Krdytkyu

The fact that to a seasoned programmer the work is easy doesn't have anything to do with it. As you describe it, this is work that's required for the publication. Without it, you don't have a paper. With it, you do. Therefore the programmer contributed significantly (critically) to the paper, and therefore the programmer should be an author.

The fact that it's quick and easy for a programmer simply means that programmers have spent significant time and effort learning skills that you don't have. If you consider the work trivial, then go out and learn the skills yourself, and do the work yourself. If that's too much work, then put an appropriate value on that work and offer authorship.

An example in my field is histopathology. I can take tissue slides to an expert who will look at them for five minutes and provide an interpretation. That expert becomes a co-author, not because of their five minutes of work but because of the decades of experience behind it.

Collaborators shouldn't need to run a bloody gauntlet and engage in hand-to-hand combat to become co-authors. If they provide a skill that contributes significantly to the paper, that should be enough.

I don't suppose it's unethical so long as you are clear in your expectations and proposed reward (which is effectively nothing), and the other party fully understands what they are getting into. This could easily become exploitative, however, as you are hoping to get someone to work for you while offering really nothing of value in return. If you are a professor or are some other type of authority figure over the student, I'd tread very carefully here, as you could be exerting undue influence over this person.

I notice that you plan to approach an undergraduate student about this, which could very easily be seen as preying on someone who doesn't know any better. If you have a really interesting problem that's so cool to work on that someone should be happy to do it for a simple "thank you", why not approach a true "seasoned programmer" instead of an undergraduate student? If true professionals find your proposal unpalatable, I'd say it would be unethical to try to hoodwink a less experienced person into the deal.

Seasoned's programmer's rate would probably be $100-$1000 per day. This, assuming that your estimation is correct (dangerous assumption) means you are asking for a volunteer to provide you with $500-$5000 of free labor(assuming that the work takes 5 days).

I also find it strange that you mention time for a seasoned's programmer, but want to hire an undergrad - the difference in the time required to finish the job might differ much. And no work is "Trivial" if it requires "few days" of expert's work.

Undergrad's work might also be of lower quality because of his lack of experience - what if the program is faulty and returns wrong results? How would you know that?

Ultimately it comes down to how you arrange it - you might find someone willing to do it for free. I suggest considering potential gains (is undergrad contributing $2000 in his time not enough to become a co-author?) and threats ( what if the work takes much longer? what if the program has bugs? what if the undergrad can't do it? ).

Would it be ethically wrong to recruit an undergrad for a few days volunteer work without pay

"Ethically wrong"? Maybe not.

But that is the wrong question to ask

However, I feel [that] to get some backing on the theory, I need... computer data.

• You've worked on a problem for two years.


• You're going to trust "a couple days" free work from a random undergrad to prove it?

If you don't know enough to code it yourself, how do you know the code is right?

In other words (and this isn't meant as harsh or flippant) if you can't tell me how you will be able to tell the difference between these two outcomes:

1. A person taking your assignment and coding something which produces the answer you expect


2. A person writing a program which will prove or disprove your theory

...then you don't need the code, do you?

If it turns out you think #2 is correct, but later someone proves that #1 is what really happened... that's bad.

Would it be ethically wrong to recruit an undergrad for a few days volunteer work without pay to get the computer crunching part done and not mention him as a coauthor and only mention as acknowledgement?

Yes. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the most terrible ethical offense, but if forced to choose one of the two words “no” or “yes” to answer the question “would it be ethically wrong?”, I’d go with “yes”.

The reason why it’s wrong is that you are going against established conventions of what authorship means. You think that by offering a student some other sort of reward for doing part of the work involved in publishing a paper, whether it be an acknowledgement, a letter of recommendation, or the opportunity to add another experience to their CV, then it is okay to not list them as a coauthor. But this is wrong, for two reasons: first, there is a clear power differential at play here that makes it likely the student may be tempted to go along with your scheme even without really finding the arrangement very fair or agreeable. In other words, it’s exploitation and an abuse of authority (of a sort we hear about all too often on this site unfortunately).

Second, and perhaps even more importantly, it is not just the student you are offending against. The scientific community has an expectation to be given honest and accurate information about who contributed meaningfully to the creation of the paper. And, by current conventions at least, “several days of work by a seasoned programmer” is more than enough to be counted as a coauthor. I find the idea of you reaching a private agreement with the student to deprive the community of that information by having the student give up authorship rights quite problematic, even overlooking the separate issue of exploitation. Imagine for example if rich people started paying famous academics to collaborate on research with them, giving them a high salary with the agreement that the famous and super-talented person will give up their coauthorship rights. Is this just a private transaction between two consenting adults that doesn’t hurt anyone else? No, of course it’s much less innocent and is harmful, since it deprives the community of information it needs to function effectively, and goes against agreed-upon norms of what’s acceptable.

Now, of course, in your situation you are actually the person who will have done almost all the research, and that’s fine. The student being a coauthor doesn’t mean that they will get half the credit for something you worked on for two years. It would be completely legitimate for you to make it clear to people what each coauthor contributed in any way necessary (by writing it in the paper, or in your CV or publication list, research statement etc). You absolutely deserve to get the correct portion of credit, and there is an honest way to make that happen. But as for coauthorship, the student programmer should get it, since they will have contributed time, creative thinking and a technical skill that’s quite nontrivial (at least, nontrivial enough that you yourself don’t possess it) to the project, and those are the accepted criteria for being a coauthor.

I don't think is unethical if you provide something of value of exchange to the prospective student. Will he gain an understanding of some theory that he/she's interested in as part of the engagement? Be upfront at what you're offering to your prospective collaborator.

If you just want a free coder then yes this is unethical. This is pure and simple exploitation, and abuse of power from your side. Would you like to be on the other side of this exchange?

ps. Check the regulations of your institution!

Rather than proposing this to an individual, which should be interpreted as coercive since there is a power imbalance, you could publish a call for help, describing what you need and what you offer. Be clear that it is only an ack on offer, not authorship, and no money is involved. Ask for people to apply. You can choose among those who offer to help. Some probably will, but if not, you should consider something more substantial.

If there is a learning component, you could describe that in your "call" as well. It might make it more interesting, even though there is no academic credit involved.

Is the output of the computer program going to be included in the paper? If so, that output has an author, and that author deserves credit. But who is the author? Is it the computer? Is it the program? Or is it the programmer? I think it's the programmer.

If the output has no intellectual merit, why does it add value to the paper? Would including the program input instead of the output serve the reader equally?

Contrary to popular belief, programming is intellectual activity. It deserves respect.