ELEC-L0902 - Introduction to Doctoral Studies D, Lecture, 12.1.2024-17.4.2024

Groups

This assignment is done in groups. Enroll to the topic that interests you the most in MyCourses at the latest on 26.1.2024: https://mycourses.aalto.fi/mod/choice/view.php?id=1123742. You can see the different topics below (material). You will be divided into groups based on the selection you have made. You will get your groups from the course staff.

Material

Please read the The Finnish code of conduct for research integrity and procedures for handling alleged violations of research integrity in Finland, published by Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK.  Please also check Aalto's Research ethics for doctoral students page and possibly also other guidelines and sources.

The topics of this course are (enroll to one/several) in Mycourses through the link above.

1.   Plagiarism: forms and avoiding it

2.   Fabrication and falsification

3.   Authorship, who to include in your paper

4.   Rights of research subjects, ethical committee approvals

5.   Agreements between parties before research

6.   Find a case, where misconduct has been suspected.

Group assignment

Please write down the findings and comments of your group in a 1-2 pages writing. You can also express your own feelings and ideas. Please include links to the sources you have used.

In topics 1-5 discuss your own experience about good scientific practice within this topic:
•    Is it easy to understand and cope with the topic
•    How do you feel about the rules and conventions regarding your topic
•    How do you plan and conduct your research so that you follow good practice in this area

 In topic 6, please answer at least some of these questions according to the sources you have found:
•    What type of misconduct was suspected?
•    How did the case seem to differ from good conduct?
•    How were suspicions handled by the scientific institution?
•    Did the way of handling follow the recommendations of TENK, or how did it differ?
•    What kind of consequences, if any, followed?

Please note that our purpose is not to judge the case, you can't know all aspects by just reading about it. Include links to the articles you used or if you examined some original materials.

There are known allegations of misconduct for example in VTT, Finland, by professor Matej Oresic and in Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, by professor Paolo Macchiarini. In the University of Eastern Finland a degree was revoked a few years ago. Some wrongdoing was claimed to be in a Master's thesis of the Finnish presidential candidate Laura Huhtasaari and in both Master's and doctoral thesis of an Austrian minister Christine Aschbacher. You are welcome to use any other case, too. We want to point that these have been allegations and the course staff doesn't claim any of these examples actually being or not being misconduct.

Submission to the submission box AND to the General discussion area

Submission box

In your writing, mention the names of all the group members who have participated in this group work and name the file with the last name of one group member. Then submit the assignment as a PDF file (one PDF per group is enough) to the submission box in MyCourses.

AND

General discussion area

Please submit the same text to the "General discussion" area in the Course Information section (at the end of the page), so that everyone can read it. Write plain text (or copy paste) to the discussion area, don't upload files.

Be prepared to present the key points of your group work to the other groups and to discuss your work and the work of the other groups in the seminar.