Professional Relations Built on Trust

There are many types of professional relations that require adherence to ethical principles: relationships with an asymmetrical distribution of power (faculty-student; supervisor-worker; reviewer-author; editor-author), or that require specific ethical obligations (e.g., contractor-client; expert witness). This section explores many aspects of these types of interpersonal professional relations.

Integrity in the Academy

• Dealing with Unethical or Illegal Conduct in Higher Education-- Investigations into cases of wrongdoing by professors are increasingly in the public eye. But are colleges and universities doing enough to deal with the problem? By Anna Azvolinsky, The Scientist, posted November 1, 2017

Mentoring

×

Wordle on Mentoring

Provenance: Created by Val Sloan and Rebecca Haacker, UCAR; used by permission
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

An advisor:

• Guides students on academic progress through their program.
• Clarify requirements and procedures
• Check in on progress
• Assess status
• Discuss plans

A mentor:

• Plays a more expansive role in the mentee's development.
• Provides wisdom, empathy, respect, knowledge, and support
• Is a guide within the scientific discipline
• Supports professional development
• Facilitates networking
• Explores career possibilities together

Useful resources on Mentoring Include:

• The Science of Effective Mentoring in Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine, and Mathematics (STEMM)--National Academy of Sciences Board on Higher Education and Workforce, tasked to report on: What are common definitions and differentiations among the various models of mentoring in STEMM? What are the most successful elements of effective mentoring relationships in STEMM education at the various stages of career development? How can and should mentees and mentors be trained to be more effective in the mentor-mentee relationship?
• Preparing Mentors for Your REU Program --GEO REU Resources Center (UCAR/SOARS)
• Mentoring Manual--Institute for Broadening Participation http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/earlycareer/research/students.html
• Responsible Conduct of Research Portal RCR-Mentoring
• Collaborating with Students--On the Cutting Edge, Early Career workshop program
• [lnk /NAGTWorkshops/undergraduate_research/recruit_mentor.html 'Recruiting-Mentoring Undergraduate Research Students in the Geosciences']
• Mentoring for Transitions--After the Bachelors--On the Cutting Edge, Undergraduate Research as Teaching Practice module
• Practice Good Advising and Mentoring--InTeGrate Project
• Mentoring --from Resources for Research Ethics Education; a rich compilation of information and guidelines for ethical approaches to mentoring students.
• On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct of Research , Third Edition, 2009 National Academy Press. Advising and Mentoring pages 4-7; (download the full PDF from the NAP site)
• A Guide to Mentoring Undergraduates in the lab--Philip S. Lukeman, Nature Nanotechnology 8, 784"786 (2013) doi:10.1038/nnano.2013.237. "Mentoring undergraduates in a research laboratory requires a different set of skills and approaches than for other lab members. However, if a mentor " be it a faculty member, postdoc or graduate student " can adopt these methods, it can lead to a significantly improved lab experience for everyone involved."
• Mentoring Up: Learning to Manage Your Mentoring Responsibilities-- Tomorrow's Professor Posting #1525, November 17, 2016. From Chapter 7 " "Mentoring Up": Learning to Manage Your Mentoring Relationships, by Steven Paul Lee, Richard McGee, Christine Pfund, and Janet Branchaw, in the book, The Mentoring Continuum " From Graduate School through Tenure, edited by Glenn Wright. Copyright © 2015 The Graduate School Press of Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244. " Seven core principles that provide a foundation to understanding the various aspects of an effective mentoring relationship that can mutually benefit the mentee and mentor."
• Five Effective Strategies for Mentoring Undergraduates: Students' Perspectives-- Mario Pita, Christophere Ramirez, Mathanaelle Joacin, Sarah PRentice, and Christy Clarke, CUR Quarterly, Spring 2013, Vol 33 #3.
• The Qualities and Impacts of a Great Mentor--and How to Improve Your Own Mentoring--Paul Grogan, Val Eviner, and Sarah Hobbie, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, April 2013, p. ;170-176; and updated tables of qualities of a good mentor.
• Weil, V., 2001, Mentoring: some ethical considerations : Science and Engineering Ethics, 7, p. 471-482.
• Anderson, M. S., Ronning, E. A., de Vries, R., and Martinson, B. C., 2007, The perverse effects of competition on scientists' work and relationships: Science and Engineering Ethics, 13, p. 437-461.
• Pole, C. J., Sprokkereef, A., Burgess, R. G., Lakin, E., 2006, Supervision of doctoral students in the natural sciences: expectations and experiences: Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 22, p. 49-63.
• Successful STEM Mentoring Initiatives for Underrepresented Students A Research-Based Guide for Faculty and Administrators--Becky Wai-Ling Packard, 2015, Stylus Publishing
• The Supervisor-Trainee Relationship--a compilation of methods and scenarios to promote group discussion and reflection from the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science .
• Building Successful Mentoring Relationships as a Mentor--Donna Charlevoix and Aisha Morris, UNAVCO, webinar presented in the AGU/AGI Heads and Chairs Webinar series, November 16, 2017.

Graduate Satisfaction with Degree Program/Job Prospects

• Graduate Survey: A Love-Hurt Relationship--Chris Woolston, 2017, Nature v. 550 p. 549-553 doi:10.1038/nj7677-549a . Published online 25 October 2017.
• Many Junior Scientists Need to Take a Hard Look at Their Job Prospects--Nature Editorial, posted 25 October 2017.
• Rejecting Academe--Colleen Flaherty, from Inside Higher Education, posted September 29, 2017. "As science and engineering Ph.D. students progress through their programs, many lose interest in academic careers, report finds. Study's authors say findings suggest changes are needed in Ph.D. training."
• Honesty About Academic Jobs--Holly Else for Times Higher Education, posted December 19, 2014; "British professors urged to tell their graduate students that they can't assume a Ph.D. will translate into a "job for life."
• Faculty, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Academics--Betsy Lucal, from Inside Higher Education, posted September 23, 2016.
• Preparing for an Academic Career--advice from the On the Cutting Edge program, with advice on the job search, preparing to teach, moving your research forward, and much more.
• Mental Health Crisis for Grad Students--by Colleen Flaherty, from Inside Higher Education, posted March 6, 2018. "Study finds "strikingly high" rates of depression and anxiety, with many reporting little help or support from supervisors."

Supervising Students (REU Projects, etc)

• Keck Geology Consortium Student Handbook (Acrobat (PDF) 924kB Feb12 18)--rights and responsibilities of students participating in Keck Geology Consortium projects
• Keck Geology Consortium Project Director Handbook (Acrobat (PDF) 510kB Feb12 18)--rights and responsibilities of faculty project directors working in the Keck Geology Consortium.

Writing Letters of Recommendation and Performance Review

• Obtaining Outstanding Recommendations--Shannon Craigo-Snell, December 2, 2016, from Inside Higher Education
• Tips for Writing Recommendation Letters--Manya Whitaker, posted December 2, 2016 from Inside Higher Education
• Obtaining Outstanding Recommendations--Shannan Carigo-Snell, December 2, 2016 from Inside Higher Education; advice to students (especially marginalized students) regarding ways to request letters of recommendation.
• Gender differences in recommendation letters for postdoctoral fellowships in geoscience--Kuheli Dutt, Danielle, L. Pfaff, Ariel F. Bernstein, Joseph S. Dillard and Caryn J. Block, 2016, Nature Geoscience, DOI:10.1038/ngeo2819. See related commentary at Recommendation Letters Reflect Gender Bias--Maggie Kuo, Science, October 3, 2016.
• Madera, J. M., M. R. Hebl, and R.C. Martin (2009), Gender and letters of recommendation for academia: Agentic and communal differences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(6), 1591.
• Schmader, T., J. Whitehead, and V. H. Wysocki (2007), A linguistic comparison of letters of recommendation for male and female chemistry and biochemistry job applicants. Sex roles, 57(7), 509-514. DOI: 10.1007/s11199-007-9291-4.
• Trix, F., and C. Psenka (2003), Exploring the color of glass: Letters of recommendation for female and male medical faculty. Discourse and Society, 14(2), 191-220. DOI: 10.1177/0957926503014002277.
• Obtaining Outstanding Recommendations--Shannon Craigo-Snell, from Inside Higher Education, posted December 2, 2016. Advice to students, particularly marginalized students, on how to solicit strong letters of recommendation.
• In Performance Reviews, Women Get Vague Generalities, While Men Get Specifics--Nora Caplan-Bricker, Slate, posted May 2, 2016.
• Avoiding Gender Bias in Reference Writing (Acrobat (PDF) 367kB Feb16 18)--Do's and Don't's from University of Arizona

Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics often are considered to be part of Responsible Conduct of Research. But publication ethics also encompasses a variety of interpersonal interactions that can be included in professionalism: Relations between editors, authors and reviewers and between authors; and related to issues of confidentiality, conflicts of interest, and related issues of trust.

• AGU's guidelines for Scientific Ethics for Authors and Reviewers
• AGU's Ethical Obligations of Editors
• Publication--Resources for Research Ethics Education, UC San Diego
• White Paper on Publication Ethics ( This site may be offline. ) --Council of Science Editors (2012)
• Committee on Publication Ethics --resources, reports, flow charts on many aspects on ethics in publishing; Publication Case Studies from COPE, including context, advice and resolutions.
• A Troubled Tradition It's time to rebuild trust among authors, editors and peer reviewers by David Resnik, American Scientist, 2011 Volume 99, Number 1
• Fang, F. C., Steen, R. G., & Casadevall, A. (2012). Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 109(42), 17028"17033.
• Responsibilities of Editors from Online Ethics Center
• Retraction Watch--a compilation of journal articles that have had to be retracted--a treasure trove of examples of unethical conduc of research.
  Show AGU's Ethical Obligations of Editors
  Hide
  The following guidelines are intended to ensure and sustain the trust of the public and the scientific community in the integrity of the science and of the published works in AGU journals.
  
  

  • Provide unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication.
  • Process all manuscripts promptly.
  • Take full responsibility for the integrity of the peer review.
  • Ensure the peer review process is objective, fair, and thorough.
  • Maintain peer review confidentiality.
  • Respect the intellectual independence of authors.
  • Avoid conflict of interest.
  • Quickly facilitate publication of errata to correct erroneous information in a published report.
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers
• COPE Guide to Ethical Editing for New Editors
• COPE How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers
• COPE What constitutes authorship? COPE Discussion Document
• Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Scientific Research--guidelines from publisher Taylor and Francis, March 2006; ethical guidelines for editors, authors and reviewers.
• A Troubled Tradition It's time to rebuild trust among authors, editors and peer reviewers by David Resnik, American Scientist, 2011 Volume 99, Number 1
• Who Gets Credit?--Scott Jaschik, August 24, 2015 posting to Inside Higher Education; "A significant share of research papers have "guest" authors who didn't perform significant research or "ghost" authors who did but aren't named, study finds. Are grad students losing out? Are conflicts of interest hidden?" And from the Wall Street Journal, Robert Lee Hotz, Aug 10, 2015 How Many Scientists Does it Take to Write a Paper? Apparently, Thousands
• Responsible Authorship and Peer Review--Responsible Conduct of Research Portal
• Responsibilities of Editors and Reviewers--a compilation of methods and scenarios to promote group discussion and reflection from the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science.
• Transparency In Authors' Contributions And Responsibilities To Promote Integrity In Scientific Publication--Marcia McNutt, Monica Bradford, Jeffrey Drazen, R. Brooks Hanson, Bob Howard, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Veronique Kiermer, Michael Magoulias, Emilie Marcus, Barbara Kline Pope, Randy Schekman, Sowmya Swaminathan, Peter Stang, Inder Verma. (2017). Transparency In Authors' Contributions And Responsibilities To Promote Integrity In Scientific Publication. bioRxiv 140228; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/140228
• Responsibilities of Editors from Online Ethics Center
• A Call to Punish Tardy Editors--Jack Grove for Times Higher Education, posted February 9, 2017.

Credit for Publication

• The Price Women Pay for Co-Authorship--Scott Jaschik, posted January 9, 2017 on Inside Higher Education. "Study of economics faculty members finds that men get credit where women do not."
• Barker, K., 2002, Accountability and authorship : Science: Science Careers.
• Cottingham, K., 2001, The ethics of authorship: How should authorship be decided?:Science: Science Careers and included links
• Nature Editorial Board, 2009, Authorship policies: Nature , 458, p. 1078
• On Being A Scientist--A Guide to Responsible Conduct of Research 3rd Ed., 2009, National Academy Press (pages 35-38)
• Authorship--Resources for Research Ethics Education, UC San Diego
• "Responsible Authorship" , Online Ethics Center for Engineering 8/17/2006 National Academy of Engineering Accessed: Monday, June 09, 2014
• Coming to Grips with Coauthor Responsibility--This posting looks at an important issue regarding coauthor responsibility for the integrity of their published work. It is by Catherine Offord and is from the May 1, 2017 Careers issue of The Scientist. http://www.the-scientist.com/. © copyright 2008-2017, The Scientist. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. From Tomorrow's Professor, message 1583.

Writing Journal/Grant Reviews

• Alberts, B., Hanson, B., and Kelner, K. L., 2008, Reviewing Peer Review: Science, 321, p. 15.
• Errami, M., and Garner, H., 2008, A tale of two citations: Nature, 451, p. 397-399.
• Nicholas, K. A., 2011, A quick guide to writing a solid peer review, EOS, 92, p. 233-234.
• Responsible Authorship and Peer Review--Responsible Conduct of Research Portal
• Peer Review--Resources for Research Ethics Education, UC San Diego

Field/Lab/Workplace Safety

• Safety in the Field--from the On the Cutting Edge program
• Safety and Liability Issues Related to Field Trips and Field Courses -- Steve Whitmeyer and David Mogk, Eos, Vol. 94, No. 40, 1 October 2013; and see the related AGU/AGI Videocast of Legal Issues Related to Field Trips and Field Courses released on YouTube March 2013.
• Laboratory Safety in Research On Being A Scientist (page 28)--A Guide to Responsible Conduct of Research 3rd Ed., 2009, National Academy Press
• Commitment to Safety--in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, British Petroleum instituted a culture of safety. See their details.
• GSA Field Safety Policy

Collaborative Research and Competition

• Collaborative Research--from Responsible Conduct of Research Portal
• Ledford, H., 2008, Collaborations with all good intentions': Nature, 452, p. 682-684. "Collaborations spawn fresh ideas and boost productivity - most of the time. Heidi Ledford examines what happens when a workingrelationship breaks down, and asks how to avoid it."
• [link http://research-ethics.net/topics/collaboration/ 'Collaboration--Resources for Research Ethics Education, UC San Diego
• Academic Research in the 21st Century: Maintaining Scientific Integrity in a Climate of Perverse Incentives and Hypercompetition ( This site may be offline. ) -- Edwards, Marc A. and Roy Siddhartha. Environmental Engineering Science. January 2017, 34(1): 51-61. doi:10.1089/ees.2016.0223

Data and Publication Rights and Policies

• Data Acquisition and Management--from Responsible Conduct of Research Portal
• Ethics review for international data-intensive research--Dove et al., Science 25 Mar 2016: Vol. 351, Issue 6280, pp. 1399-1400 DOI: 10.1126/science.aad5269
• AGUs Data Policy--History and Context--Hanson, B. and R. van der Hilst, AGU's data policy: History and context, Eos Trans. AGU, 95(37), 337, doi:10.1002/2014EO370008.
• Frugoli, J., Etgen, A. M., Kuhar, M., 2010, Developing and communicating responsible data management policies to trainees and colleagues: Science and Engineering Ethics, 16, p. 753762.
• Resnik, D. B., 2000, Statistics, ethics, and research: an agenda for education and reform: Accountability in Research, 8, p. 163-188.
• The Responsible Collection, Retention, Sharing and Interpretation of Data--a compilation of methods and scenarios to promote group discussion and reflection from the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science.

Appropriate Behavior at Meetings

• AGU Meetings Code of Conduct
• Open Secrets and Missing Stairs Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment at Scientific Meetings (Acrobat (PDF) 1.2MB Feb15 18)--Sherry A. Marts, PhD, SMARTS Consulting
• Race and Gender Still an issue at academic conferences--The Conversation, posted April 22, 2018. "...in all-male sessions, questions tended to be more aggressive with more arguments and interruptions. Meanwhile, in sessions where half or more presenters were women, the questions were more constructive and often complimentary."

Conflicts of Interest

• Conflict of Interest module from Responsible Conduct of Research Portal
• Conflicts of Interest--Resources for Research Ethics Education, UC San Diego
• On Being A Scientist --A Guide to Responsible Conduct of Research 3rd Ed., 2009, National Academy Press (pages 43-47)