Plagiarism scandal hits Turkish academia - Hürriyet Daily News

Some 34 percent of academic theses in Turkey have high plagiarism rates, according to a report by the Education Policy Research and Application Center (BEPAM) of Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University. 

In its study on the “quality of academic writing,” BEPAM examined 600 theses in total, including 470 master’s theses and 130 doctoral theses written between 2007 and 2016, daily Cumhuriyet reported.  

Some 477 of these theses were written in public universities, 123 were in private universities, 89 were written in English and 511 were written in Turkish. The researchers used the “Turnitin” plagiarism program and similarity index to examine the theses selected. 

The study revealed “heavy plagiarism” in 34 percent of the theses. The rate was 46 percent in private universities and 31 percent in public universities. 

Meanwhile, in a similarity index that indicates whether scientific studies are “original,” Turkey’s average was found to be 28.5 percent, compared to a world average of 15 percent. This similarity index rate was 24 percent in English theses and 29 percent in Turkish ones. It was 28 percent in public universities and 31 percent in private universities, showing that theses written in public universities are in a slightly better condition than those written in private universities. 

The initial aim of the BEPAM study was not to examine plagiarism rates, but the high number of plagiarized theses led researchers to look more closely. 

The number of plagiarized studies in public universities was 150 (31 percent) and 57 (46 percent) in private universities. This number was 173 (36 percent) in master’s theses and 34 (26 percent) in doctoral theses. It was 25 (28 percent) in English theses and 182 (35 percent) in Turkish ones. 

Institutions such as Boğaziçi University, the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) and Bilkent University provide education in English, and seem to be in a relatively better condition in terms of plagiarism and similarity. 

‘Serious ethical issue’ 

Researcher Dr. Ziya Toprak, who conducted the study, said the results showed that many Turkish students “do not know how to write theses,” while academics do not know how to teach thesis writing. 

Toprak noted that there are no Academic Writing Centers at any university in Turkey that see writing as a primary instrument of knowledge production.

“Unfortunately there are serious ethical issues in our country. Certainly, there are many who unknowingly plagiarize. The findings of the research focus mainly on the theses that have high levels of plagiarism, so clearly plagiarism is at serious levels. We are not talking about a few lines or a paragraph. It was done deliberately, indicating a serious ethical issue,” he said.

NATIONAL SCIENCE ETHICS COMMITTE MUST BE FOUNDED!

Our precious Press, 

According to the information stated in the press recently, Higher Education Council (Yüksek Öğretim Kurulu (YÖK)) abdicates its duty to investigate plagiarism and scientific fraud (*). Either it abdicates or continues to share its authorization with the universities as they’ve done so far, it doesn’t matter, indeed. However, it has been proven with the experiences so far that Higher Education Council tends to cover up its own academicians’ scientific corruption with the ‘don’t let it go out of this room’ mentality.

On the other hand, Higher Education Council encourages the attempts of plagiarism by ignoring them so far (**) (***).

Although the situation is desperate in terms of both HEC and universities, that Higher Education Council fades from the scene passing the buck to the universities and trying to make a law meaning ‘don’t mix me with this work’ threatens that the future of science ethics will be even worse.

Instead of suggesting an objective (x independent) scientific investigation and inspection method to prevent scientific theft, Higher Education Council tries to say ‘may each university cover up its plagiarism on his own’ by declaring that they will abdicate its duty to investigate this.

Whether Higher Education Council abdicates investigating scientific fraud or it continues to take responsibility with the universities, scientific malpractice will continue to be ignored and therefore increase rapidly unless an objective National Science Ethics Council (NSEC) is founded.

SOLUTION

Provided that it will protect and supervise of science ethics in the basis of universal science ethics norms, an independent National Science Ethics Council should be founded which will serve as an academic honour council and will work with special methods apart from the scope of authority of universities and Higher Education Institute which focuses on ignoring. Higher Education Council should keep “plagiarism and scientific fraud crimes” separate (x and independent of the investigation of these crimes), while transferring its authorization about discipline regulations, with a law which they are trying to make, to the universities and Higher Education Council should transfer investigating these crimes to the independent ‘NATIONAL SCIENCE ETHICS COMMITTE’ which will be founded, not to the universities.

Universities, other research institutes and Higher Education Council should only be responsible for implementing the decisions taken by this new council NSEC. It should be arranged as a legal arrangement about how this kind of new council will occur, working procedures, what the actions and sanctions, which are against the scientific ethics, are and more importantly, what kind of responsibilities Higher Education Council and the directors of universities will have, while performing this new council's decisions with a consensus of universities, academics’ organizations and Science Academy. Scientific fraud can only be prevented with such an independent formation in earnest.

Emeritus Prof. Dr. Kayhan KANTARLI 
All Academics Association (TÜMÖD) / Representative of Izmir

References:

(*)http://www.milliyet.com.tr/yok-yetkilerini-kismen-devrediyor-gundem-2150583/, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yok-universiteler-icin-yeni-disiplin-yasasi-taslagi-hazirladi-40016441

(**) as it can be seen in the archive section of the most reliable portal on plagiarism
(https://plagiarism-turkish.blogspot.com.tr) of our country, it has been published 402 essays and news about scientific fraud and plagiarism in the last decade and almost all of them are being criticized and condemned due to the irresponsibility of Higher Education Council and the universities which focuses on cover up. Only in 2007, there had been 82 news and articles regarding to plagiarism which academics got involved in and most of their names were stated clearly. This internet portal shows that plagiarism is still very common in the universities. There are numerous people who has the title as professor, associate professor, assistant professor, research assistant involved in these lots of plagiarism cases and there have not been any obstacles for those to be appointed to the academic and administrative services.

(***) Also see
http://plagiarism-in-turkey.blogspot.com.tr
https://plagiarismkarlik.wordpress.com
https://intihalkarlik.wordpress.com

PETITION