The assignment is due December 5th, 2003 at the beginning of class.

Pick one of the following scenarios and write a 1-2 page essay discussing the ethical dillema. Make sure to answer the questions posed by the scenario and explain how you arrived at those conclusions.
If neither scenario appeals to you, you may choose another one from the Online Ethics page. However, you must clear any scenario you pick with Lighty before writing your essay.
Submit your essay with your name, your program (CE/CS/BINF), and the title of the topic you chose in class.

1. Jumping the gun

Sherry is working on her dissertation. Her advisor asks her to begin writing a paper. He asks for an electronic version of the rough draft and an estimated date of completion. Sherry says, two to three months.

A couple of months later, Sherry comes early to a scheduled meeting and sees an acceptance notice on his desk. For her article. On research she has yet to complete. Sherry hopes her advisor will mention something during the meeting, but he does not. Later, she goes through his desk and finds a document describing the experiment she's working on, positive results, and some graphs.

Sherry confronts her advisor and demands the paper be recalled. He says the paper has been accepted, she is the first author listed, and a recall at this point of time will negatively affect both of their careers. He also implies that recalling the paper will severely impact his chances for a grant renewal, leaving several students Sherry works with without any support. He says he's sure the research will pan out and all he did was extrapolate a line ot two. What should Sherry do?

Suppose she decided to lay low, say nothing, and wait to see how things work out. What are the potential problems with this?

Now suppose a former student comes back for a visit and sees her comparing her actual data with the data in the paper. There is virtually no difference. The former student says Sherry's advisor has 'pushed forward' many students' papers. Sherry contacts those students and they confirm. Now what?

2. Who's to blame?

Ramos is the head of a chemical company. As a part of a research and development effort, Ramos offers to provide funding to the chemical department of a major university a project. In return, the university agrees to give Ramos's company the exclusive rights to any technology developed in this field. As a compensation, the university will also receive a royalty from the company from the profits derived from the use of the technology.

At the university, a group of professors, led by A, decide to form a company to exploit the technology obtained except the company's project. Meanwhile, at the same time the university is conducting research in this, Ramos's company is conducting its own parallel research. Both teams obtain data and performance figures, and Ramos's company freely shares its results with those in A's company.

Later, B, a professor of civil engineering at the university, wants to conduct research and publish a paper relating to the chemistry project. He contacts the professors in the chemistry department, who furnish him with data from their tests, as well as with data from Ramos's company. B is totally unaware that the results come from two separate parties.

B is successful in his research, and his article is published in a major journal. The data obtained by Ramos's company is displayed prominently in the paper, and makes up a major portion of the article. The paper credits the members of the chemistry department, but nowhere mentions the contributions of Ramos's company, even though their funds supported both projects. B later learns that Ramos's company was the major contributor to the data in his paper.

Is it plagiarism for B to publish the data without publishing the full sources? Is it B's obligation to give full credit to Ramos's company? Should Ramos take any action after discovering the article? If so, what kind? What additional information would help you analyze the situation further?