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    If it is that easy to do, seems like you could carve out a little time to just do it. More likely, there will be work to be done by the undergraduate and they will know more than you by the end. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Simple ideas often are not simple. If it is so trivial why do you even want first authorship?
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Oct 16, 2023 at 12:41
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    I wonder why you are asking whether this is ethical. It possibly sounds like you know it isn't, but want someone to reassure you that it's OK.
    – user438383
    Commented Oct 16, 2023 at 12:45
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    +1 for thinking about things like this before doing the work. Better than leaving this discussion to later. However, it would good to be open to the possibility that your undergrad (or your supervisor!) might add so much value that they might want to renegotiate this. Plus: are you certain that "first authorship" is a thing in your field? Enough fields always order authors alphabetically.
    – Stephan Kolassa
    Commented Oct 16, 2023 at 13:33
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    You can't really "own" an idea. If you have expressed an idea as a piece of (creative) work, (e.g. a work of art of a piece of code), you that specific expression falls under copyright (automatically), and you can potentially licence it to others. On the other hand, a new invention (defined as a new process, idea, composition of matter) can be patented, but you need to take steps to get through the patenting process. In both cases, the idea (the "eureka" moment where the little light bulb went off and it just "clicked") is not protected in any way -- ideas themselves are cheap.
    – penelope
    Commented Oct 16, 2023 at 14:19
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    Another thing you say is "an undergrad student could get their BSc dissertation from it". But you say the implementation is already done, you've already picked the datasets and completed the experimental design. That doesn't sound like a lot of intellectual work. In fact, the only part of intellectual work you seem to want to pass on to this student is writing -- and that's pretty hard if they don't need to implement or engage with your method, just run some experiments that have been prepared for them. Why do you think this will be enough for a BSc dissertation? Or interesting to the student?
    – penelope
    Commented Oct 16, 2023 at 14:23