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More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

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

#61

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…

is coffee really the PI ?

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

#63
post #35

> 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.

A library won't issue you a diploma employers/states would recognize.

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

#64
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have it as a selection criteria. Some context: South Korean educational system recently had a crackdown on private academy(hakwon), and in their infinite wisdom, decided to ban every non-public educational experiences (including things like international olympiad awards) when applying for the university. Which means that the only thing you can submit in the application is SAT scores, some public education…

As a South Korean, I think most of the things described here are not exactly true, but I might be wrong. Could you provide any source? AFAIK the history of Korean educational system is the history of Hakwon superiority in adapting to new rules. A hakwon crackdown was something the gov did in 80s and failed miserably. Also there are now very diverse channels for univ entrance. I would think some channels still allow m…

I am also a Korean and wrote this on top of my head, though I do have to admit that it has been some time since I've been a student involved in it.

I'm mostly talking about 학종 where you submit 자소서 and 생기부(학생부?), and that there's been a ban on writing non-public education related experience on the latter. As for the claim that it being part of the government crackdown an hakwon, [here](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20100407138500004) is a source I found where they directly mention it. Ctrl+f for 사교육.

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

#65
post #20

I'm not sure this is always bad, as long is it's obvious it's not serious or for the purpose of fraud, or if the individual cited actually contributed in some way. Here's a researcher's dog, whose name was Galadriel Mirkwood, cited as a co-author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Matzinger#Dog_co-author_... Who is to say the dog did not contribute to the author's paper and research in some way she found significan…

I do think it’s misleading to acknowledge the sorts of contributions children and dogs might make with co authorship. I do agree that often small contributions are rewarded with authorship, but really I think these are best credited in the acknowledgment section of the paper. Otherwise there is not a good way to distinguish between a substantial contribution and an ethereal one.

I should have put my grad advisor in the acknowledgements section of my 3 papers instead of as an author...

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

#66
Years ago, I implemented a piecewise-linear approximation algorithm based on this [1] paper. I was amused that the primary author was a high schooler, the secondary working at Infineon, both in Torrance, CA. The math isn't beyond high school level, so I figured it was some AP level exercise between the parent and the child at writing/publishing a paper.

Now I have doubts :)

[1] http://www.iaeng.org/publication/WCECS2008/WCECS2008_pp1191-...

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

#67
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

IOW, if they fail to tolerate fraud they'll have a smaller pool of candidates because unethical people won't be interested.

This is the sort of thing that's only a problem when your own prerogatives are misguided. Must academe be merely another institution that must pursue growth at all costs? If so then is the pedestal it presumes to occupy legitimate?

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

#68
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is run by a non-profit as opposed to a government. Granted the SAT would also qualify as non-public so that just confuses things further.

Sorry I meant the Korean one (CSAT?) which is indeed run by the government. That's interesting that American SAT is not run by the government directly.

It would be a bit odd for the American SAT to be run by the federal government when ACT vs SAT is so regional: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SAT-ACT-Preference-Map.sv...

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

#69

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…

F.D.C. Willard was a much more subtle version of this joke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard

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

#70
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. It’s called the library.

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

And many libraries (especially my local city library) have a notable lack of technical books, so you need quite a bit more than dedication and critical thinking if you're going to go that route.
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