well, 1st of all..
i'm new in this section of lowyat forum, i'm not sure whether is this the suitable section to talk about this issue..
but since it happened in my lab, and i'll be taking postgrad studies, so i guess this is the place..

and the story is basically about...
i've been robbed...
literally, of my efforts and hardwork...

well, in my lab, there's some sort of "tradition" set by my supervisor...
an assignment for the newbies after 1 or 2 months of training in the lab...
if they pass, they can start their own research project...
so my supervisor assigned this newbie N to run an experiement which he did in his final year project during undergrad...
and he failed....coz lack of lab skills and initiative...
as that experiment would affect my results, i took over, ran it, and succeeded...

i think some of u guys might already figure out the ending...
yes.. he presented the result...
and never mentioned about me and my involvement..
(and basically i owned every single bits of the results!!)
and an illusion had been made that it was his effort and his contribution that this experiment has established in our lab...
and.. my supervisor asked him to present "his" work in a upcoming conference...

not cool man, not cool......
this was an assignment for him to prove his worthiness in this lab...
its like STPM to enter uni...
we cant use other ppl's result to enter uni right??
it must be based solely on our own effort...

definately a daylight robbery....
not cool....
not cool...
but i cant do anything about it...
i cant deny or object my supervisor's judgement as it would be impolite...

taking without asking = stealing...
taking in front of you and claimed rightfully theirs = robbery..

i've been robbed...

what to do ???
haiz...

this is clearly kopitiam stuff

What to do? Nothing. It happened, just move on. On the upside its not a total loss for you either. You gained a lesson to be careful where you place your trust. Trust me, better it happen in a place like a lab than out there.

Yup this section is not about voicing your feeling of being robbed.

I'm sure this is not the suitable section to talk about this issue

sorry man, if i were you i would take revenge.

you would not want to be a sissy boy and just cry about this all day right?

Well, this is a copyright issue bro..

This post has been edited by dhui: Jun 3 2010, 12:54 PM

This is definitely not PhD stuff. And by the way, this is pretty common amongst people these days. Heck, I faced such situation before and worse of all, I can't do anything about it.

robbered? this things happen because u have done something wrong before...believe me ...btw, kopitiam

this thread should have been merged with ' bad karma ' as it's somewhat related to karma

i have heard so many cases of research robbery thing.
even back-stabbing.

advise: once u got whatever good finding, present it straight away to your
supervisor. =)

furthermore, that robber will faced trouble in order to write the paper for the conference. believe me

back stabbing ? you mean using physical weapon like a knife ?

Finally, a worthwile comment - how to combat research robbery.

This assumes that the supervisor will be on your side. Since this this form of robbery is so common, is there a danger of the supvisor robbing you instead?

This post has been edited by faceless: Jun 11 2010, 11:36 AM

ahaha if knife is used, i cant post this comment. dead lol

in normal practice, researches done by using money (grants) or rather information by the supervisor. so no issue of 'supervisor robbing'

talk to your supervisor. but be careful. you must know what kind of person he is. Dont want to get into bad books with him just over a small issue.

ITs a small issue, but it can lead to bigger problems. Small issue because its just a conference and a 10-15 minutes presentation. but it can be bad because it can represent lack of ethical practice in the lab. But again, it maybe a small issue, overlooked by your supervisor.

but be careful when it comes to publishing papers. always know the ethics of publishing.

trust me, direct confrontation is the best way. you said you did the experiment yourself, you should own the original copy, methodology of reproducing the result. Why the scare with your supervisor?

Luckily i am doing theoretical study, no one else other than me can reproduce what i did. lol.

well you clearly had the chance to document your findings, apply watermarks if needed, and provide references.

Don't think you did it now did you..

That is life for a research student.
What you need to do was to sign an agreement which states that results that you obtained if he were to publish them with your supervisiors research you will become a co author (depending on the significance of your results)

Truth be told, the supervisor has robbed you already by this point. He/she is a researcher working on a project funded by a research grant. Maybe he/she is the principal investigator, maybe not. If he/she is, you get robbed by him/her. If he/she isn't, then he/she robs you and is in turn robbed by the principal investigator to whom the funding grant belongs. Biasa la. THank ur lucky stars ur name even appears on the paper at all.

But on the robbery of TS work, dun worry bro, wat goes around comes around. In the lab rubbish in = rubbish out. If the feller has to curi ur work to get where he wants to go, he wont be able to stay there for long. Take it in stride, lesson learnt. Look on the bright side: at least u didn't lose some earth-shattering game-changing piece of technology breakthrough worthy of Nature that you could've patented or earned a Nobel prize from. Better this happens now, early in ur career and u learn from it.

This post has been edited by pleasuresaurus: Jun 13 2010, 04:33 AM

So this is how it works eh When you get higher it your turn to rob people. It sucks to be the junior.