How to verify book contract on CV?

[mamselle]

Ahhh... my binary scenario has a hidden triplet star in retrograde.

Good point.

M.

[youllneverwalkalone]

Everyone who is recommending letting it go — would you recommend the same if you found out that in the past, since coming to your university, your colleague had plagiarized a publication?

I am not necessarily reccomending letting it go (depends on context). That said, a possible case of cv-padding is not the same offense as a verifiable case of plagiarism in my view.

[Kron3007]

Everyone who is recommending letting it go — would you recommend the same if you found out that in the past, since coming to your university, your colleague had plagiarized a publication?

I am not necessarily reccomending letting it go (depends on context). That said, a possible case of cv-padding is not the same offense as a verifiable case of plagiarism in my view.

Yes, these are two different things.  If you knew for a fact that they lied about a contract and had proof I would say it would be appropriate to bring this to someone's attention, but that is not the case here and it was someone else's job to look into this during the tenure review.  As it stands there are many plausible explanations that a book has not materialized and it is not the OPs job to look into this. 

[Ruralguy]

Yes to Kron, and in answering Hegemony, I would indeed have the same answer if the conditions were the same as what the OP put forward: If you hypothetically think someone *might* be engaging in professional misconduct of any kind, I wouldn't exactly say "let it go," unless the evidence is flimsy and you have a vague suspicion. But I don't think faculty should go rogue with their own private investigations into such matters, no doubt fueled by some sort of vendetta than true justice. If you have any kind of evidence, say, based on a CV that seems questionable, bring it to a Chair or Dean or if junior, maybe a trusted senior faculty member. But at that point, I would definitely say you should let it go. If you see something, you can say something, but don't let it consume you.

[jerseyjay]

I wish I worked at a school that gave me enough time to snoop around my colleagues' CVs and make trouble. But even if I did have the time, I do not think it would be a good idea.

For what it is worth, rather than lying about a book being in contract, my guess is that one of the following happened to Professor X:
(1) He (or she) had a contract, and could not complete the book;
(2) He (or she) had a contract, and could not complete the book on time;
(3) He (or she) had a contract, and the press required massive revisions on the m.s.;
(4) He (or she) had a contract, and the press rejected the m.s. and (s)he is now repeating the process;
(5) He (or she) had a contract, submitted the m.s., had it accepted...and now (s)he is just waiting for the book to make it into print which has not yet happened for any number or reasons.

Nos. 1-4 are reasons that many schools require an actual book for tenure. Reason 5 is why some only require a m.s. and a contract.

But the bottom line is, the book will either come out or it won't. At which time, Professor X will either update his/her CV to reflect the book's publication information, or remove the book altogether. If Professor X got tenure with the book being in contract, and the book doesn't come out, and 4 years later (s)he applies for promotion with the book still listed as in contract, well, then the appropriate people will ask/demand an explanation.

So, I would just leave it alone. Now, if Professor X claims to have a book published and no such book exists, that is probably a bigger deal.

[Hegemony]

Knowing nothing about this apart from what is in the original post, here would be my guess as to what's happened. I'd guess that the person in question has one of those advance contracts that presses sometimes give out, that means the press gets first dibs on the book when the manuscript is done.  But that doesn't mean the press is obliged to take it.  Then the author has to finish the book.  Which, as we all know, always takes longer than planned.  And so author is still working away on the book ... maybe.  Of course, I could be wrong about all of this.  If the book still hasn't come out in six or seven years, you'll certainly know something fishy is up.

[rouroboros]

My hesitation lies in that I don't have official standing to ask for verification.  I don't have any hard proof of  misdeeds, either.  This person has been less than truthful about other academic matters in the past, which leads to my suspicions.  But it's mostly circumstantial.

I think the more worrisome outcome of this conversation is that there doesn't seem to be any standard practice for verifying a contract other than a piece of paper that any undergrad can forge.  Most people seem to be inclined to just assume everyone is being honest, which is fine and good, but allows the few rogue agents to exploit the system because everyone is too busy being polite.

[mamselle]

So, one of the unclear points in your OP was whether you are actually on a committee to determine some aspect of this individual's path going forward, or not.

It sounds like you're not.

But can you clarify that?

It would help people to be able to comment more specifically.

M.

[Hegemony]

OP, I think this is not the moment to verify the book contract.  I think that moment comes only when the faculty member applies for promotion, a merit raise, or the like.  I think the ship has sailed on whether the contract was fake.  The likelihood is that, if something is wrong with it, it was not fake, but that the faculty member in question just never finished the book.  You can have a fully operational contract and still have the author fail to turn in the final draft and fail to publish.  So lack of publishing does not really suggest anything except that the author is not getting the book in shape. 

If there's a pattern of deceit, maybe one of those other instances of deception will become clearer.  I mean deception beyond putting "Work in progress" on the CV to indicate something for which one has come up with a vague title.

[Kron3007]

I think the more worrisome outcome of this conversation is that there doesn't seem to be any standard practice for verifying a contract other than a piece of paper that any undergrad can forge.  Most people seem to be inclined to just assume everyone is being honest, which is fine and good, but allows the few rogue agents to exploit the system because everyone is too busy being polite.

Welcome to the academic world, and life in general.  In STEM fields the whole publication system is built largely on trust.  It would be quite easy to fake data and create a whole career on falsified experiments.  This has come to light with many high profile papers in high impact journals from very respected labs being caught falsifying results.   

The real problem in my mind is that our whole "publish or perish" mentality only encourages this type of activity.  When you require people to have X number of publications, or a book contract in hand,  to get tenure and/or promotion, devious people will easily be able to fake it.