professors' dismissals recommended due to negligence of student plagiarism

[wisteria]

<p>From today’s Chronicle of Higher Ed</p>

<p>

Review Confirms Plagiarism by Ohio U. Graduate Students and Recommends Professors’ Dismissals</p>

<p>An investigating committee at Ohio University has called for the dismissal of the chairman of the department of mechanical engineering and another unidentified faculty member at the Russ College of Engineering and Technology after finding evidence of “rampant and flagrant plagiarism” by graduate students in the department that took place over more than 20 years.

</p>

<p>An internal review panel examined 55 theses supervised by seven faculty and found 37 with clearcut plagiarism negligently overlooked by faculty.</p>

<p>In one especially egregious case, two different students submitted master theses with identical titles and identical first pages–and both had been supervised and signed off on by the same faculty member! </p>

<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/06/2006060201n.htm[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/06/2006060201n.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The press release from the university provost does not mince words–referring to “rampant and flagrant plagiarism in the mechanical engineering department over the past 20 years.”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ohio.edu/outlook/media/BMIR.cfm[/url]”>http://www.ohio.edu/outlook/media/BMIR.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In one case, “the student copied 14 pages verbatim, including typographic errors.” The article also mentions a student who plagiarized 50 pages of his thesis.</p>

<p>Student penalties will include revoking degrees, noting the plagiarism on transcripts, and students may have to return to defend new theses–with the mechanical engineering department bearing the cost of re-enrolling the students for the quarter in which they return to do this.</p>

<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/04/2006040301n.htm[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/04/2006040301n.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The discovery process was interesting–a recent grad student submitted a draft of his thesis which was not approved by his supervisor, so he went to the university library to read examples of theses that had previously passed muster with his supervisor in order to get an idea of what he needed to do to produce an acceptable thesis of his own. </p>

<p>He brought his concerns to the dean of the school, who apparently dismissed them at first (according to the Chronicle of Higher Ed.) So the student did further research, ultimately spending 10 hours a week for four months to build a case for a rigorous investigation, which the school ultimately undertook. (They convened a panel including two outside faculty members from other institutions as well as four internal faculty who had not been accused.)</p>

<p>According to the Chronicle, the whistle-blower “believes professors there have fostered a culture of cheating.”</p>

<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/02/2006022804n.htm[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/02/2006022804n.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The almost accidental nature of the discovery process suggests to me that this may be a tip-of-the-iceberg phenomenon–I have to wonder if there may be quite a few other plagiarized theses and dissertations that have slipped by negligent faculty elsewhere.</p>

[wisteria]

<p>Here’s a publicly accessible article from last Nov describing in greater detail the student-whistle-blowers’s arduous efforts to get university administrators to pay attention to his discoveries.</p>

<p><a href=“http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/11/01/plagiarism[/url]”>http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/11/01/plagiarism&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[marite]

<p>Wow!</p>

<p>When I was in college, I was doing research for a paper and went to the library in search of books. I took out two books shelved side by side, both published decades earlir. I opened one, then the other. One was a completely plagiarized copy of the other. The author had gone on to be a university president. But I’ve never read about anything as egregious as this.</p>

[wisteria]

<p>Another publicly accessible article with recent followup:</p>

<p><a href=“http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/01/plagiarism[/url]”>http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/01/plagiarism&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[wbow]

<p>this past semester, i found that many students were not doing their own original work in an intro to computers course. i warned them repeatedly, then finally had enough and submitted several to judicial affairs. judicial affairs upheld my decision, but during the process, it was a nightmare. i have made many changes to the course so that this won’t be a big issue ever again, but the students that want to make this ugly really do a good job of it. then when all is said and done, the same students came to me and admitted they were cheating, they just didn’t figure they would get caught!</p>