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When I had just started my PhD in Computer Science in Korea, a Physics PhD student in the EU proposed a collaboration. He and I wrote one paper for a conference. I learned last week that the paper was accepted. He is first author. I am second author.

I did not tell my professor about this project even though he was my supervisor then. I mentioned it to my professor recently. He became very angry. He asked me to remove my name from the paper. He said that all my work represents his lab and my university. I shouldn't conduct other work.

My professor's points

  • The collaboration should be done between supervisors. (My professor's background and interest do not fit with my coauthor.)

  • Another issue is none of us can present the paper at that time, asking someone for authorship is acceptable for this situation?

My question

How can I mend things with my professor and continue to collaborate with my coauthor?

Atena Nguyen
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    The main problem is who will provide funding for you to attend the conference, if both of you have not notified your advisors. Obviously you can't go to the conference, since your advisor disagrees. If the situation is the same with your co-author, it does not make sense to submit a paper for a conference, when none of you can attend. – Alexandros Mar 08 '15 at 14:02
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    Was your current supervisor your supervisor when you and your friend started the collaboration? – mac389 Mar 08 '15 at 14:04
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    @Alexandros I disagree that funding is the main problem. It seems that the supervisor's expectation of how the student allocates her time is the main problem. – mac389 Mar 08 '15 at 14:16
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    Did your professor mention any objective specific issue with the paper (or possibly the target venue)? I am wondering because of the remark about "representing the lab and the university". If he didn't, you might want to at least think about trying to switch to another supervisor. At latest at the PhD level, you should become able to work on your own, and setting up your own collaboration and managing to submit a paper that gets accepted is actually excellent. A supervisor who goes as far as requiring to take your name off of your own successful work actively hampers that development. – O. R. Mapper Mar 08 '15 at 14:24
  • +1 @O.R.Mapper a micromanaging supervisor is not the same as a scientific disagreement – mac389 Mar 08 '15 at 14:25
  • @mac389 The OP changing or not his/her supervisor is one issue. But sending a paper to a conference without attending it, is a) plain stupid and b) gives both students a bad name in the related communities c) It is highly unprofessional. So, It is major issue for the career of the OP, regardless of him/her switching supervisors. – Alexandros Mar 08 '15 at 14:38
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    The point of a PhD is to be able to conduct and lead individual research. I think he is very wrong in his arguments, unless the paper is utter crank, in which case he should explain why. A different and legitimate issue is that he may not be keen on your spending too much time on other things. – Davidmh Mar 08 '15 at 14:38
  • Thank you all for the feedback, @Alexandros: i'm not sure funding is the biggest problem. Since he is going to attend the conference to. And he will be in the author list. – Atena Nguyen Mar 08 '15 at 14:38
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    So you added your supervisor as a co-author? This was not in your question. – Alexandros Mar 08 '15 at 14:39
  • @Alexandros: Given the effort it takes to get something accepted in the first place, I somehow agree with a), YMMV on c), but I don't see any reason to assume b). The paper won't appear in the proceedings or the program listing unless they hand in the camera-ready version (and, seeing that the acceptance notification has arrived just a week ago, it doesn't seem like they're that far yet), and also, all conferences I've seen so far have invariably made it a condition for inclusion in the program and proceedings that at least one author has registered by the time of the camera-ready deadline. – O. R. Mapper Mar 08 '15 at 14:41
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    If you have a job as a Graduate Research Assistant that is entirely funded by a US government or similar grant your professor won, and this work is entirely unrelated to that grant, there may be some trouble about working on things that could not be covered by those funds. – Bill Barth Mar 08 '15 at 14:43
  • The main problem is he is very angry with me. I cannot explain anything to him at that time. Adding him as a co-author is not the solution as he mentioned. He want to have supervisor - supervisor collaboration which would never happened as I mentioned – Atena Nguyen Mar 08 '15 at 14:43
  • @BillBarth Thank you, but I study in Korea, – Atena Nguyen Mar 08 '15 at 14:48
  • @Alexandros: since this paper is main topic of my co-author and he is the fist author. this paper is sponsor by his grant as shown in ack section. – Atena Nguyen Mar 08 '15 at 14:49
  • @O.R.Mapper: you are right in publishing policy of the conference, at least one author should be registered and present the paper. – Atena Nguyen Mar 08 '15 at 14:51
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    @AtenaNguyen, I presume the Korean government has rules about how you can spend their money. – Bill Barth Mar 08 '15 at 14:51
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    This sounds like much more of a cultural specific issue than academic. In Korea, your supervisor is most likely looking at you as a student, not a researcher. Many of the comments here assume the latter. The best way to find out is to ask any other foreign faculty that have been in Korea a long time if they think it is a cultural issue or academic. – user-2147482637 Mar 09 '15 at 00:03
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    Your adviser is a jerk, regardless of culture. This is 2015, not 1895. – gnometorule Mar 09 '15 at 05:22
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    Start looking for a new supervisor! – Calchas Mar 09 '15 at 12:19
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    It is a pretty anti-intellectual opinion on the side of the supervisor and completely against the principles of academic science, but I don't think it is something you can talk out. Most probably your professor has already rock-solid opinion on such "disobedience issues". – Greg Mar 09 '15 at 13:11
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    Call his bluff. Tell him you're sorry him supervising you didn't work out and you'll switch to a new supervisor as soon as possible. – TheMathemagician Mar 09 '15 at 14:11
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    In Korea, do you work on a PhD as a job (for a salary), or is it more a student-like situation? If your supervisor pays for your time, he gets to decide what you spend it on. – RemcoGerlich Mar 09 '15 at 19:45
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    @gnometorule This is a very shallow analysis. – Angry Lettuce Mar 10 '15 at 08:53
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    We western people need to stop giving Asian students cultural advice. Many of the suggestions here are sound based on western standards, but sound like horrible mistakes for somebody studying in Asia. – xLeitix Mar 10 '15 at 10:51
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    @xLeitix: I think it's a bit more complicated - probably, many of the commenters (without entirely excluding myself here) are assuming (maybe mistakenly so) that the title PhD is not just an arbitrary combination of three letters, but that it carries some meaning, which is, despite considerable differences between countries, somehow internationally agreed upon on a very abstract level - along the lines of "has a very good overview of the research in a particular topic", "can conduct publishable research", "has acquired the skill to act independently and make their own decisions". ... – O. R. Mapper Mar 10 '15 at 12:02
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    @xLeitix: ... Of course, much of this is based on implicit, "unwritten rules"; it certainly doesn't help that we are probably doing a bad job distinguishing between "what we think is internationally expected of a PhD holder" and "what may or may not be practically acceptable for a student in the respective culture". The least solution I can think of is to at least make sure we point out which - possibly culture-specific - rationale we see for our suggestions, especially when those suggestions are of a "this is not usually done" general style. – O. R. Mapper Mar 10 '15 at 12:04
  • @BillBarth That is simply not true. "there may be some trouble about working on things that could not be covered by those funds" <-- how about knitting sweaters? That's also not covered by funds. A student's life should not be controlled by their advisor to this extent. After she goes home she should be able to do whatever she pleases to. – Szabolcs Mar 10 '15 at 14:35
  • @Szabolcs, I meant the work they do in the office, on the job, as covered by their GRA funding, of course. If this student worked on this paper without their advisor's knowledge while funded on an NSF (say) grant and did so during the actual working time of their employment, that could, potentially, cause problems for them if the funded grant and the work done here are not even plausibly related. – Bill Barth Mar 10 '15 at 14:42
  • @Szabolcs While you have a strong point, here is a question for you. Lets say that as a supervisor, your student didn't do absolutely any progress on his research for lets say 6 months. Suddenly, you found out that in this time your student was working "after he/she/it went home" on another project or two, completely unrelated to the PhD. Would you be happy with the situation? I am not saying that this is the case here, but if the student had a sudden drop in the production at some point, which can be correlated with this new peoject, I could see the supervisor being unhappy. – Nick S Mar 10 '15 at 16:07
  • ... Of course, there is a big difference between being unhappy and overreacting. – Nick S Mar 10 '15 at 16:07
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    @NickS There are many ways to waste time and end up being unproductive at work: her work could be affected because she was dating, because she was playing computer games or because she was doing another research project. The latter is not any worse than the former. But this question isn't about not being productive: it's about the supervisor demanding that she takes her name off the paper. The supervisor has no right to do this, or to control what she does in her spare time. This is like a company claiming rights over any software their programmers wrote, regardless of whether ... – Szabolcs Mar 10 '15 at 16:24
  • @NickS ... it was done on office hours or at home, using office equipment or a home computer. It does happens, but it's not right and shouldn't happen. Of course you're right that writing a paper is a big project and probably does take up a lot of time, also realistically it's very hard to determine how much time she's been spending "on work" or "on personal projects". So yes, there might be reasons for the supervisor to be upset. But we're walking a dangerous thin line here when suggesting that if she's being paid to do one research project she cannot also do a different one ... – Szabolcs Mar 10 '15 at 16:28
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    As with most questions here, we're seeing one side of the story. It would likely sound very different if it were asked by the supervisor ... – Szabolcs Mar 10 '15 at 16:30

5 Answers5

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It's reasonable for your professor to want some input as to how you spend your time, and it's customary for students to keep their advisors informed about other things they are working on. You have perhaps committed a slight breach of etiquette by not telling him about this project earlier.

However, in my view, it is deeply inappropriate for him to ask you to take your name off the paper. He is your advisor but he doesn't own your life. You have done the work and as an academic it is your right to publish it. An interaction like this would have me thinking about looking for a new advisor, quick.

If the professor has technical concerns about the quality of the paper itself and thinks that it is not ready to appear in the scientific/academic record, then he should discuss this with you, and you should share those concerns with your coauthor and come to a decision on their merits. But I feel it's not appropriate for your professor's reputation to be part of that conversation - just decide whether the paper is good and publishable or not.

Your second question is unrelated but I'll address it here anyway. Do not add another person as author (your advisor or anyone else) just so they can present it at the conference. In order to be an author, a person must have made a significant intellectual contribution to the work, and it's unethical to "gift" authorship for any other reason.

In many cases, conferences allow a paper to be presented by someone other than an author. So if you know someone who is attending the conference and willing to present your paper, they may be able to do it without you unethically making them an author. But if the conference really requires one of the authors to attend and neither of you can, then I suppose all you can do is withdraw your paper and resubmit to a conference which you can attend.

Nate Eldredge
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  • It's unclear whether the student was working with this professor when her friend and she submitted the paper. – mac389 Mar 08 '15 at 14:49
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    I'm under his supervisor when I conduct the results with my friend – Atena Nguyen Mar 08 '15 at 14:53
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    "it's customary for students to keep their advisors informed about other things they are working on" - and this comes with a great deal of variation. I am used to settings where this information sometimes does happen by telling one's advisor about having successfully submitted a paper the advisor didn't yet know about (and advisors generally being very happy about that kind of own initiative, as well as about touching upon different research topics beside one's current core topic, and about breaking out of the apparent constraints one's grant might officially impose). – O. R. Mapper Mar 08 '15 at 15:01
  • @O.R.Mapper. If you look at previous OP's question, 5 months ago she was not even on a PHD program and she was talking about how nice her advisor was. So, I am not 100% sure if we know the whole story about the issue. It is different working on an independent project in your first few months of your PHD and different to have an individual collaboration along with your main body of work of your PHD. – Alexandros Mar 08 '15 at 15:07
  • @Alexandros: I don't think I understand the difference between working on an independent project and working on an independent project that involves other people (and with that said, the "main body of work of one's PhD" dynamically emerges based on whatever one does, not the other way round), but I agree we may be lacking some insider knowledge for this particular case. – O. R. Mapper Mar 08 '15 at 15:11
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    I may be wrong but it seems that OP was working on the paper in his own time, on his own budget, not using the resources of the professor. Professors/supervisors do not own people like their pet turtle. – Greg Mar 09 '15 at 13:14
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    I'm sorry, but this is Korea. The professor/student relationship is very different than the one in the west, particularly if the professor is from an older generation or is a reputed researcher. – Angry Lettuce Mar 10 '15 at 08:54
  • @Greg You are right as long as this extra work doesn't interfere with the research done in the lab. A student should have a night job, even if that is not time spent at work, it would still interfere a lot with the lab work. – Nick S Mar 10 '15 at 16:12
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Decode your professor first

  • If this is a scientific disagreement, then you should try to have a scientific discussion with him and perhaps the other author.

  • If this is your supervisor's indirect/cryptic way of saying that he cannot pay for this, look for other means of funding. Perhaps your university has a general travel fund. At worst, you may have to sit this conference out. Anecdotally, I have seen many formerly well-funded professors who project their anger at their shrinking budgets onto students in situations like this.

  • If this is an interpersonal conflict, then you have to decide whether the tension results from miscommunication or deeper differences. As @O.R. Mapper says, a PhD student is learning how to conduct independent research. Shockingly, that involves the student taking initiative.

Tread lightly

We all have to deal with irate superiors from time to time. If you two cannot have a civil conversation about this, work around him until things cool off. (See the general travel fund above.) Is there an ombudsperson? Can someone from your committee who is at your supervisors level mediate?

Mind the politics

Invoking Sayre's law, politics in academia can be stupidly vicious, especially if the issue involves people at different levels in the hierarchy. It is wise to recognize if your supervisor is playing power politics and wiser to recognize if supervisors you might go to tend to do the same thing. You wouldn't want to win the battle but lose the war.

mac389
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He is your advisor but he doesn't own your life. – Nate Eldredge

Professors/supervisors do not own people like their pet turtle. – Greg

Your adviser is a jerk, regardless of culture. This is 2015, not 1895. – gnometorule

I don't think there is such a thing as "regardless of culture". The world is very diverse and sadly, the English-speaking Internet tends to forget that.

As you may have noticed, the hierarchy is very strong in Korean society. Your professor may not "own" you, but he is both older than you and hierarchically above you. As such, you owe him respect. In theory, if he gives you an order, you have to comply, whether you like it or not. If he asks you to come work on a weekend or late at night, you have to. In practice, rules are more relaxed for foreigners, who are not expected to know all these cultural details, but I suggest you be aware of them to avoid any mistake!

What you really have to remember is that you and your professor are not equal. In all situations, your professor dictates what is right and what is not, what you should do and what you should not.

That being said, there are (mainly) two kind of professors:

  1. Your professor is from an older generation and / or he is a reputed researcher in his field. This kind of individual tends to be very traditional and very finicky on "proper respect". If this is the kind of professor you have, I strongly advise: do not displease him. Just obey. Lie if you have to, but do not go against him in any way, the consequences may get way out of proportion. I am serious!

  2. Your professor is more understanding and used to dealing with foreigners. First, start with an apology and try to explain the situation with him: you didn't know you were not allowed to do what you did, and that you will refrain from doing it without his approval in the future (again, lie if you want to, just try to not offend him). He will probably listen to you (but it's unlikely that he will change his mind anyway) and move on. Perhaps try negotiating a collaboration with him and the other author's supervisor.

So, in short:

How can I mend things with my professor and continue to collaborate with my coauthor?

Make an apology, do (or say you will do) what your professor wants, and continue collaborating discretely. Do not get caught again and do never mention any external research again. If asked about it, feel free to lie if needed. It is OK to say something and do the opposite, the only important thing is to not show disrespect.

This may sound stupid or senseless to foreigners, but this is how things work, whether you like it or not. Hopefully, it will change over time, and in fact, it is already changing, albeit slowly.

Hope that helps.

Community
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Angry Lettuce
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  • Lying is stupid, regardless of culture. "Do not get caught again and do never mention any external research again". You do understand that a simple google search will retrieve all published works of the student, right? So, how can it stay hidden? Also, if you start lying to your collaborators (advisor), what will stop you from lying to strangers (peer-review) to fabricate results? – Alexandros Mar 10 '15 at 10:12
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    Your first sentence makes me question whether you have read my post at all. Anyway, lying in Korea is common: face and respect are more important than honesty, it is a fact. It is not about fabricating results, it is about preserving a relation of respect with the supervisor. Completely different. The OP can stay hidden by using a nickname, even though I frankly doubt the supervisor will take the time of searching for his name in future publications anyway. – Angry Lettuce Mar 10 '15 at 10:15
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    Lying is common in Korea [citation needed]. Do you have any studies on that? And the fact that you may lie in your public interactions, does not mean everybody does it. Also using a nickname for publications? That is another silly idea. The OP will spend all this time for her "hidden" research and then she will get zero attribution for it? And how does that help her in her academic career? – Alexandros Mar 10 '15 at 10:21
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    @Alexandros You seem to be surprisingly sure about a culture, that, based on names, is not yours but Park's. And, yes, there are indeed Asian cultures were lying is widely considered more appropriate than truthfully telling that you are not going to do what your superior suggested. – xLeitix Mar 10 '15 at 10:49
  • @xLeitix You are not Korean either (as far as I can tell). Anyway this is not the Korea.SE and advising the OP to lie, when her hiding the truth from the supervisor until too late, was already harmful to her, may do further damage. Also, do you like your students to lie to you? Are you happy when you find out? Will it be simply OK, if your student was Korean or Asian? After all, "there are indeed Asian cultures were lying is widely considered more appropriate", so it will not really be their fault. – Alexandros Mar 10 '15 at 12:55
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    @Alexandros Will [lying] be simply OK, if your student was Korean or Asian? The way you say this suggests that you think there is some kind of inconsistency to advise that a Western student should fit in with Korean culture when they are in Korea and that a Korean student should fit in with Western culture when they are in a Western country. Please explain the inconsistency, for I fear I am missing it. – starsplusplus Mar 10 '15 at 14:19
  • @starsplusplus "A Western student should fit in with Korean culture". No, he should not if that means lying to your collaborators or violating his ethical code. E.g., If some weird society expects that women should be obedient to men, that does not mean that a female PHD student there should simply tolerate her bulling by her male coleagues to fit in. – Alexandros Mar 10 '15 at 15:12
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    @Alexandros I think you may be startled by my use of the word "lying". Maybe this is not the right word. It is not about fabricating results or cheating on others or violating ethical codes. It has little to no moral significance, it is merely about "saving face", if you will, i.e, avoiding embarrassment of either parties. – Angry Lettuce Mar 10 '15 at 15:32
  • @Alexandros You completely missed my point. I didn't make any assertions in either direction. I was pointing out the flaw in your argument. You appeared to be trying to say that because it would be wrong for the Korean student to lie to her supervisor in America, it would be wrong for the American student to lie to her supervisor in Korea. Reread my previous comment for the details. I am criticising your logic, not your viewpoint; defending your viewpoint doesn't prove that your logic is sound. – starsplusplus Mar 10 '15 at 17:08
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    I don't think there is such a thing as "regardless of culture". But there is such a thing as the ethical standards of the global academic community. It is my opinion that for a professor to coerce a student to remove their name from a paper they have already written, for reasons unrelated to the content of the paper, violates those standards as I understand them. The professor's actions in this case may be culturally acceptable in his culture, but I stand by my assertion that, according to general academic ethics, they are inappropriate. – Nate Eldredge Mar 14 '15 at 20:04
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Well, you are dealing with politics, cultural habits, and Asian values all at the same time. He is thinking you should be working for him ALL the time. And having the Asian/Confucian values as their background: respect for seniors and authority is more important than being right or wrong. Or whatever...better not to have too much assumptions about others' thinking.

So solution should be quick and easy: if he want your name removed, either continue with another pseudo-name + email, or retain your name + not using the university email, just your personal email will do. Since this is done without using any of the University's resources, you have the right to retain your name as well, and remove all obvious link back to the University. This is not being dishonest, but your right to do things outside your "working hours".

Ok, if you really want to be honest, just follow whatever he said, and showed him nothing has been done externally. But in the background, just maintained your relationship with your collaborators. Many times in life, a paper is often read and forgotten - good ones are few and rare. But your relationship with other people matters most - in future, you may even coauthor many more papers with your existing supervisor + the "illegitimate" partner after you have completed your PhD.

Bottomlines is always: BRIGHT IDEAS that matters most. A name (in the paper) is just for eternity sake (or may be not): it is not as important as the content of the paper. These contents/bright ideas, are always a result of a cordial collaboration / interaction among people - and you should aim for that, actively working towards perfection.

Peter Teoh
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  • So solution should be quick and easy: if he want your name removed, either continue with another pseudo-name.... — This is neither quick nor easy. Many academic cultures consider publishing under a psuedonym to be unethical. In particular, once a paper has been accepted, changing the name of one of the authors to a pseudonym may be impossible. – JeffE Mar 15 '15 at 12:00
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    BRIGHT IDEAS that matters most. — Sadly, [citation needed] – JeffE Mar 15 '15 at 12:04
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I will throw out another opinion here: if your supervisor was paying you to work on his research agenda, it is unethical and unprofessional to instead work on something different without telling him. Likely the money came out of a hard-won research grant that specifically stipulated the type of project you were to work on, and your advisor will be on the hook with the funding agency when the project doesn't deliver.

Even if the supervisor gave up nothing but his time training and mentoring you, there was still an expectation that you would work in good faith on the project the two of you discussed.

That said, what's done is done. Taking your name off of the paper is not an appropriate fix, nor is adding your supervisor's name gratuitously. Have a candid talk with your supervisor, ask him for his specific concerns and how he suggests you make things right, and in the future strive to keep communication more open so that a similar situation does not arise.

user168715
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    I will throw out a strongly dissenting opinion. If you are being paid to do X, then doing Y is neither unethical nor unprofessional. Not doing X is unethical and unprofessional. My paying you to study frogs does not forbid you to study both frogs and trees. – JeffE Mar 15 '15 at 11:53
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    Yes, but I maintain that if I am paying you to study frogs, your secretly publishing a paper on trees represents a very large amount of research whose completion was unlikely to have been compatible with you having spent full time on my research on frogs. – user168715 Mar 16 '15 at 00:43
  • Certainly it will have raised questions, in my mind and others, about whether you were working on the frogs in good faith. Acting in a way that raises these questions is unprofessional, whether you actually committed theft of time or not, and is easily avoided by decent communication. – user168715 Mar 16 '15 at 00:44
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    unlikely to have been compatible — So what? If you are making good progress on your frog research, why should I care what else you're doing? On the other hand, if you aren't making good progress on your frog research, why should I care about what else you're doing? On the gripping hand, if I can't tell whether you're making good progress on your frog research, then we have a very different and much more serious problem. – JeffE Mar 17 '15 at 21:25
  • If I am paying you I expect you to work a certain number of hours (full time) on your frog research. Those don't have to be the 9-5 hours of a typical job, but if you are spending less than full time on frogs because you are caught up on your secret side project, I will be upset and I imagine most professors would be as well. – user168715 Mar 17 '15 at 23:02
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    And if you have some funded students and you don't mind them working on something unrelated to your research agenda, get them in touch with me, I can find them something to do ;) – user168715 Mar 17 '15 at 23:05
  • My students are free to get in touch with you on their own! – JeffE Mar 18 '15 at 01:25
  • Maybe JeffE and all the other people saying similar things are doing a different kind of research than I know about, but I recall that doing academic research involved a lot of time mulling over things at different times. In-between I'd be doing various things, but thinking over things in the "back of my mind" was very important. I think it's understandable, even reasonable to be annoyed if a student is obviously working on other projects. Doing a PhD is not like a 9-5 job where you clock in and clock out. – Chan-Ho Suh Jun 19 '15 at 01:28