Outline:
Why is the Peer Review process so important and how does it work in practice? How should we act as scientists in the current working environment? How should we behave and conduct our scientific work and what ethical guidelines should we follow?

These topics will be addressed by three invited speakers in this short-course. Each speaker will give a lead presentation followed by an open discussion and response section on the general concepts of ethical working and writing in Geosciences. Questions to three main topics can be sent directly to the conveners before the short course, or asked in the open discussion and response session.


Main Topics:

1. Scientific Publishing (Joshua Schimel): How does the Peer Review process enhance research quality? What is the task of an editor, a reviewer, an author during this process? Who should be on a paper and where? What brings people to manipulate their research or its perception? How do indexes (impact factor, H-Index etc.) work and are they the best (or only) way to evaluate our work? How should we look at our scientific work and why is also “failure” so important?

2. Science Integrity (Hermann Jungkunst): What are the most important principles of Science Integrity? How do people manipulate their work and their perception? Where is the borderline between networking and citation malpractices? How should we cite in our papers to make the literature on a certain topic more representative? How do we report scientific misconduct in and outside our own groups, before and after publishing? When working in development countries or with scientists from development countries: What are guidelines to not abuse people just for labor, but to contribute to capacity building in development countries?

3. Work Ethics (Erika Marin-Spiotta): How should I treat my colleagues in a team? How should I treat people that are lower on the hierarchy level? How should I be treated by my superior? What are guidelines for leadership and team management? How should I consider differences in age, gender, culture, religion, ethnic origin and social class of my colleagues in my working environment? What can I do against “bullying” and sexual harassment at work?

Details to invitees:

Joshua Schimel
Distinguished Professor
Fellow, Ecological Society of America
Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow
Thompson-Reuters Highly Cited Researcher
Chief Editor, Soil Biology & Biochemistry
Founding EiC Synthesis & Emerging Ideas section for Biogeochemistry
Former Chair, Publications Committee, Ecological Society of America
Author of "Writing Science: How to write papers that get cited and proposals that get funded."

Hermann Jungkunst
Full Professor
University of Koblenz - Landau
Editor - in - chief JPNSS
Chairman Commission IV Soil Fertility and Plant Nutrition of the German Soil Science Society
Max-Planck Alumni

Erika Marin-Spiotta
Associate Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ethics Task Force Member American Geophysical Union
Leadership Board Member Earth Science Women's Network