Ohio University’s academic standards are not quite what they used to be.
Recently, two former mechanical engineering students who were accused of plagiarism in their graduate theses were allowed to eliminate — not revise — massive sections from their reports and resubmit the edited theses with no penalty whatsoever. One of the edited theses still contained material that was almost identical to a master thesis submitted in the past, and the other was not even subject to literature review, a standard practice for all masters’ theses.
It’s clear that not only does academic dishonesty still exist, but it is practically being ignored by the people in charge of remedying it. It’s been four years since a graduate student found plagiarism in several masters’ theses and this entire scandal began, but it seems that officials in the college haven’t learned much from the experience.
The fact that these two students were allowed to simply remove the stolen elements of their reports and resubmit them for credit is outrageous. Students found guilty of plagiarism should be punished, not accommodated by the very system they wronged. While the actions of the students were unethical, the actions of those in charge at the Russ College of Engineering were even more distasteful. Rather than ordering these students to rewrite their theses — rewrite them, not cut and resubmit them — the college essentially gave them a free pass by allowing them to submit incomplete reports. It seems that the college is more concerned with burying this controversy than it is with doing what is ethical. The professor in charge of the investigation even said that the academic integrity of the work is more important than its quality — while that may, in some ways, be true, it’s no excuse to throw quality out the window.
These events also speak volumes about the inadequacy of the plagiarism screening process used for graduate theses. The fact that plagiarized theses slipped through the screening process unnoticed is unacceptable. The College of Engineering has had issues with plagiarism before and has failed to act decisively to eliminate the plagiarism problem. The college uses computer programs that scan databases of past theses for passages that resemble those in the thesis in question. However, the current software does not even contain all of the archived theses that are stored in the university’s libraries. The university is allowing students to cheat without consequence and is failing to prevent such dishonesty from being an easy option.
It is hard to tell what is worse: the fact that these mistakes occurred or that the people responsible are ignoring the problem at hand. Both parties have made it clear that they feel this type of academic dishonesty is acceptable. But this type of dishonesty should not be tolerated at any level, let alone in the higher ranks of academia.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the executive editors.
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Although both of the two defective theses reported by The POST on Monday include a signed approval page for the original version of each thesis, there is no such page for the revised documents themselves. Did Dean Irwin approve the revised theses? Is Professor Prudich the thesis advisor who approved them? Why aren’t the answers to these questions made clear by including documentation in the revised theses identifying the individuals responsible for authorizing their republication in Alden Library?
http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi/Adlakha%20Amit.pdf?acc_num=ohiou1193411146
http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi/Ghanta%20Ram%20Kumar%20Reddy.pdf?acc_num=ohiou1198257577
Let's get a few things straight here.
I'll start with this. I spoke with numerous people in charge, who would know, what the plagiarism review found. What I was told: no plagiarism occurred in the "results" sections. This bears repeating: no research wasn't done. No research was falsified. No results were forged.
What's also very, very important (and ignored by The Post at every opportunity) is that most instances of plagiarism result in a difference between international standards of plagiarism. Elsewhere, it can be acceptable to perform the acts of plagiarism found on OU theses. It's just boilerplate introduction text, right? At least, that's how they see it. That doesn't signify malice, just a lack of understanding of our customs.
What the College of Engineering is guilty of is not teaching 100% proper citation rules prior to writing theses. And they do now; there is a mandatory class to illustrate the point.
I would like to see greater accountability from The Post in this matter. Look into what was found, and what was done. Publish some statistics, not opinions based on a lack of information. You're all about investigative journalism these days: investigate the fallout and tell us what was found, not what was alleged by Tom Matrka back in the day. I warn you, however: the results may change your opinion and spread truth.
Outdoor83, you obviously don't care about thesis integrity. Don't compare a master's thesis to a research report. A thesis is supposed to be much more comprehensive than a research report. You blow off the importance of the literature review and other background material. It's critically important to a graduate thesis. In addition to showing that the student has studied the foundation of the problem, it helps to demonstrate the importance and the originality of the student's work.
Furthermore, who cares about whether citation standards or plagiarism definitions are more lax in other countries? If OU wishes to adopt the "international standards of plagiarism," then why don't you do so formally? Define the standards, publish the standards, and hold students and faculty accountable to those standards.
And everything that was "alleged" by Tom Matrka has, so far, been proven true. Dean Irwin, you should hang your head in shame. Your handling of this entire matter is a blight upon the integrity of not only your institution, but all of higher education.
billy: I'm comparing a thesis to a... thesis. I've written one. I know what they are. I'm not blowing off the importance of the lit review: it's clearly important to show originality. However, if I know something well and simply don't really want to rewrite it (an admitted problem, especially on a thesis), and I copy / paste a description about a background technology that I understand under the assumption that it's OK, then there's no malice and all the learning was done. Should you revoke the degree? No, as that's a major career blight when there was no bad intentions and all the learning was done. So you do something else, on a case-by-case basis.
About your second paragraph: The "who" you speak of is those who come here from elsewhere who didn't have the benefit of 20 years of American culture to learn what's acceptable here in terms of plagiarism. If there are international standards of plagiarism (I don't know), adopting them and educating them might be sensible.
About your Tom Matrka alleged stuff, I'm curious about something... are you on the committees that reviewed the theses? You're not Dr. Irwin himself (unless you have an identity problem)... I'll assume you're not, or else you would have changed thing. So, because you're not on the committees and have probably not comprehensively reviewed their work, you don't know what happened. You serve no purpose to this world by spewing falsehoods about what you don't know and saying things happened when you can't verify.
Come back with concrete numbers, citations, and an analysis of what was plagiarized and how. If you're right, then you've changed my (and probably many others') opinions. If not, hopefully you learned a valuable lesson about believing the facts instead of the allegations.
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