Dear Michael,
You are absolutely right. I should have named examiners in addition
to supervisors and advisors.
This as a doubly important point coming from you. You have had
experience as an examiner who has demonstrated professional
responsibility by rejecting deficient thesis projects. You also have
had experience as a "rescue supervisor" who has demonstrated
professional responsibility and compassion in helping rejected
students to recover and to complete their work.
We agree completely on the second point. I approached it from a
different angle in my note on the ethics of disclosure. EU human
rights legislation is clearly one of the areas of law that also
governs this range of issues.
John makes the valid point that no purpose is served by naming names
when we can learn just as much by examining the patterns.
You raise an additional issue by pointing out that some situations
exist in which human rights and ethical responsibilities supercede
other values. Even if there were to be some benefit in "naming
names", we might be ethically wrong and legally liable were we to do
so. In this case, it is fortunate that naming names serves no
legitimate community interest. We can learn what we need to learn as
a community by discussing the case rather than the person.
Kari-Hans makes a good additional point. This list now has some 1,200
subscribers an an open, public archive. This is a different context
from either a private discussion list, a classroom, an individual
meeting or a therapeutic group.
Rosan's last note once again reversed Carl Rogers's views. Rogers did
advocate open, honest communication in daily life. He did not mean
that we ought to say everything we learn about OTHERS. He meant that
we ought to be open and honest about OUR views and feelings. Rogers
always distinguished between the information that had a place in the
public realm and information that was properly kept private. He did
not distinguish between therapy and daily life. He distinguished
between the voluntary disclosure of those who share their own secrets
or failings and forced or involuntary disclosure that occurs when
someone improperly discloses information about others. What Rosan
sees as naming names to help us all learn, Rogers would have seen as
a violation of human rights. He would have agreed with Michael on
this.
The difference between giving sources to published documents and
naming names of private individuals is clear.
By giving sources through careful referencing, we allow all
participants in a discourse to examine the cited source. This permits
them to compare and contrast, to reach their own judgment, and to ask
whether the citing author has made reasonable and responsible use of
the cited source. This encourages learning and it contributes to the
knowledge of the field. It involves published material that an author
has voluntarily placed in the published literature. The published
literature is a public forum of open debate. Everything published may
be cited and referenced, and most of what is published may be quoted
within the limits of copyright law. Since good referencing adds rigor
and depth to our discourse, it enhances learning in our community.
This contributes to the knowledge of the field.
Rosan apparently does not recognize the ethical violation entailed in
disclosing what we learn in private. Rosan's view is at variance with
the views of most research practitioners and educators. Her view is
absolutely at variance with many bodies of law.
It is true that ethics is bounded by culture. There was a time when
many people believed that capital punishment was ethical, for
example. Most people in most nations no longer believe this. Some do.
For example, George Bush believes in the virtue of capital
punishment. I'm not ready to say that Bush is right from his point of
view simply because he has the right to hold his own view. I'd argue
the same case for the ethics of disclosure.
There was a time when few believed in a right to privacy. Most
believed that the state, one's employer, the local squire, the parish
priest, the police force, the schoolteacher -- nearly anyone with a
touch of power, in fact -- had the right to learn whatever they
wished to know about any of us. There was always an excuse or
justification. For some it was the public good, for others protection
against heresy, or even perhaps our ability to learn. If the wheel
turns again on human rights law, and the law may favor Rosan's view.
In that case, the general consensus on ethics may also change. I
believe we do better with human rights than we once did -- and I'd
like to believe that we can do better still. We have different views
on the ethics of disclosure and the rights of privacy protection than
we once did.
While the ethical issues may be open to debate, empirical evidence in
pedagogy and organizational learning suggests that we do not need
names to learn from examples. We do not need to know the name of a
mathematician to learn from the example of a good proof or a poor
one. We do not need to know the name of a company to learn from the
example of a business case or the name of a designer to learn from
the problems in a design case to which we are given access in
disguised form. Our on-line community can learn without naming names.
Do we need to name individuals to help them learn from their own
example? In this case, naming names is generally an impediment to
learning. Public shame and humiliation make it difficult to learn.
People may or may not learn if we specifically direct their attention
to the problems in a paper or a thesis in a private context. The rest
of us can learn from patterns of mistakes.
By studying problem patterns and the difficulties they create, we can
discover what's wrong and reflect on how to avoid them. I don't need
to know that "Tom" or "Caroline" made a specific mistake to see
what's wrong with the mistake.
The kind of criticism that Cindy and Erik put forward involves a
pattern. We can learn from the pattern without knowing who they
believe exemplifies the pattern. On a list with 1,200 subscribers,
there will be many people whom we might name -- if we only knew who
they are. On the other hand, why should we care?
Specific debate is a different issue. Cindy raised a topic. Erik
built on Cindy's comments. Rosan raised some questions and challenged
Cindy. I raised some questions and challenged Rosan. Erik, Kari-Hans,
John and Michael built on all this, debating, adding distinctions,
pointing to gaps. We've all been part of an open conversation on the
list. We've all signed our contributions and this makes named inquiry
fair.
Dr. Joe Nameless may well have graduated despite flawed research
methods, a deficient literature review or even a legal violation. His
advisor is to blame, and the examiner is at fault for passing him.
(There is a difference between some systems. The UK uses and external
examiner. In America, the advisor and the thesis committee have full
responsibility. There is no external examiner. In Scandinavia, we use
a formal opponent system where an outside professor or two formally
analyze and oppose the thesis in scholarly debate. To pass, the
candidate must answer the debating points successfully. Opponents sit
on the committee, and all committee members sign the recommendation
for the degree.) Assuming Dr. Joe passed through the system, what
good does it serve for me to name his failings now? This is
particularly the case if the flaws I've seen in Dr. Joe's thesis
occur elsewhere due to systemic flaws in some of our doctoral
programs. Isn't it enough for me to warn doctoral students, advisors,
examiners and opponents against the pattern?
Given the fact that I have had a public life as an artist, designer,
and scholar, I am willing to stand up for what I sign and publish.
The fact that my papers and research notes are archived and
accessible to scholars also mean that I will be subject to a layer of
scrutiny that others may avoid. My decision to allow my papers to be
collected means that I have in part agreed on a personal basis to
Rosan's call for public scrutiny. Fair enough. I agreed. I don't
demand that anyone else agree -- and I have sometimes myself wondered
whether my choice was wise.
"All circumstances" covers an awful lot of ground. Rosan has
occasionally put forward some ideas in public fora and private
correspondence that would fit some of the patterns that Cindy
identified as problems. Perhaps she has different views on some of
these issues today. Perhaps not. The same holds true for many of us.
I find it hard to believe that Rosan is asking the rest of us to say,
"Oh, yeah! Rosan did that!" simply because she wants to know who on
this list has done one or another of the foolish things that Cindy
describes as problems among designers entering a career in research.
Most of these problems arise from systemic flaws. I described some
systemic flaw in my presentation at Ohio State on the issue of the
kinds of undergraduate education we require for students who will go
on to a PhD. I also discussed these issues in a paper at UIAH on
design science and design education.
Systemic problems require systemic solutions. Community learning
requires discussion of common problems. This requires concepts and
examples rather than names.
Best regards,
Ken Friedman
Michael Biggs wrote:
>I am concerned that some of your comments indicate that candidates
>with deficient doctoral theses are being passed by their examiners.
>I was recently at a meeting where a senior academic said casually
>"has anyone ever failed?" [the answer is yes]. The examiners are the
>gate-keepers of quality in situations where either the student or
>the advisors cause sub-standard theses to be submitted. So my
>contribution to this discussion is "blame the examiners".
>
>On the issues of naming persons: this would violate a basic
>principle of research ethics. It is a regulation of my University,
>reinforced by EU human rights legislation, that the subjects of
>research should be anonymous. The list is discussing "research about
>doctoral supervision". Therefore the names of those who feature in
>the research should not be made public, irrespective of whether
>there would be an advantage to the community to know those names.
Ken Friedman wrote:
>>If I specifically criticize the thesis of so-and-so's student X, pointing
>>out that the thesis contains specific errors of fact and a deficient
>>literature review -- say, claiming that no literature exists when I can
>>show several thousand relevant sources...
>>one thesis project I used as an un-named example of bad
>>work led me to another problem. The problem is this: I predicted that
>>some of the bad graduates would get jobs simply as a result of having
>>a PhD in a field where most people don't have them...
Kari-Hans Kommonen wrote:
>- despite of its convivial tone and practices, this is not a private
>ephemeral discussion between a few people - this is a public,
>archived, searchable forum with hundreds of readers now and possibly
>thousands of readers over its future years. Anyone on the internet
>can search the archives and mine out any fragments of text regarding
>any person, be it the one whose work was commented or who was
>commenting, over the years to come. This creates a higher demand for
>sensitivity and responsibility on the communications on this medium.
Rosan Chow wrote:
>and i don't understand why naming is a must in referencing of texts but so
>controversial in other circumstances in our communications. and i
>don't understand
>how asking for the identities of those concerned researchers and theorists is
>violating ethics of discloure and inhibiting responsible inquiry. are the
>identities of resarchers and theorists confidential and private matters?
>so my answer to your challenge is: i suggest that under all circumstances, we
>should name names especially in the situation of criticisms if criticisms are
>meant for improvement. without knowing whom are being criticized, how would we
>expect those concerned to improve? and we should take full
>responsibility for what
>we express. being open and honest in general, and naming in particular should
>increase our awareness of our responsibility and thereby increase
>the care we give
>to our expressions. and through the process of open and honest
>exchange, we might
>transcend the limits of feelings and fears.
John Feland wrote:
>The same is true within this discussion. Getting specific about
>references adds to the rigor and integrity of our joint explorations into
>design. For academic research, there is a clear "Need to Know" so that we
>can give proper attribution to new ideas and know accurately where to dig
>deeper.
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