Is Plagiarism a Moral Problem?

Published on 2010/09/01 in Plagiarism, Plagiarism Discussion, Plagiarism News, book publisher and student plagiarism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Stanley Fish of the New York Times wrote an interesting article earlier this month titled “Plagiarism is Not a Big Moral Deal.” Fish argues that the rules of plagiarism are not something people inherently learn from a very early age.  Stealing a loaf of bread, for example, would universally be considered bad across most cultures.  But stealing somebody else’s words?  Fish doesn’t believe this act has the same moral stigma.

Fish compares plagiarism to golf, in that both have very particular rules that would be hard to determine without learning the playing field first: “The rule that you not use words that were first uttered or written by another without due attribution is less like the rule against stealing, which is at least culturally universal, than it is like the rules of golf…. Plagiarism is like that; it’s an insider’s obsession.  If you’re a professional journalist, or an academic historian, or a philosopher, or a social scientist or a scientist, the game  you play for a living is underwritten by the assumed value of originality and failure properly to credit the work of others is a big and obvious no-no.”

Fish isn’t saying that plagiarism is OK or condoning it in any sense.  In fact, he recounts his own story of plagiarism: a section of one of his books was ripped off, nearly word for word, by another academic.  Fish is stating that plagiarism doesn’t necessarily hold ground in a moral or philosophical sense; but instead plays more of a utilitarian role within specific professional sectors.

In many industries, producing content is a business model. Most publishers produce books, journals, magazines and websites as their means of attracting readership, subscriptions and revenue.  Plagiarism is a direct attack on this business model. If the integrity of a publisher’s content is not protected, it dramatically lessens the value of the service they are providing their customers.

Simply stated, the originality of an author’s content is not the point of a philosophical or moral debate but rather the centerpiece of a business model.  The ability to produce unique content without having it plagiarized is like securing a software or biotechnology patent.  A patent is an inventor’s method of protecting their intellectual property and livelihood.  If a biotechnology firm makes a discovery, it is in their interest to protect their rights to that invention.  In the same vain, an author or publisher needs to protect their content from getting plagiarized.

In academia, the originality of content, whether produced by students or educators, is central to the business of education.  If student plagiarism were to go unchecked it would drastically diminish the value of a degree.  How much would a PhD be worth if the majority of students plagiarized their dissertations?

The rules of plagiarism are certainly not ‘innate’ and need to be learned over time.  This fact, that plagiarism is not entirely common sense,  reinforces the necessity to provide education on plagiarism.  From the time a student enters grade school to their entry into the workforce, plagiarism will be a ‘game’ for which they need to learn the rules.

Citations:

Fish, Stanley. “Plagiarism Is Not a Big Moral Deal“ The New York Times 9 August 2010. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/plagiarism-is-not-a-big-moral-deal/

The Evolving Peer Review Process

Published on 2010/08/25 in Plagiarism, Plagiarism News, Science Publishers and peer review. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

In the world of scholarly journals, the peer review process has been a longstanding bastion of academic sanctity.  Peer review involves a publication selecting several anonymous experts to review incoming journal submissions.  For decades, these experts have served as the gatekeepers to academic publishing, using their knowledge in a specific field to determine whether a submitted essay is worthy of publication.

Over the last few years, a small selection of scholars have been pushing for a democratized internet evolution of the age old review process.   The New York Times recently published an article that analyzes this potential peer review transformation.

On one side, proponents of ‘crowd sourcing’ the peer review process cite the ability to move faster and gain insight from a wide spectrum of reviewers.  One venerable literary publication,  the Shakespeare Quarterly, recently decided to embark on an experiment using the ‘digital scholarly network’ site MediaCommons: “In the end 41 people made more than 350 comments, many of which elicited responses from the authors. The revised essays were then reviewed by the quarterly’s editors, who made the final decision to include them in the printed journal, due out Sept. 17.”

The opposing view argues that a democratized forum would invite an abundance of amateur input, which was the reason an expert peer review process was first established.   Although the Shakespeare Quarterly experiment proved successful, there is no assurance that a more wide-spread implementation of web-based review would work.  The model the Shakespeare Quarterly applied was a hybrid; although comments were elicited from a large pool of online reviews, the revised essays were still examined by professional editors before publication.

As more publications adopt the web-based review method, some could become bold enough to further streamline the system by cutting out or minimizing the role of an editor.  Although this would continue to speed up the publication process, it does raise questions regarding whether misconduct (like plagiarism) may have an increased chance of going unchecked. Most online commentators would be unlikely to check a submitted work for potential plagiarism.  The nature of online interaction is often defined by multi-tasking; users briskly jump from one forum, blog, website, or article to another.  This leaves less room for in-depth review or the possible detection of duplicate content from an unattributed source.

One solution to this problem could be to assign users specific roles per submission; much like the segmented inner workings of an ant colony.  Some commentators could concentrate on meaning, some on method, some on grammar, etc. One segment could involve running a full plagiarism check and making sure sources were properly cited.

The future of peer review looks promising – the internet certainly has the ability to better a process that has remained stagnant for too long.   However, publications and scholars need to be cautious and make sure the the peer review process doesn’t devolve into a ‘free-for-all.’

Citations:

Cohen, Patricia. “Scholars Test Web Alternative to Peer Review” The New York Times 23 August 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/arts/24peer.html?ref=arts

Dissertation Plagiarism

Published on 2010/08/18 in Plagiarism, Plagiarism News and iThenticate. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The University of Virginia recently stripped Fred D. Smith of his doctorate in education.  Last year, iThenticate was utilized by a reporter from the Journal News to break a story on Smith, the ex-Pocantico Hills superintendent who plagiarized much of his UVA dissertation.

Smith’s plagiarism saga began in November 2009, when he suddenly resigned as the Pocantico Hills superintendent after it was discovered that he had copied newsletters from a Massachusetts elementary school principal. The Journal News then partnered with iThenticate to discover that large portions of Smith’s dissertation from the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education were also plagiarized.  From the Journal News: “…iThenticate, found numerous passages that matched academic publications predating his. The most notable similarities were with a paper by Jerri Ann Whitehurst Hall, now a high school principal in Rutland, Georgia.”

A dissertation is meant to display the culmination of an individual’s knowledge in a specific area of study. A dissertation positions a person as a candidate for a degree – in Smith’s case a PhD in Education from UVA.  If a person plagiarizes much of their dissertation it not only devalues the degree, but also the credibility of the whole university.

A university is essentially a business that sells education.  The end goal of ‘buying’ an education is to achieve a degree, which certifies a person in a specific area of expertise.  Even if a few plagiarized dissertations are credited unknowingly, they still devalue the degree, which hurts the entire institution.

Moving forward into the professional world – qualifying credentials from a university also play a large part in a person’s future.  A dissertation travels with an individual throughout their professional career, making a difference in where they are hired and what they can have published.  In other words, a dissertation is often the gateway to an entire career.  If that dissertation is a fraud, it can have a chain effect on a number of collaborating individuals and institutions.

Citations:

O’Donnell, Noreen. “Ex-Pocantico superintendent accused of plagiarism gets doctorate revoked” The Journal. LoHud.com 3 August 2010. http://www.lohud.com/article/20100803/NEWS02/8030331/Ex-Pocantico-superintendent-accused-of-plagiarism-gets-doctorate-revoked

Scientific Research Mashups?

Published on 2010/08/11 in Plagiarism News, Science Publishers and scientific research. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

The-Scientist.com recently covered a new and unique  ‘Web 2.0′ method of publishing scientific research.  Liquid Publication, a European collaborative, has built a software platform that allows scientists to easily post their research to an online journal.  The platform also would enable other researchers to search, link to, comment on and ‘gather’ research within their own journal. The goal of the software is to allow scientists to easily collaborate with one another, bring forward the ‘good’ research based on how scientists interact with it, and to promote quality over quantity.

The software was developed with the belief that the current system of scientific publication is flawed.  From the Liquid Publications Website:  “Scientific knowledge dissemination is still based on the traditional notion of “paper” publication and on peer review as quality assessment method. The current approach encourages authors to write many (possibly incremental) papers to get more “tokens of credit”, generating often unnecessary dissemination overhead for themselves and for the community of reviewers.”

Utilizing the full capabilities of the internet to further scientific research is a great idea – however, the implementation of this kind of platform needs to be carefully evaluated.   ‘Web 2.0′ is a term that gets thrown around a lot, although it generally corresponds to several specific traits that define a website or web community.  Collaboration and real-time social interaction are both traits that could greatly benefit the research community, allowing scientists to piggyback on similar research topics and  move forward at a rapid pace.

In the Web 2.0 environment, sharing content also eventually leads to the ‘mashup.’   A mashup is a mix of multiple sources of content.  For example, a mashed-up video could combine clips from several movies, songs and voice-overs.   One problem the movie and music industries first encountered (and are still battling) in a Web 2.0 world was the illegal use of copyrighted content in mashups. In many cases, mashups were illegally using the intellectual property of individuals and companies.

The research community needs to consider that with an open platform like Liquid Publication, there would be a high risk of misuse.  Essentially, the platform would be facilitating the creation of ‘research mashups.’  Plagiarism is already a big problem for publishers that have a peer review process; recent studies have indicated a high volume of plagiarized content is getting submitted to scientific journals around the world.  Such an ‘open’ system would only increase the likelihood of plagiarism – content could  be more easily duplicated and re purposed without proper attribution.  Any researchers that participated in the platform would be putting their work at risk.

For a platform like this to work and attract the best scientists in the world it needs to first protect their intellectual property.   A researcher needs to have the assurance that if they publish online, their research won’t simply be stolen and used elsewhere.

Citations:

Akst, Jef. “Publish or Post” The Scientist. 9 August 2010. http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57613/

Liquid Publications – Scientific Publications Meet the Web.  liquidpub.org

Perspectives on Plagiarism

Published on 2010/08/04 in Plagiarism, Plagiarism Case Studies, Plagiarism Discussion, Plagiarism News, plagiarism prevention and student plagiarism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

The New York Times recently published a piece that discussed today’s younger generation and their views on plagiarism.  The article analyzes several perspectives on plagiarism, coming from college students to teachers to parents.  One primary perspective that could explain a recent increase in cases of plagiarism is that the younger generation simply doesn’t know what plagiarism is, and overall has a more laissez faire attitude towards copying content without proper citations.

From the New York Times: “But these cases — typical ones, according to writing tutors and officials responsible for discipline at the three schools who described the plagiarism — suggest that many students simply do not grasp that using words they did not write is a serious misdeed. It is a disconnect that is growing in the Internet age as concepts of intellectual property, copyright and originality are under assault in the unbridled exchange of online information, say educators who study plagiarism. ”

The article also discusses a second possibility: kids know what plagiarism is, but are lazy and don’t have the writing skills to keep up with a vigorous load of college courses.  To keep up the pace they make a conscious decision to plagiarize even though they know it’s wrong.  For this viewpoint, the writer interviews Sarah Wilensky, a Senior at Indiana University who has written on the topic of plagiarism: “If you’re taught how to closely read sources and synthesize them into your own original argument in middle and high school, you’re not going to be tempted to plagiarize in college, and you certainly won’t do so unknowingly,” she said.

There is a third scenario that the article doesn’t discuss:  the possibility that even though people know they are doing wrong, they simply don’t think they will be caught.  For some, plagiarism may be a gamble, but a risk worth taking due to the notion that they have good chance of getting away with it.  For these students, it could be akin to breaking the speed limit in a car:  if they don’t see any traffic cops around they may take the risk.

That’s why one possible solution to the plagiarism problem is to let the new generation know that technologies are in place to ensure students (and authors) are employing best practices in writing.  Modern plagiarism detection software like Turnitin and iThenticate are leading the way in detecting instances of plagiarism by scanning both massive databases of archived content along with more recent internet sources.  Many iThenticate users have seen a similar scenario:  letting people know that their submitted content is going to be scanned by a sophisticated plagiarism detection solution in many cases serves to further curb instances of plagiarism. In a sense, plagiarism detection software can act like a cop on the side of road – the simple presence of the squad car makes drivers slow down.

Citations:

Gabriel, Trip. “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age” The New York Times 1 August 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html?_r=2&hp