Question 9.
This case raises issues about collaborating with others in a sense that a mentor is at a disadvantage to a mentee if the relationship is long distance. Although this case was mainly the fault of Michael LaCour, blame is to be placed on the mentor as well due to the lack of supervision. A supervisor may be caught up in working on other assignments due to the inability to have constant oversight of his or her subordinate. Another issue that may occur due to this distance is that the mentee may have an excessive feeling of freedom. One can easily take that for granted. As seen with LaCour, freedom to one who is desparate for results can be concluded to be a mistake if he or she does not have good intentions with the research. Without constant supervision, it seems relatively easy to be able to fabricate articles, supporting research data, or conning peers with an ulterior motive.
Question 11.
There are a couple lessons that can be learned from this case in particular. One takeaway from this situation is that each person participating in a raffle should be cognizant and ask for details in regards to where there money is going. If not, a participant’s money can be used for immoral purposes. We see this with each of the participant’s that believed they were entering a drawing for Apple products. Another lesson that can be learned is that a mentor should constantly check in on the works of his or her mentee. This may seem obvious, but clearly students are smarter than they are given credit for. A third lesson is that one’s future can be severely tarnished due to immoral actions. We have seen LaCour lose a job position due to him being desperate for results when he could have done things the correct and respectable way.