Responsible Authorship Responsible Conduct of Research Seminar George

Responsible Authorship Responsible Conduct of Research Seminar George Mason University 2017 Jeff Offutt Professor of Software Engineering, VSE http: //www. cs. gmu. edu/~offutt/ of 20

OUTLINE 1. My Background 2. Authorship Rules 3. Plagiarism—What, When, How ? 2 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

My Background • Professor of Software Engineering (VSE, CS) – > 175 refereed publications, H-index = 59 – Editor-in-Chief: Journal of Software Testing, Verif. , and Reliability – Co-Founder: IEEE Intl Conf. on Software Testing – Author: Introduction to Software Testing – 2013 GMU Teaching Excellence Award, Teaching With Technology – Mason Outstanding Faculty Member, 2008, 2009 – Advised 16 Ph. D students, 4 in progress • Research Highlights – First model-based testing paper (UML 1999) – Distributed research tools : mu. Java, Mothra, Godzilla, Coverage web apps – Seminal papers : Mutation testing, automatic test data 3 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Your Background? How long have you been in graduate school? Do you have a research advisor? What is your field? Have you published anything yet? 4 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

OUTLINE 1. My Background 2. Authorship Rules 3. Plagiarism—What, When, How ? 5 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Authorship Rules Everyone who makes substantial contributions to the results are co-authors on papers that present those results All co-authors should see the papers and have the opportunity to participate in the writing before submission The only exception is if a coauthor explicitly declines being listed as a co-author 6 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

“Substantial Contribution” How to determine “contribution” ? YES • Would results be different? • Ran the experiment • Full editing rewrite (maybe) • • • Built experimental infrastructure (lab, software, etc. ) NO Experimental subject Grammar editing Provide funding Did work that was cut during revision Authorship must be discussed • In the room? (maybe) openly, objectively, and rationally 7 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Authorship Rules Two useful “rules of thumb” 1. Would the paper have been substantially different without that person? 2. When in doubt, including someone is usually safer socially than omitting someone 8 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Authorship Rules Can I add someone as coauthor as a favor for helping me? • • • Obtaining funding Advisor Boyfriend No, that’s plagiaris m Can I omit someone from the author list who angered me? No, that’s plagiaris m 9 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Authorship Order • • Possible ordering strategies: Order of contribution Alphabetical order Contact author first “Primary” author first, then alphabetical My preferences: • Students first (esp. their dissertation work) • Order of contribution if possible • Alphabetical 10 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

What ordering strategy do you (or your advisors) use? 11 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

OUTLINE 1. My Background 2. Authorship Rules 3. Plagiarism—What, When, How ? 12 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

What is Plagiarism? “Taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own” — Oxford Dictionary “To use the words or ideas of another person as if they were your own words or ideas” — Merriam. Webster Dictionary Self copying is not plagiarism (but possibly a copyright violation) 13 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Types of Plagiarism Submitting most or all of a paper as if Complete copying it were your own Claiming someone else’s results, Copying key results even with different words or unpublished Copying words or results Copying unpublished work from an unpublished source Copying sentences or Copying auxiliary text paragraphs from related work, background, etc. Copying figures Copying a figure from another paper Missing quotation marks or Improper quoting improper reference to quoted text 14 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Why Do People Plagiarize? Knowingly Desperation—They are required to publish and can’t Lack of Ethics—No sense of right and wrong, sociopathic Poor Judgment—They believe they won’t be caught Advisors Did—They think it’s normal Can’t Write—Copying text from better writers 15 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Why Do People Plagiarize? Unknowingly They don’t understand what plagiarism is Forgetfulness—They read it, forgot, and thought they invented it Laziness—They worked with the wrong coauthors Ignorance—They don’t know how to write citations Poor Planning—They are late and take a shortcut Paraphrasing—Thinking that changing 2 words in a paragraph makes it your own words 16 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Journal editors do not care why. All plagiarism is considered as knowing, willful, and intentional. We have “one strike and you’re out” policies. 17 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

How To Avoid Plagiarism? We are supposed to “stand on the shoulders of giants” Understand plagiarism! Properly reference ideas that aren’t yours Rewrite text that you want to use— even if your writing is not as good Redraw figures—and be sure to reference the original! If an idea is unpublished, either contact the author directly or forget it Too many references is better than too few 18 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Discussion : Which of these constitute plagiarism? 1. Copying your friend’s introduction, changing a few 2. words? Copying a figure from your previous paper? No Yes 3. Watching your classmate write a program, then going home and writing your own program from memory? Yes 4. Reusing terms defined in a paper you reviewed and 5. rejected? Submitting a paper to two different journals at the same Yes time? 6. Forgetting where you read something, so omitting the Yes reference? 7. Adding additional material to your conference paper and No submitting the expanded paper to a journal? 8. Copying background paragraphs from your advisor’s paper into your dissertation? Yes 19 of 20 © Jeff Offutt

Contact & References Jeff Offutt offutt@gmu. edu http: //cs. gmu. edu/~offutt/ Three of my editorials from STVR • Plagiarism Is For Losers cs. gmu. edu/~offutt/stvr/25 -1 -January 2015. html • Who Is An Author? cs. gmu. edu/~offutt/stvr/25 -2 -March 2015. html • How to Get Your Paper Rejected from STVR cs. gmu. edu/~offutt/stvr/24 -6 -September 2014. html 20 of 20 © Jeff Offutt