Policing international scientific misconduct

Maxine Clarke

In a Commentary in this week’s Nature (452, 686-687; 2008), Christine Boesz and Nigel Lloyd of the OECD propose a practical framework for examining misconduct allegations in multinational scientific teams: it is imperative, they argue, for researchers in cross-boarder collaborations to be held accountable for the integrity of their work. In the same issue of the journal, a related Editorial (Nature 452, 665; 2008) and News Feature (Nature 452, 682-684; 2008) also explore collaborations: what makes them fail and how they can work better.

Do you know of international misconduct-related documents that could inform the templates the OECD hopes to produce? Have you encountered relevant situations or challenges while conducting research with scientists from other countries? How were these situations resolved? We invite you to provide your views and experiences at the Nature Network News and Opinion forum.

Preventing plagiarism - China Daily

We should establish an effective checking system to prevent plagiarism of academic papers, says an article in People's Daily. The following is an excerpt:

The Internet offers great help for academic research but it is also an easy way to plagiarize someone's work.

A company that runs a database for academic research said it would be easy for professors to find out whether their students have been cheating if they use its database. But it hoped professors would not use the database for that purpose as it would affect sales.

It is surprising that a company offering help to academic institutes can allow and even encourage students to cheat.

These types of companies should be condemned. But in fact they are not alone. Due to a lack of strict rules, the academic field has now become chaotic.

The average quality of our academic papers is low. Cases of plagiarism have cropped up repeatedly.

As an overseas research shows, 1 to 5 percent of papers that have already been published involve plagiarism and cheating in the world; In Asian countries, the rate is higher. We should be on the alert.

The basic way to build and maintain academic excellence is to implement a strict checking system.

In fact, the monitoring needs to be done before people doing research start working on their thesis, and when their completed papers are reviewed by their professors.

With an effective research checking system in place, those who cheat should be punished

Plagiarist physicists at Punjab University fired

The Daily Times: Physicists from CERN and the Abdul Salam International Centre for Physics have lauded a decision by Punjab University Chancellor Khalid Maqbool to fire five plagiarists at the university. In February, on the recommendations of an inquiry committee, the governor ‘forcibly’ retired on charges of plagiarism PU Centre for High Energy Physics director Fazle Aleem along with Rashid Ahmad, Sohail Afzal Tahir, M Aslam Saeed and Maqsood Ahmad. The issue had delayed approval of a Rs 110 million grant to the university until the matter was satisfactorily resolved. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) released the funds on shortly after the inquiry panel announced their decision. COMMENTS