Title | Let’s Not Mention That in the Report |
Long Title |
Let’s Not Mention That in the Report |
Contributor/Contact | John Banja, PhD (jbanja@emory.edu) |
Contributor Details |
John Banja, PhD Director, Section on Ethics in Research Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute Emory University Atlanta, GA 30322 |
CTSA | Emory |
Case Study Provided |
I was finishing my senior year in college—a small mid-Western, liberal arts college—and was working in Dr. Smith’s lab. Now, this college did not receive many grants, but Dr. Smith was recognized throughout the school (and frankly envied by a lot of his colleagues) as a real rainmaker. Despite the rather humble resources of the college, Smith was always getting money to run and grow his lab, and he turned out a number of students over the years who went on to have significant careers in science. I was doing some extra-credit work in his lab, frankly hoping to be able to add material to my resume as I was applying to veterinary school. I was finishing a preliminary project and had gotten some very preliminary, but very interesting data. With graduation looming, however, I was discouraged that I couldn’t replicate them. Naturally, I reported this to Dr. Smith, and we worked on it some. But to no avail: we simply could not replicate the original findings. I then had to write a final report on this project which we would send to the funding agency for grant continuation. I duly noted the nature of the experiments, the preliminary data, and the fact that repeated attempts to replicate the data failed. I turned the report into Dr. Smith, but when he gave me the final copy that he was sending to the funding agency, I noticed that he had deleted the sentences about the data replication failures. I asked him why, and he said that it was abundantly clear in the report that this data was very preliminary and was not at all being described as definitive. Second, he remarked that my project was one of three others that he was reporting on, and that these projects were much farther along and more important to the grantor. He felt that my findings were relatively insignificant in comparison to the others so there wasn’t any point in belaboring my current failure to replicate my results. Third, he pointed out that it might still be possible to replicate the data. He speculated that perhaps my samples had gotten contaminated and that if we had a few more months to work on it, we’d confirm my original results. And that was it. I graduated and moved on. But Dr. Smith’s omitting mention of my replication failures has always stuck in my memory. Was it wrong or was he justified? |
Data Acquisition, Management, Sharing and Ownership Topics |
Variations in lab practices—legitimate and illegitimate variations, Data reporting, Special issues related to scientific roles |
Mentor and Trainee Responsibilities Topics | No mentor and trainee responsibilities topics |
Publication Practices and Responsible Authorship Topics | No publication practices and responsible authorship topics |
Peer Review Topics | No peer review topics |
Collaborative Science Topics | No collaborative science topics |
Research Misconduct Topics | No research misconduct topics |
Conflicts of Interest, Law and Policy Topics | No conflicts of interest_law_and policy topics |
Human Subjects | No human subjects |
Citation | |
URL | http://www.actsi.org/areas/erks/ethics/index.html |
RCR Keyword | Research Paper, Lab Notes |
Other RCR Keywords | Deletes Replication Failures; Failed to Replicate Data; Funding Agency; Lab; Preliminary Data; Written Report; Report on Positive Findings |
Type of Case | |
Source for Topic Areas | Du Bois, J., & Dueker, J. (2009). Teaching and Assessing the Responsible Conduct of Research: A Delphi Consensus Panel Report. Journal of Research Administration, 40(1), 49-70. |
References | |
Other |