Copyrights and the net

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

yes, i think i said that when i you asked that i had misremembered and  
went to dig up the citation, for which I apologize.  The combination  
of jet lag, museum fatigue, conference fatigue and not  having the  
report in front of me, i suspect were the contributing factors to my  
misremembering.  But then, these are also likely figures that are  
likely to be underreported, and while the report is in PLOS, it is  
just one study.   The NIH reports the number of cases of medical  
research investigations each year, so that might be another place to  
look.  The bias in the report is toward health data, but i don't doubt  
it is generalizable to other fields.   If we could easily define and  
operationalize such mispractice in design research, I'd certainly  
encourage someone to do a survey and see.

I'm not a person to use much 'data' as i tend to use texts and  
ethnographic participation, but I will say that in my career i've  
found many mis-citations, I wonder if that is the same sort of thing.  
I don't mean 'incomplete, or improperly constructed citations' those  
are just poor proofreading... I mean citations that were not to the  
book, page number, referred to.  That i find worrisome, especially  
when i cannot find the actual book page number in their work, perhaps  
it is a proofing error, but sometimes it could be more.






On Jun 28, 2009, at 11:32 PM, David Durling wrote:

> Jeremy,
>
> Thank you for the link to the report. It does indeed make  
> interesting reading.
>
> I asked for the report because, having seen individual reports in  
> the past, I did not believe that the figures you quoted were  
> anything like correct. This report describes a serious systematic  
> review of previous studies. In summary they say:
>
> It found that, on average, about 2% of scientists admitted to have  
> fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a  
> serious form of misconduct my any standard – and up to one third  
> admitted a variety of other questionable research practices  
> including “dropping data points based on a gut feeling”, and  
> “changing the design, methodology or results of a study in response  
> to pressures from a funding source”.
>
> So - rather than 6 per cent admitting to falsification of data, the  
> reported weighted average is actually 1.9 per cent.
>
> Rather than 'upwards of 50 per cent' admitting to questionable  
> practices, the reported figure indicates up to a third admitting to  
> questionable practices, some of which may be small but nevertheless  
> were felt by those individuals to be worth reporting.
>
> Many more did say that they knew of others who were guilty of dodgy  
> practices. There is no indication of what any of this has to do with  
> plagiarism.
>
> Most of the dodgy scientists were in medicine and pharmacology.
>
> I wondered how I might fare in answering such a survey. I have never  
> knowingly falsified data, though if asked about others I might say  
> that I have known of several cases where design researchers' data  
> were worthless due to ignorance of process rather than deliberate  
> massaging: these would include not controlling [or having too many]  
> variables, inconsistencies in data collection, poor questionnaire  
> design, bias, and hopeless optimism.  Of course it might be argued  
> that one dodgy practice is misreporting the results of surveys.
>
> I should also point out that my interpretation of this report is  
> also partial and aimed at making a point, but does (I hope) state  
> the figures accurately.
>
> David
>
> .........................................................................
>
> David Durling FDRS PhD   http://durling.tel
> .........................................................................
>
>
>
> On 28 Jun 2009, at 9:05 am, jeremy hunsinger wrote:
>
>> I think we have to be careful to differentiate the actual bases of  
>> academia versus the idealized norms.  Given a recent report said a  
>> significant number of scientists, upwards of of 50% admitted to lab  
>> practices that may have undermined results and something like 6%  
>> admitted to some for of falsification of data, academic honest I  
>> would argue is much like general honest, we'd prefer the situation  
>> where it was generally promoted, and less prefer the situation  
>> where it was generally practiced.   This I think you can roundly  
>> see to be true when you look at the stories of just about any  
>> technological revolution, you find ideas flowing quite freely,  
>> plagiarized and not, for short periods as people become familiar  
>> with the changes.  I think the history of the concept of plagiarism  
>> is particularly informative to the question of contemporary  
>> copyright.  The majority of the works that I teach in some of my  
>> classes(as i teach ancient and medieval political theory,  
>> machiavelli and other things sometimes).... have no citation that  
>> was not entered after the fact.  Citations and plagiarism came into  
>> being somewhat together, and for a very particular reason that had  
>> nothing to do with honesty, though today they seem to have to do  
>> with concepts of 'honor codes' and 'honesty' than their original  
>> goals of enabling research, and specifically enabling the finding  
>> of research.

[David Durling]

On 29 Jun 2009, at 7:21 am, jeremy hunsinger wrote:

> in my career i've found many mis-citations, I wonder if that is the  
> same sort of thing.  I don't mean 'incomplete, or improperly  
> constructed citations' those are just poor proofreading... I mean  
> citations that were not to the book, page number, referred to.  That  
> i find worrisome, especially when i cannot find the actual book page  
> number in their work, perhaps it is a proofing error, but sometimes  
> it could be more.


Yes, I too have found plenty of these. Sometimes it just seems to be  
sloppy proofreading, but the more dodgy moments are where a vague  
reference is made to a multi-volume work (without a page number) or  
where the reference is nested within other books/papers that have  
referenced it - I sometimes wonder whether the individual has ever  
seen or understood the original.

Not getting back to the original work can lead researchers into a trap  
where they merely repeat the interpretation of a previous researcher  
or researchers. Fine if those interpretations are well founded, but  
disastrous if earlier commentators made mistakes. I once saw a bizarre  
outcome of this way of sloppy citation. I had read several PhD theses  
that referenced a particular learning style instrument, indeed some of  
them had based their entire study on this instrument and its  
associated theoretical model. When I traced the instrument back to its  
beginnings - itself a PhD thesis - I could not find a single instance  
of the theoretical model or its operationalising questionnaire having  
been subjected to any third party scrutiny: it had not been reviewed,  
and crucially had not been subjected to any validation studies. So,  
about half a dozen doctors of philosophy had graduated (in educational  
technology in this case) with theses built upon very dodgy  
foundations. It seemed to me that a sort of folklore had grown up  
around this instrument - which was simple and beguiling - and numbers  
of emerging researchers had followed unquestioningly.

David

.........................................................................

David Durling FDRS PhD   http://durling.tel
.........................................................................

[Viveka Weiley]

On 26/06/2009, at 7:25 PM, Gavin Melles wrote:

> It's actually very simple in Australia we're going to get hammered  
> as academics if we're found in possession of and worse distributing  
> copyright protected material. Simple really

As a fellow Australian researcher I have to say I don't find it  
simple. Certainly I'm in possession of a great deal of copyright  
protected material, being surrounded by great big piles of books and  
research papers, and I distribute copies of papers to students and  
colleagues as well. If you're only talking about infringing material  
it doesn't get any simpler.

Section 40 of the Copyright Act 1960 says:
>> (1)  A fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic  
>> work [...] for the purpose of research or study does not constitute  
>> an infringement of the copyright in the work.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/s40.html

So what's fair dealing? We don't precisely know:
>> The Act does not contain a definition of the term “fair dealing”  
>> because, whether or not a use is “fair” is something that needs to  
>> be determined on a case by case basis
http://kirra.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/DTLJ/2003/1.html#b40

Copyright cases are judged in terms of the social contract that  
underlies the existence of copyright, and revolve around commercial  
damage done by an infringement.

Copyright in Australia as elsewhere is in flux. A recent high court  
judgement brings a little historical context to bear:

>> 23. Undoubtedly, the classical notion of an individual author was  
>> linked to the invention of printing and the technical possibilities  
>> thereafter for the production of texts otherwise than by collective  
>> efforts, such as those made in mediaeval monasteries. The  
>> technological developments of today throw up new challenges in  
>> relation to the paradigm of an individual author. A "work of joint  
>> authorship", as recognised under the Act, requires that the  
>> literary work in question "has been produced by the collaboration  
>> of two or more authors and in which the contribution of each author  
>> is not separate from the contribution of the other author or the  
>> contributions of the other authors"[13]. As in other cases where  
>> the facts resemble those under consideration here[14], the Weekly  
>> Schedules (and the Nine Database) were the result of both a  
>> collaborative effort and an evolutionary process of development,  
>> involving in this instance both manpower and the use of computers.  
>> However, nothing in these reasons turns on any conclusion as to the  
>> precise identity of the author or authors of those works.

>> 24. In assessing the centrality of an author and authorship to the  
>> overall scheme of the Act, it is worth recollecting the  
>> longstanding theoretical underpinnings of copyright legislation.  
>> Copyright legislation strikes a balance of competing interests and  
>> competing policy considerations[15]. Relevantly, it is concerned  
>> with rewarding authors of original literary works with commercial  
>> benefits having regard to the fact that literary works in turn  
>> benefit the reading public.

>> 25. In both its title[16] and opening recitals[17], the Statute of  
>> Anne of 1709[18] echoed explicitly the emphasis on the practical or  
>> utilitarian importance that certain seventeenth century  
>> philosophers attached to knowledge and its encouragement in the  
>> scheme of human progress[19]. The "social contract" envisaged by  
>> the Statute of Anne, and still underlying the present Act, was that  
>> an author could obtain a monopoly, limited in time, in return for  
>> making a work available to the reading public.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/2009/14.html

Cheers,

V.
--
Viveka Weiley, PhD Candidate
Creativity and Cognition Studios & Games Studio @ UTS
+ ACID (Australasian CRC for Interaction Design)
http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~viveka/
Research blog: http://ba.viveka.id.au