Cases of plagiarism continue to be reported (especially in high profile cases), yet universities seem reluctant to take decisive actions.
Many countries are adopting a policy where all publicly funded research theses are made open-access. However, the quality assurance measures used (e.g. plagiarism detection tools) are often only accessible institutionally, and the decisions made tend to be either protectionist (to the student or institution), and often claim restrictions due to a particular interpretation of national legislation.
Nobody refutes an institutions right to determine its own policies on quality assurance and academic integrity. However, once work reaches the public domain or is offered as an output of a publicly funded institution (e.g. award granting university), then in a globally connected community, surely we need some way to ensure we can trust these works?
- Would you support the development of an open access plagiarism tool that can be used by anyone to evaluate issues of similarity in any published works?
- Would the presence of such a tool deter those who may be tempted to commit an academic offence, and put pressure on institutions to prevent such work passing through the net?
- Would the thought that any outputs could be later evaluated by an international audience act as a catalyst for developing consensus on academic integrity?
Dear Nicholas, I came across a couple of plagiarism cases during my academic career, ranging from students (the most common case) to researchers from renowned institutions. Plagiarism is a wide and complicated field which also includes the rather fuzzy issue of self-plagiarism. An open access plagiarism tool would be nice to have but I am not sure it would deter those that are already plagiarizing the work from others. Even if one gets away with it, chances are that sooner or later somebody will discover it anyway. This should be enough motivation for any reasonable researcher to stay away from plagiarism in the first place.
Horst: I agree that investigating and judging plagiarism is a complex issue, so that is why most responsible institutions have specialized panels for 'academic offences'. But, I think that academic integrity is key not only to higher education and scientific research, but also to professional values and practice, as well as our societal commitment. So, whilst the 'fault' may manifest in plagiarism, the attitude we take towards it is also part of our integrity. I encounter plagiarism in my working role, and while it is superficially good to be understanding and tolerant, the fact that we have so many tools available institutionally but the plagiarism still takes place, tells us that the plagiarist feels they can beat the system. It may sound pompous, but although I believe in being fair, there is no place in my academia for anyone who operates along these lines. So, while you are right that such tools 'should' deter people from committing offences, it would appear they do not, and this is because they are mainly wielded from within the system, and not from outside. Perhaps knowing that your next employer, a member of your conference audience, or even the man sitting next to you in the bar can freely take your published work and test it for similarity would be a stronger deterrent, because it invites scrutiny at any stage of life or career. So, if a person knowingly submits to this, then this is going to tell me more about them than the credentialist qualification they list on a CV. It's a bit like the 'I race clean' movement against doping in sport ;-)
Turnitin is quite a comprehensive took used by universities in the UK to detect work copied from the Internet and also work previously submitted for assessment at other universities.
There are a few systems that are used by universities, but the open systems only alow a portion of text to be scanned. This is not enough to give a realistic picture of an overall work. Moreover, you have to already have a suspicion about a passage to select it for testing, & most people don't have a wide enough knowledge for this to be effective. I don't think universities will make similarity reports (+/- any actions) openly available, so an open source tool might help to create trustworthiness in individuals & their work.
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