Q: Would this be considered a case of academic misconduct?
The case is as follows.
A supervisor has recently published a paper. The data and images in the paper are all from a graduation paper (for a master's degree) of his student from a few years ago. In this newly published paper, the supervisor has listed himself as the first author and his student as the second author, and marked both as correspondent authors. Data and images from the graduation paper were neither changed nor cited. Is this academic misconduct?
Yes, it would. In fact, it would be academic/scholarly misconduct/misbehavior on several counts, as discussed below.
- Co/Authorship conflict/issue: There are two issues there. First, the supervisor hasn’t written the paper. Second, he is presenting himself as the first author and the student as only the second author.
- Duplicate submission/publication: In case the graduation paper is available online, it would be a case of duplicate publication, as there may now be two papers with similar content online.
- Self-plagiarizing: If the graduation paper is available online, as the student is mentioned as a second author, by default he becomes ‘guilty’ of self-plagiarizing. Once the journal runs a plagiarism check, it will show up as self-plagiarized.
- Corresponding authors: There is usually only one corresponding author for a manuscript, though some journals do allow two. In case this journal only allows one, that may be an issue.
Overall, this is a case of academic bullying, which is very common in academia. We have shared some more cases at the end of our response. You may go through them for your reference.
Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy or even possible to deal with cases of academic bullying.
What the affected party could possibly do is to write to the editor informing them of this situation. This may lead to the paper getting stalled or even rejected. The person may request the journal to keep their name out of the picture, or may even write to the journal anonymously. However, in the case of the latter, the journal is likely to ignore the mail, or it may even go to spam.
Now, if the supervisor decides to submit it elsewhere, the affected person will need to inform the next journal of the supervisor’s misconduct, and so on. This may soon raise the suspicion of the supervisor and may lead to retaliation. So, we always suggest people, especially new/junior researchers, to proceed practically in these situations, as discussed in one of the scenarios below.
To know more about matters of ethics, you may find this case-based course useful: How to ensure ethical authorship when collaborating as researchers
Hope that helps. All the best for a satisfactory resolution.
Related cases/scenarios:
This content belongs to the Conducting Research Stage