Plagiarism as an attitude
N. Raghuram
[email protected]
Guru Gobind Singh
Indraprastha University
Society for
Scientific Values
Former Secretary, Society for Scientific Values
Editor, Springer journal, Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants
Associate Professor, School of Biotechnology
GGS Indraprastha University, Dwarka, New Delhi
Some notions that shape attitudes to plagiarism in India
1. It is only about copyright violation; only copyright holder complain
2. It is the student or subordinate employee – the boss is always right
3. Only a few words/lines are similar – not enough for plagiarism
4. Didn’t know that even this constitutes plagiarism !
5. There is a language problem – can’t write better than that author
6. The content was expressed differently, so where is plagiarism?
7. Those sentences are not a monopoly of that author.
8. The copyright expired and it is in public domain
9. It is under creative commons or copyleft or opensource
10. Pressure to publish, point system, scientometrics
Plagiarism is much more than copyright violation
What is it?
Using other’s words and ideas without giving due credit (by quoting & citing),
or taking credit for someone else’s work (incl impersonation, gift authorship).
How is it different from copyright?
• Plagiarism is one of the many aspects of copyright infringement.
• Copyright can be legally transferred, bought/sold but may still plagiarize credit
• One can get different copyrights for same content (book, web, film, CD etc)
• But it constitutes plagiarism or self-plagiarism based on content in academics
What about copying from public domain, creative commons or copyleft?
Unattributed , uncited, unauthorized copying or taking undue credit (authorship)
from any source attracts the charge of plagiarism, as it amounts to identity theft.
How else is it bad?
• Plagiarism is unethical and immoral even if no law or license is violated
• It reveals lack of intellect or intellectual pride/integrity/honesty or all of them
• Originality is everything in creative pursuits and intellectual professions
• Plagiarism threatens the core values of higher education and research
Copyright infringement covers a lot more than plagiarism
23 April: World Book & copyright Day (UNESCO); 26 April: World Intellectual Property Day (WIPO)
Copyright protects only ideas and is automatically in force. It covers:
• Text, poems, drawings, photographs, tables, figures, graphs, equations etc.
• Articles, books, theses, pamphlets, web pages/sites, software/programs
• Plays, motion pictures, choreography, musical compositions, sound recordings
• Radio and television broadcasts, paintings, sculptures, and industrial designs
• Infringement is to copy, translate, adapt, xerox, display, publish, distribute or sell
Punishment for first infringement:
• Imprisonment for 6 months to 3 years and fine Rs. 50,000 to Rs.2 lakh
• Less than minimum for acts not for gain in the course of trade/business
Enhanced punishment for subsequent conviction:
• Imprisonment for 1 year to 3 years and fine Rs.1 lakh to Rs.2 lakh
Knowing use of infringed copy of computer program:
• Imprisonment for 7 days to 3 years and fine Rs.50,000 to Rs.2 lakh
• Fine up to Rs.50,000 for acts not for gain in the course of trade/business
Institutions/univs/firms have a duty to uphold copyrights and deter/punish infringers
Plagiarism is bad and everyone knows it. So what?
 Plagiarism CAN be caught and technology is making it easy
 Plagiarism is increasingly becoming a PUNISHABLE OFFENCE
 Globalization of detection & punishment makes local escape worse
 It can haunt a person at any time later in life or even long after death
Ten famous plagiarists from abroad and India
All of them lost their name and fame; some even lost their jobs!
1. HG Wells: The outline of history
2. TS Eliot: The waste land
3. Martin Luther King Jr: thesis, speech
4. Alex Haley: Roots
5. Doris K Goodwin: The Fitzgeralds…
6. Joe Biden: Speeches, law paper
7. Michel Bolton: Love is a wonderful..
8. Stephen Ambrose: The wild blue
9. Jane Goodall: Seeds of hope
10. The consort. for plant biotech Res.
(Source: www.colinpurrington.com)
1. Bharat Ratna Awardee
2. Bhatnagar Awardee
3. Padmasri Awardee
4. Director-General of major council
5. Fellows of National Academies
6. Directors/scientists of National Labs
7. Director/faculty of IIM
8. Vice Chancellors of Universities
9. Deans/Professors of IITs & Univs.
10. Bollywood writers/composers
(Source: Wikipedia, WWW & SSV)
What if an old plagiarism case shames/rocks your career at its peak?
Top institutional causes for plagiarism in India
1. Plagiarism in higher academics is a direct consequence of schooling
2. Commercialization of school ‘projects’ & ‘activity-based learning’
3. Parents & teachers are responsible for early attitudes on plagiarism
4. Even college/university dissertations can be purchased in shops!
5. Some guides are well known to tolerate plagiarism by not checking
6. Examination/evaluation system is not harsh enough on plagiarists
7. When faculty get away with plagiarism, they can’t punish students
8. Administrators/employers/editors hate to hear about plagiarism
9. Lack of technology is only an excuse: Plagiarism is an attitude
10. Most creative approach: “neglibible” or “tolerable” plagiarism
Nature
Nature Chemistry
From plagiarism to falsification & fabrication is too close!
Quantification of misconduct in biomedical publications
R.G. Steen, J.Med.Ethics (2010) Doi:10.1136/jme.2010.038125
Abhinandan’s analysis of Indian retractions from PubMed
2001-10
Papers:
Retractions:
Genuine Errors: 9
Unknown Reasons: 16
Misconduct:
45
Text Plagiarism:
Self-Plagiarism:
Data Plagiarism:
Falsification:
103434
70
23
18
3
1
Misconduct rate: 44 per 100,000 papers
The incidence of plagiarism/misconduct may be far higher
Plagiarism seems to be the primary mode of misconduct in India.
2007-08: Advent of déjà vu.
22 of the 45 retractions were made in 2008.
2007-08: Discovery of huge fraud by P. Chiranjeevi of SV Univ.
Over 70 plagiarized papers during 2003-07
Only 10 indexed in PubMed
Courtesy: Abhinandan
Society for Scientific values
 The only one of its kind in the world – now listed under UNESCO
 Set up in 1986 by a group of scientists led by late AS Paintal, FRS
 “To promote integrity, objectivity and ethical values in science”
 Membership by nomination followed by approval of the EC
 Investigated several cases of misconduct, mostly plagiarism
 Indicted even powerful names for plagiarism or false claims
 Lacks administrative or legal powers but enjoys credibility
 Represents a bottom-up demand for a national ethics body/policy
 SSV also conducts seminars, publishes newsletters and a website
 For more details, visit www.scientificvalues.org
Scientific values & RCR issues in India
 Plagiarism hogs the headlines, but there are more serious issues
 Falsification and Fabrication of data misleads science & scientists
 Conflict of interest in publications, grants, regulatory bodies, others
 Complaints are neither encouraged nor entertained properly
 Employers take action only if it suits them, punishments are rare
 Favoritism & victimization in recruitments, promotions, grants
 Feudal work culture, sycophancy, parochialism, loyalty vs. integrity
 Bureaucratic, non-transparent system, poor accountability
 Occurrence of misconduct is not the problem – lack of response is
Recent advances in SSV
 Three directors removed following indictment by SSV
 SSV enjoys international visibility and liaison with agencies abroad
 Questioned JBC (USA) & its parent society on the Kundu case
 Countered IEEE and Bradford Univ (UK) on Kouvatsu plagiarism
 Questioned Michel Atiyah (UK) on CK Raju’s complaint
 Countering attempts abroad to typecast India as poor in ethics
 Took a tough position on Mashelkar and put his apology online
 Fighting a PIL against closure of vaccine PSUs as a co-petitioner
 Developing educational resources, policy documents - any inputs?
Some worrisome trends in India
 Misconduct is not an exclusive domain of the underdogs
 Well known & well endowed individuals/institutions are also involved
 Top scientists, Heads, directors, VCs, DGs, are often involved
 Institutional response to misconduct : Highly uneven, inconsistent
 Ignore > deny > diffuse > cover-up > dilute > dispose > defer > makeup
 Institutionalization of misconduct is worse than individual misconduct
 Celebrity justice is becoming a dominant national trait
 Saas-bahu syndrome – remembering ethics only when you’re a victim
 National Academies have been MOST reluctant in promoting ethics
 SSV-bashing for vigilantism is a bad excuse for inaction / status-quoism!
Ethical breaches pervade all the roles played by scientists
 Appointments and promotions of oneself and of others
 Manipulating grant proposals & rigging decisions for oneself/others
 Handling intramural and extramural grants (from start to finish)
 Handling the research process itself – ideas, methods, data, analysis
 Communicating research findings – publications, patents, talks, posters
 Consultancy/contract research – keep the funders happy; to hell with truth!
 Advisory roles as experts – to the govt or industry – conflicts of interest
 Regulatory roles in EIAs, GEAC, GMP, trials, enquires, examiners etc.
 Administrative and managerial roles, including mentoring roles
 Role models or examples that others are more likely to follow
Biomedical Bioethics: Stem cell therapies
Ethics blown to winds: Tristem, a London based biotech company
tried its unproven technology on humans in india. ‘An alliance that
turned patients in India into ‘guinea pigs’, with doctors testing an unproven
technology, patients being desperate enough to face the unknown and
experts not asking the right questions.’
G.S. Mudur, The Telegraph
“Safety studies are the most dangerous part of clinical trials and are done in
healthy volunteers — not in patients,” said Dr Chandra Gulhati, editor of the
Monthly Index of Medical Specialities, India. “This shows how a little-known
company can get its technology evaluated in India through public institutions.
No matter what the intentions of the Indian researchers, these four patients
served as guinea pigs.”
Monday, December 27, 2004 Stem Cell therapy: Going to town violating the Ingelfinger rule. It is named after
the late Dr Franz Ingelfinger, once the editor of the New England Journal of
Medicine. In 1969, Ingelfinger decided that the journal would not publish any
research paper that contained information that had already been published
elsewhere or had been reported in the media. This rule is still held sacrosanct
by medical researchers worldwide today — even in an era when some doctors
have been known to pay public relations companies to help them grab their ‘15
minutes of fame.’
The Ingelfinger rule, which has since been adopted by other scientific and
medical journals, is designed to ensure that only research that has been
adequately peer-reviewed gets publicity. This is important because research
claims that have not been peer-reviewed may not always be correct and may
thus mislead people.
Stem cells: Regulation gone haywire
Bloomberg Markets
December20
05
Ethics of clinical trials in India
Unethical Indian clinical research makes news abroad!
Some researchable questions on misconduct
 What’s the % occurrence of misconduct in Indian S&T?
 How much public money is wasted on unreliable scientific outputs?
 Which professional levels & age groups are most prone to misconduct?
 What are the motivations for misconduct and incentives for honesty?
 How do accused get away? How to improve investigations?
 Does ethics education/training/awareness help in lowering misconduct?
 How many employers entertain complaints & protect whistleblowers?
 How many complaints are investigated and action taken?
 How often are the guilty punished commensurately & consistently?
 How to govern misconduct in the private sector R&D and operations?
Recent Trend: Relook metrics-based assessment
• Go behind publication lists and ask their HOW & WHAT
• San Francisco Declaration (2013)
Recognises the long-awaited need for curtailing the runaway
practise of using metrics such as Journal Impact Factor,
Citation Index, h-Index etc. for assessing scientific contributions
and advancements (Courtesy: Ashima Anand, SSV)
•British Medical Journal, 2013:347:1f4327
“Put science into assessment of research”
The occurrence of misconduct is not the main problem
The lack of adequate response to it is.
Our reputation as an institution/nation depends on how we deal with it
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter
Martin Luther King
Many people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist.
They are wrong: it is character.
-- Albert Einstein
Thank you !