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More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

nature.com

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Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#51

Post by bonzini »

antognini wrote: post #18

When I was in grad school our department had a meeting every morning where we could get together to discuss the latest papers which we called "Morning Coffee" (or also Astro Coffee). These discussions were pretty fruitful and regularly would inspire new papers. After writing a new paper based on one of these discussions one of the professors decided to commemorate the contribution of Morning Coffee to the paper and a…

You may appreciate the story of Dr. Bestiale and the 14 updates to the story.

https://www.parolacce.org/2014/10/05/the-true-story-of-stron...

(Regarding one of the updates, the name of the antenna also means "cool antenna" in Italian, it's very informal but not vulgar).

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#52

Post by roywiggins »

antognini wrote: post #18

When I was in grad school our department had a meeting every morning where we could get together to discuss the latest papers which we called "Morning Coffee" (or also Astro Coffee). These discussions were pretty fruitful and regularly would inspire new papers. After writing a new paper based on one of these discussions one of the professors decided to commemorate the contribution of Morning Coffee to the paper and a…

If it's good enough for Nicolas Bourbaki...

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#53

Post by yabadabadoes »

topspin wrote: post #41
yabadabadoes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I actually think primary authors in title actually being grant proposal writers and middle managers is far more destructive to academia itself. I think it is the norm that a lot of people get primary credit on papers for doing what managers in every field do every day, and academia is busy obscuring their own processes as a result.

> Yes, but One fraud doesn't justify the other.

I'm not really looking to justify it. I think fish rots from the head and it's time to either buckle down to real rules for credit or stop doing multi-author papers in this fashion.

Hollywood has a credit format.. programmers have a change by change attribution system.

A serious limit to academic reform is that an institution that fixes its own rules will have trouble competing for people in many positions by having to be completely honest about the roles.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#54

Post by [deleted] »

smabie wrote: post #35
qwerty456127 wrote: post #30

> The practice was probably used to improve the children’s chances of securing a university place. The fact the competition to get into a university is so hard you need to co-author a scientific paper for this is the problem. Education should be accessible for everybody.

It is. It’s called the library.

[deleted]

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#55

Post by roywiggins »

cortesoft wrote: post #22

Who thought it was a good idea to use academic paper authorship as a selection criteria for university!? There can't be enough high school kids writing academic papers for it to be that helpful, and certainly encourages this kind of cheating.

You put on your resume: interned at such-and-such lab, was co-author on paper X based on work done over that summer.

Paying any attention to any extracurriculars could be thought of as "encouraging cheating"- just get someone to sign off that you actually attended Food Club, or that you interned at Widget Co., your cousin's business.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#56

Post by spamizbad »

starpilot wrote: post #15

I've heard of this happening in the US as well.

Usually comes in the form of some faculty's HS-age kid helping out in the lab and getting tacked-on as an author of a paper. Cleaning glassware -> authorship. This sometimes happens to faculty w/o their knowledge, with a grad student or postdoc trying to butter-up their superior.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#57

Post by telchar »

choonway wrote: post #49

If I had my way, I'd have each applicant stripped, x-rayed, confined to an acoustically isolated faraday cage, and sit down for an examination generated and marked by an AI system. I've seen too many enabled people trying to game the system.

That's not far off from what I had to go through the last time I took an education-related standard exam. Nothing but my cloths and ID were allowed into the room and they had a quite through check to make sure of it.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#58

Post by temp1999 »

smabie wrote: post #35
qwerty456127 wrote: post #30

> The practice was probably used to improve the children’s chances of securing a university place. The fact the competition to get into a university is so hard you need to co-author a scientific paper for this is the problem. Education should be accessible for everybody.

It is. It’s called the library.

Education via libraries requires dedication and critical thinking; neither is necessary for modern universities.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#59

Post by bsder »

choonway wrote: post #49

If I had my way, I'd have each applicant stripped, x-rayed, confined to an acoustically isolated faraday cage, and sit down for an examination generated and marked by an AI system. I've seen too many enabled people trying to game the system.

That still won't help and might make things worse.

By the time a rich student reaches college selection, he has a number of structural advantages over a poor student.

Let's take the SAT exam in the US, for example. Many poor students take the SAT effectively cold--the idea that you can prepare for that test and that paying money to prep is a good idea are simply not in scope. Whereas, a rich student is simply going to assume that obviously you prep for a test like the SAT and of course you spend money to do so.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#60

Post by tomatotomato37 »

spamizbad wrote: post #56
starpilot wrote: post #15

I've heard of this happening in the US as well.

Usually comes in the form of some faculty's HS-age kid helping out in the lab and getting tacked-on as an author of a paper. Cleaning glassware -> authorship. This sometimes happens to faculty w/o their knowledge, with a grad student or postdoc trying to butter-up their superior.

Reminds me of http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562
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