Is this plagiarism?

[ChurchStretton]

I am an amateur astronomer. A few years ago I shared some astronomical discoveries I had made with a professional colleague based in the USA. In 2013 I discovered that most of my discoveries had been published – which was the good news – but that they have been published under the name of the professional astronomer I shared them with 3+ years earlier without a single mention of me appearing anywhere in either the article or the standard catalogue in which discoveries of this type are recorded.

I complained to him - "tough" summarised his 2 line reply.
I complained to the head of the US observatory where he worked - I was ignored, neither of my letters received a reply.
I went through the US based "Whistleblowing" process - the result of the "investigation" was never shared with me.

Am I being unreasonable to think that I have been mucked around long enough and it is time to go public?

Thanks for the update. Professionals taking the piss out of amateurs by stealing your data is bully boy tactics so hope you pursue this one.

It seems absurd that professional astronomers can award themselves discovery credit simply by duplicating amateur results that were shared with them more than three years previously! Surely an International Astronomical Union investigation requires a systematic and thorough attempt to learn the facts - not just the blind acceptance of the accused protestations of innocence?

Contact the funding body cited in the article(s) ?

Could plausibly be a case of fraud if they didn't do the work.

A quick reality check - this happens all the time. And it isn't plagiarism unless you had published and they copied a chunk. The most it could possibly be is intellectual theft... but if you hadn't formally published then not even that. And you can't easily prove intellectual property unless an idea is very specifically formulated and presented. You will have used extant knowledge and it would be unlikely that you would be able to prove that your idea/information is unique.

It happens all the time in all sorts of fields. The publisher is a Professor, you are not. Professors use all sorts of researchers, juniors, laymen etc as sources of information. They publish. as a Professor, an academic with standing and they may or may not acknowledge each individual as a contributor.

I have been through this process a couple of times. Once with my undergraduate research and once when I ran a project out in the real world. I did the research and wrote it up and a Professor I worked with published a piece sometime later. On neither occasion did she mention me as a contributor, in both cases my research was Referenced (as unpublished).

I am in no way upset, this is as it should be. I couldn't have got my findings 'out there' and with her publication my findings are being used by the relevant professionals. If I ever wanted to pick up more research, I would contact her and ask for help getting started. I certainly wouldn't accuse her of any kind of theft. She is doing her job!

The Professor is highly, highly unlikely to be a publisher. S/He will be an Editor. They are very different things.

If you do speak to the Publisher please by polite. They will have an extremely high workload. They are far more likely to be on your side etc if you are.

No conspiracy theory, hard done by stories. Stick to the facts and you may be surprised how far you get.

Nomama - "A quick reality check - this happens all the time. And it isn't plagiarism unless you had published and they copied a chunk."

I did publish and they did copy!

nomama, I had no idea that went on! In my field, nicking someone else's conclusions is academic misconduct and lots of people would see it as plagiarism. It wouldn't be ok for a professor to do it any more than anyone else.

You DID publish. Then go for it! No matter how small your publication, as long as it wasn't a vanity press publication, it sets a precedent. Make a fuss, contact University (if they are linked), check with all publishers and editors.

Have at 'em!

FeministDragon... not misconduct if you are working under a professor, they are overseeing your education/work. It is normal practice. My work was unpublished and so was hers to use as she was overseeing it. That is how it works.

But she wasn't working under the professor, was she?

So surely that is not how it works?

If she'd been part of a research time on this prof's staff, fine - but she wasn't and the issue seems to be that this is a professional taking advantage, thinking an amateur has no rights.

You're not describing a remotely related situation.

Why so angry?

I am describing one possibility... more info and I have agreed OP has a point.

It wasn't me, you know?

I'm not angry. I was just trying to explain because I read further up the thread how she'd been in touch, and you'd been thinking it was a different situation from what it was.

There's no anger in it, just feeling supportive of the OP who's been taken advantage of.

these are guidelines for who should be listed as authors - i know it says medical journal editors but the principle stands for other disciplines. nomama you can't say "as a Professor, an academic with standing and they may or may not acknowledge each individual as a contributor" as though they can pick and choose - it is important that contributors' work is acknowledged. if they don't meet the criteria for authorship then they can still be acknowledged in an acknowledgements section. and important to reference correctly too of course. it sounds as though the acknowledgement of your contribution was sufficient (without knowing the specifics)

but this is different - the acknowledgement does not appear to have been sufficient

great that the publisher is looking into this. as picak says it may take a while for them to gather all the information necessary. hopefully they will look into this thoroughly

authorship/ownership of data disputes take up by far the majority of my time in terms of the publishing ethics issues i have to deal with in my job

People saying that this is not plagiarism clearly have no idea what the academic sense of plagiarism is. It is a clear case of plagiarism. Whether the results have been previously published them or not, and whether in a 'vanity press' publication or not, has nothing to do with it. If you use an idea someone gave to you in any form you should cite it, this is why people add references to 'personal communication of X' in bibliographies.

Other poster are right that this is matter for the journal. They will have a clear written policy on this which you can quote from in your correspondance.

Also, it is possible for a professor to plagiarise from his students.

Yes, and obviously the best way to cover your tracks if you do plagiarise from your students is to tell them this is absolutely normal and what are they being silly about.

I would say it was plagiarism. This isn't my field but if I so much as used a statistic provided by someone else without citing them, that would look as if it was my work - when it wasn't.

There's far too much if this bollocks allowed to go on in academia - usu its usually older, male Professors taking advantage of younger female researchers. The basic problem us that they are passing off work as theirs, which is not . Have at them I say!

Anyone remember <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=www.theguardian.com/society/2008/jun/16/mentalhealth.health&sa=U&ei=Xnw0U73kGIHxhQf2vYHoDQ&ved=0CCAQFjAA&sig2=DbBqoSpnSxt235dYVfkpaQ&usg=AFQjCNHYJ6s_W9HIHzzvLiI9iahoaF_bQA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Raj Pasaud ?

Nor do I.

Ooh I remember him! He was the hero of the final year medics who I shared a flat with...and then...not so much a hero....

Please keep us updated though.

I took the advice of posters to this thread and I wrote to the Managing Editor of the magazine in February 2014.

On March 18 the Editor in Chief of the magazine wrote saying "You will receive a full written response from us when we have finished checking our assessment of this situation."

Since then nothing. I think we all know that if the target of a concern or complaint has a valid explanation they are invariably more than willing to share it. On the other hand if they are "guilty as charged" no reply is pretty much standard practice.

It looks as if the USA professionals are closing ranks against a UK amateur and that presenting my results as theirs is OK with them. Well that's a surprise!

What next?

I took the advice of posters to this thread and I wrote to the Managing Editor of the magazine in February 2014.

On March 18 the Editor in Chief of the magazine wrote saying "You will receive a full written response from us when we have finished checking our assessment of this situation."

Since then nothing. I think we all know that if the target of a concern or complaint has a valid explanation they are invariably more than willing to share it. On the other hand if they are "guilty as charged" no reply is pretty much standard practice.

It looks as if the USA professionals are closing ranks against a UK amateur and that presenting my results as theirs is OK with them. Well that's a surprise!

What next?

Surely you need an American lawyer. If there is money to be made I would think they will be very interested, if not they won't.

This doc gives some info
www.plagiarism.org/assets/downloads/complete_resources.doc

Look for a british lawyer who deals with this and get some advice or just ask them to refer you to an American one. You need someone who wants to fight your corner. They are a very litigious country.

Twitter? FB? Straight to their university?

sorry you haven't had a quick response. have you sent a follow-up message asking about the status of your complaint? do so if you haven't. if you have done so and no response, press the publishing company for a response.

ideally the authors that are the subject of a complaint should be given 30 days to respond, and i wouldn't expect things to be resolved in the time since the response of 18th march. publishing ethics complaints do take an extremely long time to investigate.

if however you find you don't get any response at all from either editor or publisher, i would suggest that the next step could be to check whether the journal editor is a member of COPE (look at the members tab and search for the journal title). if so, you can contact COPE and state your dissatisfaction with the journal's investigation of your complaint. they won't investigate on your behalf but they will remind the editor and publisher of their responsibility and spur the investigation on.

i honestly would hold off getting in a lawyer at this stage if you can. it will cost you a lot of money and there are still avenues that don't cost you that have yet to be exhausted. as mentioned above the society of authors may also be a good source of information. i'm not sure whether you need to be a member but i'm sure you could ring them for advice.

i know i've said it already and it doesn't help you in your situation, but honestly these things do take such a long time to investigate. however, you can expect to receive timely responses to reasonable requests for updates (even if the response is that there is no information yet), and it is not fair if you are not in receipt of these.

You discovered something in space?
That is awesome! Congrats
And now someone is trying to say they discovered it...bastards.
Hope you are successful in your fight for recognition.