plagiarism

Plagiarism again!

Right â?? its official. Teaching students about plagiarism is absolutely pointless (see earlier post). Once again my university has sunk to a new low-point.

Background: 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.

The errand was to pass through the research ethics committee (Rådet för ärenden om oredlighet i forskning) of the university. Great, honour will be served. A blow will be struck for academic integrity and also show that the stealing student work cannot be considered to be the praxis of our university.

But! I do not believe it. 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.

What?? The lack of backbone from the research ethics committee is what damages research. This weak, spineless position legitimises cheating by academics and drags our university through the mud.

Shame on you.
With any luck the students will take the supervisor/university to court and win easily in a copyright violation case. This is not a good development but one which the university has begged for through its spineless attitude.

Posted on by mklang

Bah, lazy hypocrites!

Its soon time for me to lecture on plagiarism again. I give this lecture every year to groups of students who are about to write their thesis. The idea is both to help them understand the boundaries between quote, citation, paraphrase & plagiarism and to get them to start thinking about the nature of property in relation to intellectual goods.

Giving this lecture today is aided by the current discussion on copyright and file sharing. In my IT & ethics course I regularly attempt to discuss the problem of file sharing and ask my students what they believe is the moral position of the person who illegally downloads music or films. Usually among my students 80-90% of those who download music do not consider there actions to be morally wrong and nor do they consider themselves to be stealing. The most often used legitimisation of their actions:
1. that they are not depriving anyone of use.
2. the entertainment industry is rich enough.
3. they would not buy that which they download and therefore there is no loss to the industry.

Considering these points it is interesting to attempt to raise awareness about plagiarism. In one way it is pretty easy: if you get caught you will be punished and it is humiliating. But this is not a good starting point since the stress is on not getting caught as opposed to building awareness.

Attempting to discuss student plagiarism is made more difficult recently when two professors have been accused (correctly) of plagiarising others work in their books. One is a professor at the University College of BorÃ¥s who has been sloppy when quoting others his/her own defence other are harsher and call it plagiarism (DN 29/4 â?? 2006)

The second is a professor at the University of Göteborg who has stolen other peopleâ??s works and included them in his work. The excuses for this theft was that the book was written under a very short deadline and the works from which he borrowed material are included in the bibliography.

We would never accept these excuses from our own students then why would these professors even think that the excuses would work for them?

Posted on by mklang

Plagiarism & Excuses

Plagiarism is not a new problem but it is getting more serious with easy access to material and the ability to cut and paste. In part the problem also is with the student attitude to plagiarism which is not discussed enough.

Students tend to have either really bad excuses for why they plagiarise or they are simply in denial. One of the best excuses I have seen was posted on Bitch. Ph.D.

â??Itâ??s not my fault the guy I bought the paper from copied it!â??

!!!! Now tell me this is not an attitude problem.

Posted on by mklang

Art Plagiarising Life

The Modern Museum in Stockholm is being involved in an interesting plagiarism case. The artist Markus Andersson has painted a picture containing an image of Christer Pettersson. This image seems to be based upon a photograph taken by Jonas Lemberg. The photographer has demanded that the picture be removed from its exhibition at the Modern Museum.

The Modern Museum states it will not remove the picture and also defends Markus Andersson by stating he has used his right to quote other works (citaträtten). This right to quote other works has been discussed in Sweden and when it refers to works of art it is legitimate only (1) if it is a newspaper reporting on current events, or (2) that it is carried out in a critical or academic setting. At first glance it would seem that the right to quote does not adequately help unless the artist can claim that he is conducting a critical, academic (whatever that would mean in this situation) debate.

A news article from Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish) contains both the photo and the painting.

What I find very interesting is the fact that the discussion is focused on plagiarism and not copyright violation. Legally the question is one of copyright violation. Therefore the question is one of whether copyright violation becomes the more plagiarism when it involves the higher cultural institutions?

Footnote on the image: “Christer Pettersson (April 23, 1947 – September 29, 2004) was a suspect in the assassination of Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden. He was tried and acquitted in Swedish court, although Palme’s widow insisted that he was the man she saw commit the crime.” (From Wikipedia)

Posted on by mklang

Da Vinci Code in Court

Two of the three authors of “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” are suing the publisher of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” for for breach of UK copyright in the UK editions of the book. Today through a series of takeovers Random House is the publisher of both books.

“The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” was published in 1982 and claimed that Jesus did not die on the cross, but married Mary Magdalene and had a child by her.

The legal problem is that an idea for a book is not itself protected, but the actual content of a book is. So its not copyright infringement if two books appear with the same idea as long as they dont directly copy or adapt the earlier text.

So both books are about the same thing – not copyright violation. But what about the architecture of the book? It may be plagiarism but is it copyright violation to describe a similar scene in two different books?

Posted on by mklang

Warhol Foundation on Copyright

Lessig has written (in Wired) about the Warhol foundation’s application of copyright law. Joel Wachs, the president of the foundation says:

“We’re Lessig when it comes to artists and scholars” and “Disney when it comes to commercial use.”

Basically they allow artists to build upon Warhol’s work and academics to use his work for a nominal fee. But are tough on commercial use. This is in keeping with Warhol’s idea of art. Borrow from your surroundings and use it.

More and more I find this the right way to go. Commenting on our surroundings should be permissable – the only real prohibition should be plagiarism. Only copying without adding does not provide anything new.

Partly this position may come from the fact that I teach and many students dont realise what plagiarism is. I have even had students get angry with me when I uncovered their cheats. In the worst case a student attempted to pass off my work as his.

The word plagiarism comes from latin and refers to the activity of stealing anothers slaves. The roman poet Martialis wrote:

The book which you are reading aloud is mine, Fidentinus; but, while you read it so badly, it begins to be yours.
– Epigrams (bk. I, ep. 38)

Oh, and before any of my students come across this and ask: NO bad plagiarism does not make your work original even if you can cite Martialis!

Posted on by mklang

Notes From a Career in Teaching

An interesting brief article on teaching. For those who dont want to read the article here are the main points:

Teach according to your personality: Teaching is a performance sport only you can figure it out.

Hand out complete instructions the first day: The students are then responsible for following them.

Vary your teaching methods: Variation is the spice of life. Being boring is not acceptable (but you can’t please them all).

Don’t take attendance: Students are responsible for learning.

Take a hard line on late and incomplete work: The students are responsible.

Give students options for assignments and exams: Stimulate creativity.

Require clear and coherent written work: The students must be able to communicate.

Combat plagiarism: Dont forgive, dont forget.

Get out of the way: The teacher sets up the environment. Learning is the students work.

The Chronicle: 9/9/2005: Notes From a Career in Teaching

Posted on by mklang