All research students and their supervisors are responsible for understanding the ANU Policy: Responsible conduct of research and the supplementary Code of Research Conduct. These policies cover topics such as the appropriate management of data, supervision of students, dissemination of research findings, attribution of authorship, and conflicts of interest.

Research Integrity covers issues of academic conduct, privacy, and public perception of the University’s research integrity. All students must complete research integrity online training within three months of the commencement of your candidature. The training is mandatory for HDR students, constitutes one of your milestones, and no further milestones can be completed until this milestone is finalised. NB: This is not the same as the human ethics training on ARIES, which is attended prior to completing the human ethics research protocol application (see below). To undertake this training, click on the relevant milestone item in your ISIS.

​Research Integrity Advisors are available to assist you and to give confidential advice about what constitutes misconduct in research, the rights and responsibilities of a potential complainant, and the procedures for dealing with allegations of research misconduct within the University. See the ANU’s Research integrity training pages for more information and make sure you are familiar with the ANU Policy: Responsible conduct of research and the supplementary Code of Research Conduct.

Be aware that ANU takes academic honesty very seriously. You may be dismissed from the degree if you engage in cheating, collusion, fabrication, plagiarism, recycling, or poor academic practice. Several policies, procedures, and guidelines relate to academic honesty at ANU. You must know what is contained in these documents and how these may affect your academic results. If you are unsure about your academic practices, book an appointment to discuss things with the Crawford PhD Academic and Research Skills Advisor.

​For more information, see academic skills info on academic integrity, the ANU’s pages on Academic integrity breaches, as well as legislation under the Academic Misconduct Rule 2021.

Research students are not beyond plagiarism. A lot of plagiarism occurs inadvertently, maybe because you didn’t keep track of your notes and references properly, because you were feeling time constraints to get a paper finished, or because you were lazy in your copying and pasting. The key thing is that you avoid plagiarisim in the first place, so if you have any doubts about the appropriateness or otherwise of your scholarly practices, then book in to see the PhD Academic and Research Skills Advisor. Of course, if you’re simply being dishonest through collusion, recycling, cheating, fabrication, and such like, then you will be kicked out of the degree for misconduct.​

Further information is available on the ANU’s Academic honesty and plagiarism website.

Just a note: these are general tips for things to consider, they do not constitute legal advice. If you have any questions specific to your work, you need to contact the PARSA Legal Officer in the first instance.

Intellectual Property (IP)

• Make sure you are familiar with the ANU’s Intellectual Property Policy​.

• Some of the questions you have regarding IP may be covered off during the Human ethics review process.

• If you are doing work across multiple countries you may have to contend with variations in IP law. This issue of jurisdiction can be resolved with negotiation between the parties; PARSA can provide you with advice on IP agreements, and it is advisable to seek legal advice in most cases.

• Because of the associated complex IP issues, if you are negotiating with CSIRO seek specific advice.

• If you encounter a particularly sticky issue and the other party is being unreasonable, it can be helpful to get the university’s support in negotiations. In such instances, you should ask your supervisor to put in a formal request for advice from the Legal Office. The Legal Office cannot provide you with independent legal advice. PARSA, however, can provide you with independent legal advice on proposed agreements. Please note that you cannot approach the ANU Legal Office as a student: you must work through your supervisor.

• If you are working for another university as a research assistant, can you use any of the material you generate for them as part of your PhD? Again that depends. It’s best to clarify all these issues before you start in the role, and get advice if there’s anything about your employment contract you are concerned about.

• If you are hiring someone to do a specific aspect of your work for you for your PhD (e.g., data entry) make sure it is very clear to all parties what the role is and that they are working under your instruction and direction so that you retain the IP. Ideally this should be in a written agreement or an agreed exchange of emails. Again, read the ANU IP Policy thoroughly.

​Copyright

• The Australian Copyright Council website is a good place to start if you have questions around copyright.

• The ANU Library is also doing some specific work on copyright.

• In a field where publishing in your preferred journal is a difficult and long process you might want to know whether or not you can submit an article that is drawn directly from the PhD prior to publication of your thesis. The short answer is: it depends. Speak to your supervisor in the first instance. It is important to be clear on who owns copyright and what permissions are granted if you do submit an article to a journal.

• If you are publishing in a journal, be sure to check what rights you are signing away. Read the copyright licence! Sometimes journals will remove your freedom to upload a PDF of your work to a public site; depending on the journal and publisher you may be in breach of the agreement you signed.

• Copyright only applies if you produce something material (e.g., writing, an image, or a recording). If you present at a conference and have a lightbulb moment that wasn’t documented in your abstract/paper, then perhaps don’t share it. Go home and write something first; otherwise you can get into difficult territory if someone takes that lightbulb moment and writes it up before you do. One great idea is to forward slides, abstracts, conference papers, etc., written by you to the ANU Digital Collections repository. In that way there is a record of your work and the date and time it was created that can be verified by an independent body.

Fair Dealing

• Fair dealing exceptions allow the use of copyright materials for study and research. It’s worth becoming familiar with what this allows you to do.

​​Moral Rights

• Moral rights are the rights of the author of a work and include to be attributed as the author, not to have authorship falsely attributed, and not to have the work treated in a way harmful to the author’s reputation. Moral rights are discussed in the ANU IP Policy.

Insurance

• Read the ANU’s insurance-related policies carefully. You may or may not be covered, depending on the circumstances of your research.

• Insurance is also important if you are travelling.

• This is all really important. Really.