In May last year I wrote about a case of plagiarism from my university. The interesting thing about this plagiarism was that it was a teacher who had stolen part of a masters thesis written by two students whom she had supervised.
At the department of business studies two students wrote their masters thesis. Their supervisor then took parts of the text and included it word for word in an article she presented at an international conference. The students were not acknowledged in any way. The head of department defended the supervisorâ??s actions in the student press â?? which is sad, but in a sense an understandable defence. Still sad and it shows a definite lack of backbone. (this blog in May 2006)
The case was sent to the research ethics committee
The majority of the research ethics committee found that while it was wrong that the supervisor did not ask the students, it was too far to say that the supervisor had cheated. This position was motivated that by calling the supervisor actions plagiarism would effectively be damage scientific research. (from earlier post).
Thankfully today the local newspaper writes that the University Dean has sent the errand onwards and upwards to the research ethics group of the National Swedish Research Council. Maybe by going beyond the confines of the own organisation the message can be stated clearly that plagiarism by researchers is as unacceptable as we claim it is when students attempt it.
Today the local paper reports that the VetenskapsrÃ¥det (Swedish Science Council) have reached the unanimous decision that the supervisor’s actions were a clear cut case of plagiarism. The fate of the supervisor will be decided by the university dean after the summer.