From and to a very grey area

EDITORIAL

EMBO reports (2011) 12, 479, Published online: 1 June 2011

Howy Jacobs 

The scandal surrounding the former German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor von und zu Guttenberg, who resigned after facing accusations of plagiarism in parts of his doctoral thesis, raises troubling issues for all of us in academia. Guttenberg was an easy target: first, because he is a well-known politician; second, because his plagiarism was blatant, even though questions remain as to whether there was actual intention to mislead. The successful campaign to remove him from office was heralded as a remarkable victory for academics, who demanded that he acknowledge his mistakes and stand down. Had he not done so, his critics argued, the reputation of the German academic system could have been gravely damaged.

His error was not simply an academic one, like writing the wrong answer in an examination. Serious academic misconduct has wider implications, calling into question whether a person can be trusted with any task, let alone the conduct of public affairs. Politicians who obtained an academic degree by deception should be treated no differently from those found to have fiddled their parliamentary expenses or employed an illegal alien as a housemaid.

Despite Guttenberg's resignation, the case reveals serious flaws in the academic practices not just of Germany, but of all countries. His immediate supervisor, as well as the faculty which conferred his now-withdrawn degree, seem guilty of a dereliction of duty. At the very least, one might have expected that some kind of formal checking procedure would exist, even if it was not followed. But, to my knowledge, such screening is not performed systematically, even though it is common practice for vetting undergraduate work. Disparities between disciplines are also a thorny issue. According to some commentators, Guttenberg's fault was simply to have omitted quotation marks and citations, since quoting at length from other works is accepted practice in much of the humanities and social sciences.

In molecular biology, where most of the research literature is freely available online, at least for those active in research, the opportunities for such misconduct might seem legion. Yet direct plagiarism is easy to detect using simple text-matching tools, now commonly employed by journal editors and publishers, including ourselves. Where doctoral theses are structured around peer-reviewed articles (co-) authored by the candidate, such safeguards exclude direct plagiarism, although the surrounding thesis, which can vary in size from a few pages to a voluminous work in its own right, still needs to be carefully scrutinized. There is an obvious danger that a lazy student will simply copy and paste chunks of text that have appeared in previous doctoral theses rather than peruse, analyse and crystallize the relevant background literature for himself. In countries where doctoral theses can contain mainly unpublished data and interpretation thereof, comprehensive vetting is required.

Although most faculties have nominal rules regarding plagiarism, implementation is patchy, and regulations have not kept pace with the burgeoning of electronic literature, nor changes in practice. Even journal publishers do not apply uniform standards. I recently heard a case of an editor of a prestigious journal whose attention was drawn to the fact that the introduction section of a paper published in the journal matched almost word for word a passage from a recently published review article. Her response was, ‘so what?’. She felt that the substance of the two papers being different negated this supposedly minor fault.

Self-plagiarism is a particularly grey area, even though most would consider it unacceptable in a doctoral thesis. A number of years ago, I was reading the draft of a PhD thesis from one of my own students, whose written English was poor. Virtually the entire text appeared to have been processed from the original Hungarian, using an early version of the Google translator. But suddenly, when I reached the second paragraph of the Discussion, I encountered a long passage written in grammatically impeccable, if slightly clunky English prose. Further analysis quickly confirmed my initial suspicion: I myself was the authors of this haploblock of text. At my insistence, she re-wrote the entire Discussion, and finally understood that the object of the exercise was not to produce a ‘perfect’ thesis, but to produce her own thesis. In the end, it was well appreciated by her examiners.

Not all such cases are so clear-cut. Paraphrasing of someone else's – or one's own – ‘perfect’ text is generally considered to be plagiarism just as serious as copy-pasting: arguably more so, since it reveals a blatant attempt to deceive. But it can hardly be avoided in some portions of a scientific dissertation: for example, there are only so many ways of stating that DNA was recovered by precipitation with two volumes of ethanol, followed by centrifugation.

Where does all this leave us? I believe we need to devise a universally agreed code of practice, accompanied by clear vetting procedures that specify the responsibility of the supervisor, the department and faculty in the process. Of course, we have not reached a globally accepted definition of what actually constitutes plagiarism, nor even what is a PhD. But, as in many areas of academic life, there is a serious danger that if we don't do it ourselves, some ghastly state bureaucracy will end up forcing us to do it ‘their’ way.

To protect the identity and reputation of third parties, some ‘facts’ in the above account have been deliberately falsified.

Copy and paste - NATURE

Editorial
Nature 473, Pages:419–420 , Date published:(26 May 2011)

A slow university investigation into serious accusations of misconduct benefits no one.

As retractions go, it may not look like a big deal. Earlier this month, a statistics journal decided to pull a little-cited 2008 paper on the social networks of author–co-author relationships after it emerged that sections were plagiarized from textbooks and Wikipedia. The fact that this caused a wave of glee to ripple through the climate-change blogosphere takes some explaining.

Two of the paper's authors, Yasmin Said and Edward Wegman, both of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, are also authors of an infamous 2006 report to Congress, co-written with statistician David Scott of Rice University in Houston, Texas. That report took aim at climatologist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, suggesting that he was working in an isolated social network separated from “mainstream statisticians”, and that he had such close ties with the rest of the field that truly independent peer review of his work was not possible. This report came to be known as the Wegman report, and has been frequently cited by climate-change sceptics.

This social-network analysis of Mann and his co-authors — with Mann's name removed — was cut down to an academic paper and published two years later in the journal Computational Statistics & Data Analysis. It is this paper that the journal has decided to retract. So it seems likely that the plagiarism in the 2008 paper is also present in the 2006 Congress report. Still not look like a big deal?

That doubts about the 2006 report have resulted in concrete action is mainly down to the sterling work of an anonymous climate blogger called Deep Climate. His website first reported plagiarism in a different section of the congressional report in December 2009. One of those whose work was plagiarized is Raymond Bradley, director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Ironically, Bradley was one of the co-authors of the climate reconstructions criticized by the Wegman report. Bradley, alerted by Deep Climate, complained to George Mason University on 5 March last year.

Wegman has blamed a graduate student for the plagiarism. Daniel Walsch, spokesperson for George Mason University, says that an internal review of the matter began in the autumn. He cannot estimate when that review will be complete, and, until it is, he says, the university regards it as a “personnel matter” and will not comment further. He adds that the review is still in the “inquiry” phase to ascertain whether a full investigation should be held. “Whether it is fast or slow is not as important as it being thorough and fair,” says Walsch.

The fact that 14 months have passed since Bradley's complaint without it being resolved is disheartening but not unusual. An examination of George Mason University's misconduct policies suggests that investigations should be resolved within a year of the initial complaint, including time for an appeal by the faculty member in question. According to the university's own timeline, the initial inquiry should have been complete within 12 weeks of the initial complaint — in May 2010. But there are loopholes galore for extensions, and, like many universities, George Mason seems content to drag its feet.

Long misconduct investigations do not serve anyone, except perhaps university public-relations departments that might hope everyone will have forgotten about a case by the time it wraps up. But in cases such as Wegman's, in which the work in question has been cited in policy debates, there is good reason for haste. Policy informed by rotten research is likely to have its own soft spots. Those who have been wronged deserve resolution of the matter. And one can hardly suppose that those who have been wrongfully accused enjoy living under a cloud for months.

So, what incentives do universities have to pick up the pace? Agencies such as the US Office of Research Integrity and ethics offices at funding bodies should take universities to task for slow investigations and demand adherence to the schedules listed in university policies. However, the agencies themselves haven't exactly been models of swift justice. The most recent annual report from the Office of Research Integrity — for 2008 — reported that the cases closed in that year spent a mean of 14.1 months at the agency. Perhaps it should fall to accreditation agencies to push for speedy investigations. Tom Benberg, vice-president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools — the agency that accredits George Mason University — says that his agency might investigate if the university repeatedly ignored its own policies on the timing of misconduct inquiries. To get the ball rolling, he says, someone would have to file a well-documented complaint.

Even if funding and accreditation agencies fail to apply pressure, universities should take the initiative to move investigations along as speedily as possible while allowing time for due process. Once an investigation is complete, the institution should be as transparent as it can about what happened. Especially when public funds are involved, or at public universities, the taxpayer has a right to know what happened when papers are retracted — even if the faculty member in question is eventually exonerated. This tidies the scientific record, clears the air and kicks the legs out from under any conspiracy theories. Over to you, George Mason University.

Is Academic Corruption on the Rise? - INSIDE HIGHER ED

Ivan Pacheco 

In Germany Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the former Minister of Defense, and Silvana Koch-Mehrin, a Vice-President of the European Parliament, resigned from their positions after plagiarism was discovered in each person’s doctoral dissertation. In the UK, the London School of Economics had to address alleged plagiarism in the PhD thesis of Saif el-Islam Gaddafi, the famous son of Muhamar Gadafi. In Pakistan, over a hundred and forty lawmakers were found guilty of holding fake degrees, and in the UK, a university registrar was condemned to a suspended jail sentence after he was discovered trading fake degrees for spanking sessions.

More still. In 2009, the academic community and the public were shaken by the (so called) “climategate. ” The illegal interception of email correspondence between US and the UK researchers suggested the fabrication and manipulation of data in order to support the theory of human-instigated global warming. Yet after examination in each country no wrongdoing was proven. On May 2011, a report commissioned by a group of legislators in the US, known for their denial of climate change theory, was found (in large part) to be plagiarized underscoring the vulnerability of researchers and encouraging doubts about the reliability of anyone’s data.

Many believe that plagiarism and other forms of academic corruption are becoming more pervasive and the examples presented above might suggest that it is true. Before panicking, it is important to consider that the academic world is expanding, hence opportunities for academic corruption as well. The number of undergraduate and graduate students has been growing in almost every country around the world and those who enter the system stay for a longer time. (Just consider how much time it takes to get a Ph.D.) The personal investment is greater, as is the competition. In addition, there are more countries trying to move into the “big leagues of academia,” which adds even more pressure to the whole system.

Higher education and academic research have more impact on society today. Perhaps it is a consequence of being immersed in the modern knowledge economy. Most well-paid professional positions require a higher education credential (often a masters or a doctoral degree). Research has the potential to reshape the lives of millions of people, also the potential to return wealth to the researcher and prestige (and improved position in rankings) to the institution that hosts him or her. Additionally, research is often used to justify public policy. The stakes have become much higher.

A question that is not asked very often is what motivates people to plagiarize and why others resist it. One possible answer is that academic corruption is both a consequence and a symptom of the growing importance of higher education in the world. Because education, research, and publication are connected to valuable goods of society, such as money and prestige, it should not be surprising that some people decide to take shortcuts to get academic credentials that will provide access to those rewards.

Academic corruption is certainly more visible now than, lets say, decades ago, and academic knowledge exercises an increasingly important influence in most societies. The mass media and the social networking tools have contributed to greater awareness of corruption.

Academic corruption’s surreptitious nature makes it almost impossible to track the extent of the problem, not to mention benchmark today’s corruption against fraud committed a century ago in order to know if it is indeed growing and to what extent. It is easier to measure the perception of corruption, something that the organization Transparency International recognized a couple decades ago. Still, many people are convinced that actual corruption is on the rise. Some claim that the Internet has make plagiarism easier because today it just takes a few keystrokes to copy and paste a few pages or a complete dissertation. Certainly, technology makes academic corruption easier to commit, but it also makes it easier to get caught.

There is a silent war against academic corruption, and what we see in the media is just the tip of the iceberg. The targets include lazy students cheating on term papers; wannabe doctors cheating on exams, research and publications; and ghostwriters providing their services to a wide clientele. There are a growing number of computer programs to identify these abuses but with limited impact. And these programs generally only detect the repetition of words sequences.

As a warning to those who don’t want to bother attending a university to earn their degree but prefer buying their diploma and transcripts, there is a small but efficient number of people and agencies identifying diploma mills and disseminating information. Some countries and institutions now have high-tech test rooms to anticipate and neutralize high-tech and low-tech cheating strategies on admissions exams. Employers are outsourcing the screening of employee credentials.

Is academic corruption truly on the rise? Is it equivalent to the war on drug traffic, a war no one can ever win? What do you think?

Guest blogger, Ivan Pacheco, has over ten years of higher education experience including his roles as Director of Quality Assurance for the Colombian Ministry of Education, acting Vice Minister of Higher Education, and board member for more than ten Colombian public universities. He is currently writing his doctoral thesis at the Center for International Higher Education where he posts news of academic fraud to the Higher Education Corruption Monitor on the Center's website: www.bc.edu/cihe.