverse it. I think one major step is that the CV has been changed to correct the errors. In an ideal world with time travel and unlimited resources, we would have all of the evaluation committees of this person re-evaluate the CV without the incorrect citations. Of course, this is not possible, so the next best thing is to ask whether or not the incorrectly formatted lines made a big enough difference in the evaluation. This is also not strictly possible but it's certainly something that could be considered by the persons responsible for determining consequences. Perhaps this has already been done.

My opinion on these integrity matters has changed over time and was heavily influenced by my PhD school's process. At my school, if the process found a student was guilty of cheating on one question on an exam, the result is that the student gets zero on that single question (to negate any unfair advantage) but the rest of the exam is graded normally. This is provided that the investigation and consequences process found that the student has realised their mistake and has agreed to take further action to address whatever issues that caused them to cheat. In this instance, there is no need to fail them or take other extreme measures. In my opinion, if a school takes a strict zero-tolerance approach, it will just encourage TAs, professors and other students to cover up minor offenses. Of course, if the cheating student was not remorseful and did not accept that their actions were unfair, then more severe consequences up to expulsion can be considered in order to protect the integrity of the academic community. This is why I think response should be proportional to severity.

This is why I don't think the article's call for action against the professor is justified. A minor offense requires a minor intervention that corrects the mistakes on the CV. The people responsible for discipline at their institution should determine if they believe that incorrect CV lines unfairly altered the course of their degree. The article seems to call for dismissal of this professor, which does not reflect my view on how breaches of academic integrity should be investigated and responded to at all.

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

10 hours ago, TakeruK said:

@Ibn Al-Haytham

 

TakeruK

Once again, thank you for taking the time thinking about this issue and writing a detailed response.

However, there are few points with which I disagree with you:

1) The classification of kinds of publications - this is straightforward - a conference abstract is not a journal paper, and the first should not be presented as if it is the second. Many scientific societies have a major conference and a flagship journal. Many times those societies archive abstracts from their major conference in their flagship journal website. But this does not make any of these abstracts a journal paper. For example, the Cognitive Science Society have a journal called Cognitive Science. They also have an annual meeting to which you can send conference proceedings (6 pages long papers) or alternatively only an abstract. The acceptance rate for the Cognitive Science society journal is about 1:6-1:7. The acceptance rate of a conference proceedings is about 1:3 or 1:4 (depending on the year). The acceptance rate of abstracts is higher than 9:10 (they basically just filter out abstracts that have nothing to do with the conference topic or are poorly writen).

In his CV Davidenko has the following categories: (i) Peer-Reviewed Articles; (ii) Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings ; (iii) Conference Abstracts

However, he presented one Conference Abstracts under Peer-Reviewed Articles (the 1997 'paper', on which he presumably was a first author), and half dozen Conference Abstracts under Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings. It seems that he 'misplaces' conference abstract under the two other categories the way he likes.

This is on top of the fabrication of the 1995 journal paper, where he placed his name instead of someone else.

These issues have been taken place in multiple copies of his CV, for almost two decades.

 

2) Regarding the damage to the community - without being too dramatic, this cannot be easily quantified as it can be quite excessive. To quote from the article:

‘Biffing-up’ a CV is not a victimless act. Being accepted to a prestigious University, in part based on false information, involves stealing a spot from someone more worthy. Inflating credentials in federal grant applications may be considered as an act of fraud and it involves the abuse of tax payer money. Given the limited resources, it also means that funding was prevented from others, more capable scientists. Getting a faculty position while having an academic career that is based on lies comes on the expense of more worthy candidates who applied for that position. Finlay, a chronically dishonest individual can be toxic in any organization, moreover in the academia— The cover up or tolerance of a misconduct by some key University personnel is likely to create substantial tension and even conflicts within the institute, as many of the other institute affiliates are likely to be uncomfortable with such behavior being tolerated. In an organization that value or even only protect dishonest individuals, honest people suffer most.

Beyond these, what is the lesson to be learned by students? ...that if you were successful in getting away with cheating long enough, you can keep your position as a Professor, and mentor and teach University students while being payed by tax payer money? Ho can you even start counting on such a person to do his job as a Professor?

How do you quantify the corrosive impact of keeping such a person in a position of a Professor? Keeping him means the blurring of the boundary between right and wrong.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” – George Orwell

 

I wonder how the attitude expressed by some of the people here is related to this:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/on-campus-author-discusses-the-cheating-culture-with-college.pdf?c=plag;idno=5240451.0001.004;format=pdf

 

...by the way, the above is how a true full length paper should look like.

No one yet provided with copies of these two 'papers':

Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.

Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham

[TakeruK]

4 hours ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

No one yet provided with copies of these two 'papers':

Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.

 

Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.

 

Despite your claim, the Davidenko et al. (1997) citation is real (other than a typo on the date which should be February 1997 not June 1997). I will link to it again. Page 22 of this PDF: http://www.cell.com/biophysj/pdf/S0006-3495(97)78745-9.pdf

I agree with you that I would not put such a paper in my "Peer reviewed articles" heading of my own CV. But in the current CV, it is correctly placed in abstracts.

10 hours ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

1) The classification of kinds of publications - this is straightforward - a conference abstract is not a journal paper, and the first should not be presented as if it is the second. Many scientific societies have a major conference and a flagship journal. Many times those societies archive abstracts from their major conference in their flagship journal website. But this does not make any of these abstracts a journal paper. For example, the Cognitive Science Society have a journal called Cognitive Science. They also have an annual meeting to which you can send conference proceedings (6 pages long papers) or alternatively only an abstract. The acceptance rate for the Cognitive Science society journal is about 1:6-1:7. The acceptance rate of a conference proceedings is about 1:3 or 1:4 (depending on the year). The acceptance rate of abstracts is higher than 9:10 (they basically just filter out abstracts that have nothing to do with the conference topic or are poorly writen)

It's not as straight-forward though. The flagship journals in my field have acceptance rates of 85% or so. We don't publish conference proceedings, except for a few symposium, which generally are accepted as abstracts first (if so, publication rate is 100%, as long as the author chooses to submit). Abstracts are almost 100% (every member has the right to submit an abstract, so only nonsensical or irrelevant abstracts are omitted).

Why am I saying this, even though astronomy is a very different field than biophysics? As a relatively junior person in my field (postdoc), I am very familiar with how publications are valued in my field. It sounds like you are very knowledgeable about the Cognitive Science Society publications. It is then reasonable, in my opinion, that whoever was evaluating Davidenko's CV in the late 1990s / early 2000s for things like graduate admissions and fellowships would also be knowledgeable about the publications in their field. Therefore, it would be reasonable to expect the evaluation committee to see these CV lines and realize that they are abstracts. For example, having the page number be "A320" instead of just a number is one indicator.

So this is part of the reason why I don't think this error/potential deception is not a big deal. If the committee really cared about publication counts, they would be looking up these citations as I did (and as you tried to do). They would either not find them or find that the first one is an abstract published in a journal. If the committee did not care about publications, then the mis-categorization (whether intentional or accidental) of the abstract had no effect.

Finally, no major decisions are made simply on one (or several) lines in a CV. Davidenko's application would have been supported by reference letters and such. Surely these letters would have said that Davidenko produced a conference abstract published in 1997 or something to that effect. Or, they would not have said that Davidenko published a paper if he did not. Alternatively, if one of my scenarios from above is true (i.e. Davidenko was on the 1995 project but then his work got shifted to another paper) then the letters would have reflected this.

10 hours ago, Ibn Al-Haytham said:

Beyond these, what is the lesson to be learned by students? ...that if you were successful in getting away with cheating long enough, you can keep your position as a Professor, and mentor and teach University students while being payed by tax payer money? Ho can you even start counting on such a person to do his job as a Professor?

 

How do you quantify the corrosive impact of keeping such a person in a position of a Professor? Keeping him means the blurring of the boundary between right and wrong.

These are good concerns to bring up. Again, I agree with all of these premises, but only if the cheating is something that is 1) proven and 2) significant enough. Fabricating data, physical or emotional abuse, etc. are good reasons to raise these concerns. But in this case, based on unknown factors, the offense can be as minor as typo/absent-mindedness to as severe as intentional bending of the truth to pad one's CV. Even on the most extreme end, this is not a serious enough problem that would cause me to doubt someone's ability as an academic who can act with integrity. And in this case, there is not enough evidence to put this on the extreme end.

I am not sure what else I can say and I don't know if I can convince you. You're certainly entitled to your own opinion.

[Sigaba]

Since the OP clearly has it all figured out, the question remains.

Will the OP take his concerns and evidence to the responsible institutions, publishers, and professional associations and shares the subsequent experiences here or will the OP continue to strut around like Galileo did after he discovered Las Vegas?

TL/DR: Don't talk (and talk and talk) the talk if you're not going to walk the walk.

[Ibn Al-Haytham]

"Despite your claim, the Davidenko et al. (1997) citation is real (other than a typo on the date which should be February 1997 not June 1997). "

 

Once again, the link you provided is for a conference abstract, not a journal paper ...And what about the 1995 paper?

Interestingly, the same 'misplacement' also shows in his biosketch, which is a totally different version of his CV.

This one is from an NIH grant proposal, submitted to NIH at 2008 (this info is also provided in the article). See page 2, under RESEARCH PAPERS. Note the dissociation between these research papers and conference abstracts:

https://sciencewatchblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/davidenko_bio_blnd.pdf

Also note that in the biosketch, the conference proceedings ...and only the the TRUE conference proceedings (short papers), are listed together with the journal papers (which is, acceptable, if specified).

 

"I agree with all of these premises, but only if the cheating is something that is 1) proven and 2) significant enough. Fabricating data, physical or emotional abuse, etc. are good reasons to raise these concerns. But in this case, based on unknown factors, the offense can be as minor as typo/absent-mindedness to as severe as intentional bending of the truth to pad one's CV. Even on the most extreme end, this is not a serious enough problem that would cause me to doubt someone's ability as an academic who can act with integrity. And in this case, there is not enough evidence to put this on the extreme end. "

Minor/harmless offenses? ... for a University Professor?

Imagine Davidenko as a department chair in 10 years from now (this may actually happen). It was found that a graduate student in his department plagiarized a research work conducted by others.  Will Davidenko have a moral basis to discipline this student?

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Ibn Al-Haytham