Hi Ken,

While I can see the inherent value of conducting research on this topic, I'm a little alarmed here at the circumnavigating of research ethics protocols like informed consent and true anonymous data collection protocols here. I don't feel "I don't have the time" as a real excuse for not conducting ethically sensitive and carefully thought through research - especially if your intention here is to gather data (or "evidence") that will be taken seriously by the community and also sets a good example to PhD researcher (which, if I recall, was the original intention of this mailing list back in the day). I find myself asking how a request like this would go down if a PhD student not known to the community would have asked it.

I'm also especially concerned about requests like this being sent around a mailing list where so many people have accidently "replied all" so many times over the years.

Just to add my two pennies to this debate as well - I've worked in a couple of large, multidisciplinary, and highly collaborative research groups over the last 8 or so years where people in the groups - including doctoral researchers - are often working across more than one project in parallel, in collaboration with postdocs and academics (their supervisors, as well as collaborators outside their supervisory committees). These are often complex projects, where different team members may have responsibility for different work packages or activities - some more conceptual, some more methodological, some more data gathering and analysis, some more design and technical, etc - and when it comes to publications it is very often hard to fully delineate and separate all these contributions out. Indeed, in some of the more participatory work I've been involved in we've had many non-"academic" co-researchers be co-authors on papers, as a means to signify the importance of their contributions to the outcomes or process of the research, and in the spirit of writing with, rather than writing about.

I remember in my early days working in groups like these being questioned by those outside about whether I was happy with adding all these authors (and, specifically, the group leaders) to "my" papers - and then usually surprising them when I could honestly say every single author on every single paper I had worked on had contributed directly, and significantly, to the completion of the work presented.

I'm certainly not saying gift signatures do not happen - but not everything meets the initial eye. I also think there is a danger here of fixating this conversation around a single imagined idea of what a PhD is in design, without accounting for how much contemporary design research is collaborative and team based.
 
Cheers,
John.

On 25/10/2019, 19:36, "PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in on behalf of Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote:

    Dear Colleagues,
    
    This is a research request for confidential first-hand information on forced gift signatures.
    
    If you have been following the recent threads, you will be aware of my interest in the problem of people who have been pushed or successfully forced to add co-author signatures to an article by people who are not actually co-authors. 
    
    I’m thinking of writing an article on the subject, and I need some real stories.
    
    If you will share your experiences with me on a confidential basis, it would be most helpful.
    
    Any information I receive will be kept in strict confidence, and any details that I use will be rendered anonymous and untraceable.
    
    If you have had this kind of experience or if you have first-hand knowledge of something like this happening to a friend or colleague, I’d like to hear from you.
    
    Please write to me in confidence at my email
    
     [log in to unmask]
    
    Several people have written to me since the thread began. It seems to me a serious problem — to describe the problem that people face, it helps to have real evidence. Even a few cases are better than none. I don’t have the time to develop a full quantitative survey, but it is possible to gather and share some qualitative stories on a confidential and anonymous basis.  
    
    Best regards,
    
    Ken
    
    Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
    
    Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Eminent Scholar | College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning | University of Cincinnati ||| Email  [log in to unmask] | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
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