This post provides a round-up of content that appeared online in ELT and Higher Education web spaces, in the second week of April 2014. The thematic focus of this collection is on academic integrity, and the stories selected highlight various aspects of this.
The first story invites reflection on whether “generational differences” can be a valid excuse for plagiarism; the second one looks into the criteria of awarding honorary doctorates; and the third one reports on efforts to fight malpractice by regulating the provision for ethics education.
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Zygmunt Bauman plagiarising
Last week, I expressed my incredulity that a scientist such as Jane Goodall, whose work I admire greatly, reportedly engaged in plagiarism. I think that there is a natural tendency to write more causally as one becomes established, and I thought that her acknowledgement of her mistakes was a valuable teaching moment for us all.
All, maybe, except the eminent Zygmunt Bauman, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Leeds, author of nearly 30 books since 2000. The good professor, it appears, has been called out for systematic plagiarism by Peter Walsh, a courageous doctoral student in Cambridge. Here’s Bauman’s response, as reported in Times Higher Education:
“[W]hile admiring the pedantry of the authors of the Harvard Guide to Using Sources, and acknowledging their gallant defence of the private ownership of knowledge, I failed in those 60-odd years to spot the influence of the obedience to technical procedural rules of quotations on the quality (reliability, effectiveness and above all social importance) of scholarship: the two issues that Mr Walsh obviously confuses,” he said. “As his co-worker in the service of knowledge, I can only pity him.”
Update: Despite Bauman’s seemingly unphased response, it seems that the this was not the end of the story: In August 2015, the Independent reported that the eminent sociologist had “‘inappropriately reproduced’ more than 90,000 words in 29 books published between 1987 and 2014”, and even plagiarised Wikipedia.
Honorary doctorate bestowed to plagiarising minister of education
While on the topic of research malpractice, here’s a story about a German politician, who had her doctoral thesis retracted but will get to be a doctor nonetheless.
Annette Schavan, a former education minister in the Federal Republic of Germany, received a doctoral degree in educational science at the University of Düsseldorf in 1980. In 2013, following discovery of extensive plagiarism in her thesis, the university revoked her degree. She was also stripped of at least one honorary doctorate (from the University of Cairo), and an honorary professorship at the Free University of Berlin.
Yesterday, however, it was announced that “the University of Lübeck, which Schavan helped rescue from recent financial woes, is bestowing on her an honorary doctorate”. Here’s an older comment about Schavan, by Ana Dinescu, which seems pertinent:
The titles – one or two or even more Ph.D.s and other honorary titles – are not a guarantee for moral accountability. There should be, and there are, high societal expectations for the holders of those titles. But I am not quite sure to what extent ethics are part of the compulsory curricula for Ph.D. candidates. Maybe the rush and pressure to become a doctor – for family, social, and even for financial reasons – leads one to ignore the human element of the title. Maybe it is lacking humility that the title is not the end of the journey, but the beginning of a new stage, when the new academic contributes with humility to the changing of his small academic domain.
More to read: “Dr” Schavan is, of course, not the only German politician to lose a doctorate on account of plagiarism. Readers will certainly recall similar events involving MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, Defence Minister zu Guttenberg, and others.
Meanwhile in Japan…
Calls to educate scientists more thoroughly on issues of research integrity seems to have made an impact in Japan, where the Ministry of Education is taking action in the wake of several embarrassing stories of academic misconduct. Part of the initiative will involve making ethics training compulsory for all faculty and graduate students. According to Japan News (Update: link no longer active):
Prof. Mari Oshima of the University of Tokyo, who participated in the education ministry review of guidelines said, “It’s common in Japan for each lab to teach students experimental methods and how to write academic papers. Because of this, there have been discrepancies between researchers over awareness on the issue.” Oshima, a researcher of biomicrofluidics, said, “Awareness of norms should be nurtured in the minds of students, so that creative research activities are not hampered by an excessive emphasis on disciplinary actions.”
More to read: At the same time, Waseda University is running a retrospective inquiry into all their doctoral theses in science to ensure that they are plagiarism free (Update: link no longer active).
Greece-based readers will have noticed that in writing this post, I have avoided the elephant in the room, namely the way some Greek universities award doctorates. The most recent scandal involves Panteion University, and the backlash caused when the university revoked the PhD of a prominent politician’s aide. I felt that this is so “rich” a story that I could not do it justice in the space of a couple of paragraphs, but I hope to engage with it in more detail when time permits.
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