Plagiarism

[Ancient Fellow]

How would publishing in Digital Commons reduce or prevent plagiarism?

[Mobius]

How would it?

[AJ_Katz]

How would publishing in Digital Commons reduce or prevent plagiarism?

I'm making the assumption that the people who manage Digital Commons would be more likely to retract something placed into their repository if there is evidence that it is plagiarized.  The companies that manage our journals (like Elsevier) make money off of reader subscriptions, so there's little incentive to retract a piece with blatant plagiarism. Since Digital Commons does not rely on end users' subscription fees to make money (the institution pays to be able to add to the repository), I would venture to guess that the librarians that manage content in Digital Commons would be more likely to retract a plagiarized piece. 

[Hibush]

How would publishing in Digital Commons reduce or prevent plagiarism?

I'm making the assumption that the people who manage Digital Commons would be more likely to retract something placed into their repository if there is evidence that it is plagiarized.  The companies that manage our journals (like Elsevier) make money off of reader subscriptions, so there's little incentive to retract a piece with blatant plagiarism. Since Digital Commons does not rely on end users' subscription fees to make money (the institution pays to be able to add to the repository), I would venture to guess that the librarians that manage content in Digital Commons would be more likely to retract a plagiarized piece.

While it may keep its hands off managing content, Elsevier owns Digital Commons.

[larryc]

How do people feel about plagiarizing yourself? Taking material from your own work in the humanities without citing it?

That is not plagiarism. The word means taking the work of other people as your own, not repeating oneself.

[nescafe]

When I was in grad school, a journal produced in Australia copied and republished my first article without permission (like, they discovered it online and reused it without telling me). The editor is at the University of Melbourne; I'd out him, but that would likely identify me, too. Anyway, he left my name on the piece, but also altered portions of the article to make it sound like I was taking a political stance that is basically contrary to my own. He also removed an image from my original piece and replaced it with one that didn't fit my article.

I dug into the matter, and learned the editor and his journal are affiliated with a political party known for its neo-fascism.

I wrote a demand for a retraction and mailed it to the editor, and I had a lawyer friend doctor it up with scary adjectives. He never gave me a published retraction, but he did send me a letter admitting to a "failure in the publication process" and a "mistake" he was deeply sorry about. I keep that letter in my file, just in case a prospective employer asks about the article.

In the meantime, this person continues to republish other scholars' material in journals, at least 3 separate Routledge collections, and monographs. As far as I can tell, he's suffered no real consequences.

[dr_codex]

Nasty plagiarism reflects a decline in honesty in society, maybe the world. The more scholars and students, more plagiarism occurs, obviously.

It is partly laziness or inability to write and understand the material. Or just negligence.

I am going to respectfully disagree.  I don't think it's a shift in our society or morals, I believe it is a combination of factors that has increased the number of cases in which we are identifying plagiarism.  For one, it is much easier to steal text, figures, and tables, because we no longer have to re-type all of the words to take them; a simple copy+paste works in seconds!  It is also easier to identify plagiarism now that we can search for articles and search text using software.  Today, there is more pressure than ever to publish (volume) and relatively less emphasis on quality (who actually reads my papers anyway?).  Finally, our world is more interconnected than ever before and so we likely have more interactions with non-native English speakers than before. Our non-native English speaking colleagues likely feel more pressure to publish in English and these people bring their own value systems with respect to plagiarism into this game too.  The other element in this equation is that publishers are financially-driven, so they've got no real skin in the game when it comes to quality either -- I would venture to guess that they probably lose more in their reputation by retracting articles (admitting they allowed a plagiarized work to get published) than they gain by simply ignoring the reports.

The only way I envision any type of change might happen in this equation is if academics stop publishing in journals and start publishing in other places like Digital Commons instead.  Or if there is some type of international standard for what is / is not plagiarism and how to earn reputation for not plagiarizing (like Publons), I just don't think things will change.

I remember several years ago there was a U.S. politician whose dissertation or thesis was found to be largely plagiarized.  I don't remember who it was and I don't think there was any retribution for it, although some people have had their degrees removed by a university for that type of action.

Ah, Sen John Walsh: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/10/10/army-war-college-revokes-sen-johns-walshs-degree-over-plagiarism/

Still, not as illustrative as Annette Schavan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Schavan.

I lecture my students that whatever they can Google, I can Google. As you point out, forty years ago, you had to copy it all out; to find it, you had to search the stacks. More difficult to do, and more difficult to catch.

Institutional culture can make a huge difference. For (negative) example: Ohio University https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/education/27OHIO.html

[Hegemony]

Nescafe, that is horrific.  I have to say that if I were in any way near to this, like knowing the person's name, I'd be writing letters to Routledge and everyplace else, trying to out the guy.  Maybe unwise.  But this stuff absolutely drives me bonkers.

[euro_trash]

I found my undergrad capstone paper that was posted on my university's website for sale on a term paper mill website. I got pro bono legal representation from one of the best law firms in the country, sued the paper mill, got some cash, and shut their ass down. God that felt good, and might have been my single greatest contribution to academia tbh.

[downer]

I found my undergrad capstone paper that was posted on my university's website for sale on a term paper mill website. I got pro bono legal representation from one of the best law firms in the country, sued the paper mill, got some cash, and shut their ass down. God that felt good, and might have been my single greatest contribution to academia tbh.

Where is the like button?