Since The Post began its editorializing on the Russ College’s plagiarism situation, I have followed the advice of many valued colleagues and refrained from responding.
Certainly, I have often disagreed with The Post’s coverage, but I recognize that there are many opinions about the fundamental issues of the responsibility for and quality of the investigations.
The Post’s Feb. 15 editorial trivializes the signing of the new Russ College honor code and dismisses the efforts of dozens of students and faculty members who have worked tirelessly to support academic honesty in the Russ College and at our university. Our student and faculty honor councils are volunteer, self-chartered groups whose primary mission is to monitor the state of academic honesty in the Russ College and advise me on it and methods to improve. Council members have demonstrated a deep commitment to academic honesty with much thought, discussion and hard work that has engaged students, faculty and staff across the college and campus. The decision to develop and implement an honor code, while supported by the administration of the Russ College, was that of the councils themselves, and it is a decision that deserves not only respect but accolades.
Moreover, the Feb. 15 editorial misrepresents our honor code. It wrongly implies that the code abdicates the responsibility of faculty to teach students how to conduct research, and that it removes consequences for plagiarism. Rather, the honor code comprises an honor pledge and statements of both student and faculty responsibility. It emphasizes the expectation for faculty and students to strive for the highest levels of academic integrity in all they do. The honor code is intended to complement, not displace, the Ohio University student handbook’s academic misconduct policy, which already spells out consequences for plagiarizing and cheating.
In my opinion, the editorial also continues a theme of The Post’s recent coverage of this matter: vast simplification of a situation where anything less than careful, unbiased reporting cheats readers. In preparation for last week’s story, we shared much pertinent information intrinsic to understanding the situation, yet it was not included. The Post effectively thus ignored part of the conversation. Likewise, our many positive initiatives — part of an overall strategy to develop and support a culture of academic honesty — have been shared time and again with The Post but have not been reported on. These initiatives clearly void the Feb. 15 editorial. In addition to developing student and faculty honor councils and creating an honor code, our actions include:
1. Electronically screening all theses and dissertations at both the draft and final stages, starting fall 2005
2. Requiring a signed statement of originality to accompany theses and dissertations, starting fall 2005
3. Requiring thesis and dissertation committees to include one non-Russ College faculty member for theses and two for dissertations, starting summer 2006
4. Developing a mandatory graduate student orientation
5. Requiring graduate students to take a technical writing course, starting fall 2006
6. Including measurement of the teaching of academic honesty principles in teaching evaluations
7. Developing a broadly acceptable definition of plagiarism for the Russ College
8. Appointing an academic honesty advisor for the Russ College, starting summer 2006
9. Providing resources via a new academic integrity Web site (www.ohio.edu/engineering/integrity)
10. Consulting with Don McCabe, Center for Academic Integrity founder, on best practices and our processes
11. Consulting with and sponsoring public lectures by Tim Dodd and Gary Pavela, both of whom are recognized as academic integrity experts
12. Holding a student academic honesty town hall meeting on the topic and discussing it quarterly in regular student town hall meetings
13. Holding faculty /staff town hall meetings and brown-bags on the topic
14. Holding academic honesty and /or writing excellence workshops for faculty
15. Developing graduate courses on teaching engineering
16. Presenting the Russ College experience and facilitating a dean’s roundtable at the nation’s premier annual academic integrity meeting, the Center for Academic Integrity Conference, in Oct. 2007
The Post is concerned about the issue of plagiarism on our campus. The Post might consider doing comprehensive coverage of this problem across college campuses nationwide. It just may show — as Tim Dodd has stated — that the Russ College is an innovative leader.
Dennis Irwin, Ph.D., P.E.
Dean and Moss Professor, Russ College of Engineering and Technology
Reader Comments
Well, taken together, this sounds like comprehensive efforts to prevent future plagiarism incidents. I especially like the preventative steps: mandatory writing courses (so students understand plagiarism fully and how to avoid it), full plagiarism definitions, and electronically screening all theses / dissertations. So they prevent, educate, and enforce.
I find it interesting that, if Dr. Irwin is to be believed, none of this was ever reported on by The Post, even though they were notified. And by "interesting," I mean "irresponsible journalism." The Post only reported the negative news, not any of these positive steps, therefore painting a biased picture of plagiarism in the College of Engineering. Apparently, this picture didn't actually exist as we were led to believe.
Post editors: you owe your readers, at the very least, an explanation of why we were not notified of these steps and were led to believe that Dr. Irwin was not responding. Did you receive these items? When? Why were they not reported? Why were they not mentioned when you accused the school of not responding?
Let's consider the source of this criticism of the Post. Dean Irwin has shown himself to be one of the *least* credible sources of information at OU. He repeatedly stonewalled the plagiarism investigation. He denied the existence of plagiarism. Until the Post broke the story, the campus was mostly ignorant of its existence. So now that Irwin has moved from being the minion of the cover-up to the champion of the honor code, he wants to blame the Post. We should be hailing the Post. Let Irwin resign in disgrace. Let the Post win a Pulitzer for its exposure of the scandal.
The POST is doing an excellent job reporting the OU engineering plagiarism scandal. See for yourself how The POST has exposed how Alden Library is now being polluted with theses having rewritten plagiarism and massive deletions…
Plagiarism investigations: Rewritten theses contain large deletions, The POST, Monday, February 4, 2008
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/News/2008/02/04/22678/
Easy way out, The POST, Thursday, February 7, 2008
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/2008/02/07/22738/
As for another opinion about honor codes, from outside the academic world, see…
Honor code at Ohio U. won't resolve plagiarism problem
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/02/honor-code-at-ohio-u-wont-resolve.html
Based on what Dr. Irwin says, the engineering college has done everything except anything meaningful. Honor codes, honesty advisors, consultants, statements of originality? What a pile of fluff!
This is so sad that you all would rather get out the pitchforks than think critically about this. Step back for a second and re-evaluate your assumptions.
Does an honor code fix things? Of course not! Neither does any of the steps enumerated above. Taken together, they attack all the angles. Read the notes in the letter.
I want you all to think about this very, very carefully: what if those things are true? They're all easily verifiable with a little research. If Dr. Irwin and the College of Engineering has taken all of these steps above, and notified The Post, WE SHOULD HAVE HEARD ABOUT THEM. Do you want a newspaper that only reports the positive or negative, and not the full issue? How are you supposed to evaluate issues and stances when certain sides are hidden from you?
jacksprat: If you don't trust Dr. Irwin's credibility, then we should verify this. We should ask The Post if they received this information in press releases, and we should see if all of this took place. If so, we've been misled, and that is VERY IMPORTANT. The steps that Dr. Irwin allegedly has taken with his staff are NOT TRIVIAL. They will catch people, and will catch instances of plagiarism. I have seen the detection software in action: it is very good at finding plagiarized passages and flagging for human review.
Agitprop: FYI, "Post" isn't an acronym. Also, all of The Post's comments are not individually damning in any way. Large deletions: That's not in of itself bad, they still had to be re-reviewed. Maybe they were OK without them. We need more information. Easy way out: In your minds. If the research wasn't plagiarized, just some introductions, forcing a rewrite or deleting it may be acceptable. Honor code not solving the problem: OBVIOUSLY! No one ever said that it, by itself, would do anything. Like I said, take it with what you heard earlier.
billy_j: How on Earth can you say that reviewing all new theses electronically and outlining exactly what happens for plagiarism is "fluff?" If trying actively to catch people and outlining / executing punishments is fluff, I don't know what isn't.
If Dr. Irwin didn't implement what he said or didn't tell The Post, then fine. But aren't you all interested to know if your only real source of plagiarism information (or, at least, a main one) is misleading you? We can find out easily. If it is, so be it: let this serve as my acknowledgment of that (but not an apology: we should never apologize for not assuming that givers of information may not be giving it all in an unbiased way).
However, if this was withheld, we deserve to know why.
See for yourself…
Use the search engine at the top of this article to judge for yourself whether or not The POST has reported the engineering plagiarism scandal fairly since it began doing so in 2005 (Theses questioned, The POST, May 5th, 2005: http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Culture/2005/05/05/6061/).
Agitprop: I can't get that information from the search bar, and neither can you. I *know* the Post didn't report any of the above steps in their articles or opinion pieces (which is the part I did get from the search bar). What I want to know is if they received information about the steps that Dr. Irwin and the College of Engineering took and withheld it from us so the reporting could be more negative about the College. Unlike you, I'm not crucifying anyone without all of the information, The Post included. I hold no judgment until I hear a response (or don't hear one, in which case we'll all be forced to assume). I want to know if I was deliberately misled, and so should you. As I said, you can't know that from just reading the articles.
I think we all deserve to know if they were hiding that information from us, even though they were told about it... and the only way we're going to know that is if they tell us what they knew, and when.
“Ohio University 2005 graduate Suzanne Wilder's coverage of the discovery of plagiarism in Russ College of Engineering graduate student theses is being considered in the 'best investigative reporting' category.” AP Finalists, The POST, March 10, 2006: http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/News/2006/03/10/3605/
The onus to prevent cheating is on the students of Ohio University. Students should be angry with any selfish, misguided student that cheats. Cheating damages the reputation of the university and thus undermines the honest students. This whole mess is quite unfortunate and any student caught cheating should be thrown out of the university. Any past student that has, or is found to have cheated should have their diploma revoked. Any faculty member complicit in a cheating scheme should be fired.
Cowboy '83
After nearly four years now, why should all of Ohio University continue to have its reputation soiled by the engineering college’s worsening plagiarism scandal? How many more years of shameful embarrassing mistakes and cover up by the college is the rest of the university willing to endure in silence and without complaint?
The university’s central administration and board of trustees continue to support OU’s black sheep college at the expense of tarnishing the good name of everyone else. But the faculty and student body needn’t contribute to this by continuing to remain silent. Instead, their campus senates should censure the college as soon as possible. Enough is enough, already!
Plagiarism investigations: Rewritten theses contain large deletions
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/News/2008/02/04/22678/
Editorial: Easy way out
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/2008/02/07/22738/
Your Turn: Russ College blaming wrong people
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/2008/02/20/22981/
Your turn: Plagiarism scandal allowed to fester by inaction, irresponsibility
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/2007/05/18/20125/
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