tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90912189500799821542012-01-28T02:18:37.985+01:00A blog about plagiarism from a German professor, written in English.Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.comBlogger2611100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-23535963362574646142012-01-28T02:14:00.004+01:002012-01-28T02:14:45.043+01:00In August of 2011 the VroniPlag Wiki site went public with a <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Cs">documentation</a> of plagiarism in the dissertation of German professor Cornelia Scott, a professor at a polytechnic college in Saxony. The university in Cracow, Poland, where she submitted her dissertation, has been investigating the case. The university has <a href="http://www.naumburger-tageblatt.de/ntb/ContentServer?pagename=ntb/page&amp;atype=ksArtikel&amp;aid=1326700681369&amp;openMenu=1013016724285&amp;calledPageId=1013016724285&amp;listid=1018881578312">announced</a> at the end of January 2012 that they have indeed confirmed that the dissertation contains plagiarism on 33 pages , 4 less that the VroniPlag documentation (20% of the dissertation). <br /><br />The case has been referred to a federal board for investigation into whether the plagiarism is serious enough to rescind the doctorate.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-2353596336257464614?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-48665246983462919262011-12-11T17:47:00.001+01:002012-01-28T02:18:38.005+01:00The <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Home">VroniPlag</a> platform has currently documented <strike>17</strike> 18 cases of plagiarism in dissertation or habilitations. The first few cases - especially ones involving politicians in the wake of the zu Guttenberg case - were dealt with promptly:<br /><br /><table border="1" cellpadding="6"><tbody><tr><th>Thesis,<br />Link</th><th>Name, <br />University</th><th>Documentation public</th><th>Current <br />status</th></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110618004621/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/5/54/KTzG_plag_graphic.png/200px-KTzG_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110618004621/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/5/54/KTzG_plag_graphic.png/200px-KTzG_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki">KTzG 2009</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg <br />(University of Bayreuth) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-02-16 </td><td>After 2 weeks: doctorate rescinded </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110722115448/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/a/aa/Sass_plag_graphic.png/200px-Sass_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110722115448/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/a/aa/Sass_plag_graphic.png/200px-Sass_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Vs">VS 2009</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Veronika Saß <br />(University of Constance) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-03-28 </td><td>After 6 weeks: doctorate rescinded </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="hhttp://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110625232904/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/f/ff/Mcp_plag_graphic.png/200px-Mcp_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110625232904/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/f/ff/Mcp_plag_graphic.png/200px-Mcp_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Mcp">MCP 2007</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Matthias Pröfrock <br />(University of Tübingen) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-04-04</td><td>After 12 weeks: doctorate rescinded </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110616230702/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/3/39/Skm_plag_graphic.png/200px-Skm_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110616230702/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/3/39/Skm_plag_graphic.png/200px-Skm_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Skm">SKM 2001</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Silvana Koch-Mehrin <br />(University of Heidelberg) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-04-10</td><td>After 10 weeks: doctorate rescinded </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110615094945/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/c/c4/Gc_plag_graphic.png/200px-Gc_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110615094945/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/c/c4/Gc_plag_graphic.png/200px-Gc_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Gc">GC 2000</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Georgios Chatzimarkakis<br />(University of Bonn) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-05-15</td><td>After 10 weeks: doctorate rescinded </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110824152530/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/b/b2/Bds_plag_graphic.png/200px-Bds_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110824152530/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/b/b2/Bds_plag_graphic.png/200px-Bds_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Bds">BDS 2008</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Dr. Bijan Djir-Sarai <br />(University of Cologne) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-06-01</td><td>still open</td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110615094612/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/c/c1/Ub_plag_graphic.png/200px-Ub_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110615094612/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/c/c1/Ub_plag_graphic.png/200px-Ub_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Ub">UB 2011</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Uwe Brinkmann <br />(University of Hamburg) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-06-08</td><td>After 6 weeks: doctorate rescinded </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110817203810/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/1/1a/Mm_plag_graphic.png/200px-Mm_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110817203810/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/1/1a/Mm_plag_graphic.png/200px-Mm_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Mm">MM 1987</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Prof. Dr. Margarita Mathiopoulos <br />(University of Bonn) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-06-14 </td><td>Still open, the university is said to be prepared to rescind doctorate, but proceedings delayed with legal challenges&nbsp; </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110729214326/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/e/ed/Sh_plag_graphic.png/200px-Sh_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110729214326/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/e/ed/Sh_plag_graphic.png/200px-Sh_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Sh"> SH 2003</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Dr. Siegfried Haller <br />(University of Halle-Wittenberg) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-07-24 </td><td>Still open </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111105230522/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/9/90/Jg_plag_graphic.png/200px-Jg_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111105230522/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/9/90/Jg_plag_graphic.png/200px-Jg_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Jg">JG 2009</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Dr. Jürgen Goldschmidt <br />(Technical University of Berlin) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-07-30 </td><td>Still open </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110917105404/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/3/31/Cs_plag_graphic.png/200px-Cs_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110917105404/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/3/31/Cs_plag_graphic.png/200px-Cs_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Cs">CS 2008</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Prof. Dr. Cornelia Eva Scott <br />(University of Krakau, Poland) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-08-08 </td><td>University of Cracow annonces plagiarism found in Jan 12, refers to central authority</td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111110214702/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/5/56/Ah_plag_graphic.png/200px-Ah_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111110214702/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/5/56/Ah_plag_graphic.png/200px-Ah_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Ah">AH 1998</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Dr. Arne Heller <br />(University of Hamburg) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-08-28 </td><td>Still open </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111213103427/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/f/f0/Mw_plag_graphic.png/200px-Mw_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111213103427/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/f/f0/Mw_plag_graphic.png/200px-Mw_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Mw">MW 2009</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Dr. Martin Winkels <br />(University of Bonn) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-09-05</td><td>Still open </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111126000411/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/f/f6/Dv_plag_graphic.png/200px-Dv_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111126000411/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/f/f6/Dv_plag_graphic.png/200px-Dv_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Dv">DV 2005</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Dr. Daniel Volk <br />(University of Würzburg) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-09-19</td><td>Still open </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111016102161/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/1/1a/Ut_plag_graphic.png/200px-Ut_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111016102161/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/1/1a/Ut_plag_graphic.png/200px-Ut_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Ut">UT 2003</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>PD Dr. Ulf Teichgräber <br />(Charité Berlin) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-10-12 </td><td>Still open </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111108015846/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/3/3f/Pes_plag_graphic.png/200px-Pes_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111108015846/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/3/3f/Pes_plag_graphic.png/200px-Pes_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Pes">PES 2004</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Prof. Dr. Patrick Ernst Sensburg <br />(Fernuniversität Hagen) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-10-18 </td><td>After 8 weeks the university determines this to be "no case". </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111116222647/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/0/01/Dd_plag_graphic.png/200px-Dd_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111116222647/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/0/01/Dd_plag_graphic.png/200px-Dd_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Dd">DD 1999</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Prof. Dr. Detlev Dähnert <br />(BTU Cottbus) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-11-01 </td><td>Still open </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111123000336/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/5/5d/Nk_plag_graphic.png/200px-Nk_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111123000336/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/5/5d/Nk_plag_graphic.png/200px-Nk_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Nk">NK 2006</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Dr. Nalan Kayhan <br />(University of Heidelberg) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-11-17 </td><td>Still open </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111220234104/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/1/1f/Awb_plag_graphic.png/300px-Awb_plag_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111220234104/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/1/1f/Awb_plag_graphic.png/300px-Awb_plag_graphic.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Awb">AWB 1997</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td>Prof. Dr. Andreas Wolfgang Bonz <br />(University of Heidelberg) </td><td style="text-align: center;">2011-12-21 </td><td>Still open </td></tr></tbody></table><br />But since June, the universities have fallen asleep, it seems. I have written letters asking about the status of the investigations. In general, they are not expecting results before Christmas.<br /><br />Gerhard Fröhlich from the University of Linz <a href="http://junq.info/?p=908">put it so nicely</a>:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Self control mechanisms are a myth in science to avoid any serious external control. I have studied all fraud affairs precisely and in almost every case anonymous allegations coupled with mass media outrage – in most recent years with an interim period of outrage on the internet – were necessary before the institutions themselves agreed to take action.</blockquote>It seems that the moment the outrage dies down, the speed of investigation slows to a crawl.<br /><br /><b>Updates</b>: <br /><ul><li><b>2011-12-21:</b> Another case from the medical faculty of the University Heidelberg added; the University of Bonn is said to be prepared to rescind the doctorate of Margarita Mathiopoulos&nbsp;</li><li><b>2011-12-22:</b> The Fernuniversität Hagen <a href="http://www.derwesten.de/region/westfalen/uni-weist-plagiats-vorwuerfe-gegen-cdu-politiker-sensburg-zurueck-id6187160.html">determines</a> the case of Patrick Sensburg to be too weak to do anything about. The dean of the faculty announces on radio that the documentation is "malicious". The reader is encouraged to read the documentation linked above for themselves. The expert opinions on which this decision was based remain under cover.&nbsp;</li><li><b>2012-01-27:</b> The University of Cracow had determined that there is plagiarism in the Scott dissertation and has referred the case to a central authority.&nbsp; The decision by the University of Bonn on Mathiopolous, expected for February 12, is <a href="http://www3.uni-bonn.de/Pressemitteilungen/pressrelease.2012-01-27.1713415908?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter">delayed</a> to April 18 by an extension appeal filed by her lawyers. </li></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-4866524698346291926?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-82471994702808105902011-12-11T17:27:00.002+01:002011-12-11T21:58:20.143+01:00The University of Heidelberg has <a href="http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/presse/news2011/pm20111209_promotionsausschuss.html">announced</a> that they have rejected the protest that Silvana Koch-Mehrin lodged against the rescinding of her doctorate earlier this year. Articles can be found at <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,802729,00.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Spiegel Online</span></a>, <a href="http://www.sueddeutsche.de/karriere/entzogener-doktortitel-koch-mehrin-scheitert-mit-widerspruch-1.1230702"><span style="font-style: italic;">Süddeutsche</span></a>, <a href="http://www.n-tv.de/politik/Koch-Mehrin-schweigt-einfach-weiter-article4964386.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">n-tv</span></a>, among others.<br /><br />The documentation at <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Skm">VroniPlag</a> has one third of the pages containing plagiarism.<br /><br />Koch-Mehrin has stepped down from official duties except for her mandate in the European Parliament. In September 2011 <a href="http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/archiv/2011/kochmehrin137.html">news media</a> in Germany complained that she was not even attending parliamentary meetings, although still a member .<br /><br />Her lawyer notes that the next step would be to take the university to court, but she herself has not stated whether she will take that step or not.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8247199470280810590?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-46160127296423876982011-12-03T00:26:00.001+01:002011-12-03T01:12:43.310+01:00The DFG, the German federal research financing board, held a conference on good scientific practice on Nov. 29, 2011 in Berlin. I was not asked to talk, but was permitted to attend the closed conference.<br /><br />The first session was about the current state of quality assurance at the large extra-university research institutions. Since universities are financed by the state governments in Germany, the federal government can't give them money directly. The solution has been to move the research out to research institutions, but that has the problem of them not being doctorate granting institutions. So they keep close ties with universities, often offering the universities money if they will award a professorship to a deserving department head so that he (rarely she) can be proposing doctoral candidates to the dissertation board. The professors are then usually then "loaned back" to the research institution.<br /><br />One interesting link I noted was to a talk that Max Weber gave in 1922 on science as a profession (<a href="http://www.textlog.de/2333.html"><i>Wissenschaft als Beruf</i></a>). But most of what they were talking about seemed to be great ideas that are not really anchored in reality. Each of the sessions had a long time for discussions, and the 200 people in attendance were not shy about asking questions or giving statement.<br /><br />I found one statement to be very fitting - the woman asked why we were being so concerned with the "bad children", the plagiarizing or falsifying doctoral students. Shouldn't we be looking more closely at the "bad parents", the doctoral advisors? I fully agree with this! I was also pleased that persons other than myself called for a national board such as the <a href="http://ori.hhs.gov/about/">ORI</a> in the USA. It was a bit sobering to hear people such as the rector of a large southern university state that he regularly uses so-called plagiarism detection software even though he knows that it doesn't work, but as a deterrent, because the students think that it <b>does</b> find plagiarism.&nbsp; <br /><br />The second session was about the current situation in Germany for securing good scientific practice. A bit of history was explained, for example, how the <a href="http://www.dfg.de/service/presse/pressemitteilungen/2000/pressemitteilung_nr_26/index.html">Hermann/Brach</a> case led the DFG to formulate their rules for good scientific practice. Wolfgang Löwer, the Ombud for good scientific practice at the DFG gave an interesting talk on hierarchies vs. independence of the researchers. He mentioned a case that was <a href="http://www.zeit.de/studium/hochschule/2011-12/plagiat-bonn-aachen/seite-1">mentioned in the press</a> a few days later about a curious case of a doctoral student being accused of plagiarism, because she reused texts that she herself had written under a pseudonym for her advisor.<br /><br />Diethelm Klippel from the University of Bayreuth summed up the conference that was held there a few days ago (I hope to report on that soon as well), and then Christopher Baum from the medical university in Hanover gave a good overview of the problems associated with whistleblowing.<br /><br />The third session was entitled "Promotion - Quo vadis?" and was more or less a round of back-patting.<br /><br />The symposium closed with a very interesting podium discussion, and a number of politicians showed up for this. The DFG filmed the discussion and has it available <a href="http://www.dfg.de/service/termine_veranstaltungen/2011/111129_gwp_veranstaltung/index.jsp">online</a>. I feel that it is a consequence of the work invested in GuttenPlag and VroniPlag that this podium - with the vice president of the <i>Hochschulrektorenkonferenz</i> (Klaus Dicke), the president of the DFG (Matthias Kleiner), and the chair of the <i>Wissenschaftsrat</i> (Wolfgang Marquardt), the journalist who broke the zu Guttenberg story (Tanjev Schultz) and the doctoral student (Tobias Bunde) who initiated the signatory list - actually took place.<br /><br />There were lots of good discussions during the breaks - I hope that something comes of this and not that people feel that they've done enough now. There is plenty more to do. I insist that we need <i>Beratung</i>, <i>Transparenz</i> and <i>Kontrolle</i>, (advice, transparency, and control) and that that needs to be in a federal, independent entity. We'll see how it goes in the new year.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-4616012729642387698?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-91433874804925495972011-12-02T23:42:00.001+01:002011-12-03T00:25:59.454+01:00There are now two cases of people accused of plagiarism who have been permitted to keep their doctorates, as determined by the respective universities.<br /><ul><li><b>Johannes Hahn, University of Vienna</b><br />The former Austrian Minister of Education and current Member of the European Parliamenthad been accused previously of having plagiarized his dissertation (a number of articles can be found at the blog <a href="http://plagiatsgutachten.de/blog.php/tag/johannes-hahn/"><i>Plagiatsgutachten</i></a>). The University of Vienna reopened the case, hemmed and hawed, asked for expertises, and then decided that the thesis would have been unacceptable today, but they could not determine what "rules for quotations" were valid 25 years ago. Many people found this shocking, as pretty much the same rules for quotations have been in place for more than 25 years. <br />Reports can be found at <i><a href="http://diepresse.com/home/bildung/universitaet/706113/HahnDiss_Kein-Plagiat-waere-heute-aber-unzureichend">Die Presse</a></i> -<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,795956,00.html"><i> Spiegel Online</i></a> - <a href="http://medienportal.univie.ac.at/presse/aktuelle-pressemeldungen/detailansicht/artikel/dissertation-hahn-kein-plagiat/">Official university statement</a></li><li><b>Bernd Althusmann, University of Potsdam</b><br />The current Minister of Education in Lower Saxony and chairman of the German national board of Ministers of Education (in Germany, education is the responsibility of the states, not the federal government) was accused of plagiarism in the newspaper <a href="http://www.zeit.de/2011/28/Althusmann-Dissertation-Plagiat"><i>Die Zeit</i></a> in July. The University of Potsdam took the issue up and looked into the thesis. Everyone agrees that the thesis is pretty bad. Some even say that it <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,801093,00.html">should never have been accepted</a>. But the problem is, the doctorate was granted, and the rules say that in order to rescind the doctorate, you have to prove that he knowingly cheated. Much of the plagiarism is of the sloppy kind that you normally throw in the face of a bachelor student and demand a rewrite. It appears that he was actually asked to rewrite one or two times, and then they gave up and gave him a <i>rite</i> on it, a grade meaning "go away and stay away from university, but you can put the letters in front of your name". The commission felt that they could not prove intention, just sloppiness, and so <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,800684,00.html">did not rescind his doctorate</a>. There is a good discussion on the blog <a href="https://deplagio.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/universitat-potsdam-entlastet-althusmann/">de plagio</a> explaining the reasoning. </li></ul>My problem, today, is that I caught a student plagiarizing three times. Okay,&nbsp; I hadn't graded the lecture summaries for 2 weeks, so there were four half page reports for each student to grade. One student stole from the Wikipedia twice, and a tutorial once. The first Wikipedia one was easy, he forgot to remove the links to other Wikipedia articles. The second one he even had the word "Wikipedia" on the page, but didn't use quotation marks. The third one was stolen from a tutorial site, and easy to note, as in the middle of the second paragraph it said "In this tutorial....".<br /><br />Now, if I apply the reasoning above or the reasoning zu Guttenberg uses, if the plagiarist is busy or does not know the rules, then it's not plagiarism.&nbsp; Which pretty much means that we can pack in as teachers. How can we enforce tough plagiarism policies, when education leaders get let off the hook for sloppiness?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-9143387480492549597?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-77854066462524818422011-12-02T23:08:00.001+01:002011-12-02T23:15:03.432+01:00I've got an enormous backlog of things I've been meaning to post. Commoncraft, the folks with the wonderful cut-out, stop-motion videos, decided to explain "<a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/video/plagiarism">plagiarism</a>". It's a shame the licensing fee is so steep, this should be a standard part of an introductory course on writing in college. I'm just including the link here. <br /><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7785406646252481842?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-24030964769754662992011-11-27T20:54:00.003+01:002011-11-27T21:13:58.990+01:00Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg reappeared on the German scene this past week. He gave the editor in chief of the weekly newspaper <span style="font-style: italic;">Die Zeit</span>, Giovanni di Lorenzo, a three-day interview that is to be published next week as a book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Vorest gescheitert</span> (Failed - for the time being). A portion of the interview was published <a href="http://www.zeit.de/2011/48/DOS-Guttenberg">online</a>, a longer version with nice pictures was published in this week's <span style="font-style: italic;">Zeit</span>.<br /><br />I must admit to having be extremely angry when I read the interview. di Lorenzo so often quits asking questions on sensitive topics and switches to other topics, such as if he is going to start a new party and when he will be coming back. zu Guttenberg does not admit to having plagiarized, but keeps coming up with excuses. He had over 80 diskettes, and 4 computers, and 2 kids, and this and that and another excuse and this and that and I was really scatterbrained and and and and.<br /><br />He just does not understand why plagiarism is a problem for science - the only thing we have is our credibility. If we lie or steal, we are no longer reliable. If we pretend to be authors of something that is from someone else, we are liars.<br /><br />Luckily, the rest of the press pretty much heaped scorn on zu Guttenberg. The best one was a <a href="http://www.sueddeutsche.de/leben/nachgefragt-beim-ex-minister-was-guttenberg-wirklich-sagen-wollte-1.1218058">faked interview</a> in the Süddeutsche Zeitung about zu Guttenberg looking like the soccer player Lothar Matthäus, with answers that Guttenberg gave di Giovanni. If you understand German, you will enjoy this interview.<br /><br />One hopes that he returns to the US and finds something useful to do for society. I don't think, however, that writing another dissertation in the US will be a good idea for him to try. Maybe he can learn a useful trade.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-2403096476975466299?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-71059023161364012672011-11-07T00:18:00.000+01:002011-11-07T00:18:38.712+01:00The case of Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel from the University of Tilburg has made headlines in many countries. I just want to make a short note so that the articles are linked here. He fabricated data on a large scale for several dozen publications, including <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6026/251"><i>Science</i></a>, so that the data better fit what he wanted to prove. <br /><br /><ul><li><i>Spiegel</i> <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,795476,00.html">article</a> (in German) </li><li><i>Chronicle</i> <a href="https://chronicle.com/blogs/global/dutch-professor-is-found-to-have-committed-extensive-academic-fraud/31400">article</a> on the extent of the fraud </li><li><i>Chronicle</i> <a href="https://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/the-fraud-who-fooled-almost-everyone/27917">article</a> on how he managed to fool people</li></ul>The <i>Science</i> article, published in April of this year, has not yet been retracted. But the editors have added links to articles about the fraud.<br /><br />Stapel seems to have often offered colleagues "data" that fit their hypotheses, thus being listed as co-author. They now have to deal with the retractions.<br /><br />Six young researchers were the whistleblowers in the case, apparently some tenured professors had felt something was wrong, but did not have the courage to act on their instincts. <br /><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7105902316136401267?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-73865198664492146872011-11-01T23:32:00.002+01:002011-11-02T00:06:07.402+01:00So sorry not to be keeping up, but the beginning of a semester is always a time sink and this one was no different - plus all the VroniPlag work.<br /><br />I owe my English-language readers the next three cases published on the home page of VroniPlag:<br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Case 14</span>: The first medical plagiarism in the collection and the first habilitation, the second doctorate that is written in Germany, submitted by <a href="de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Ut">Ulf Teichgräber</a> to the Charité, Berlin. This is a very strange work, as it incorporates large portions of three doctoral theses that were done by people in his department - and one which was submitted <span style="font-weight: bold;">after</span> the habilitation. There are some mighty strange plagiarisms here, 29% of the pages are from this doctorate submitted later and page 101 of the habilitation includes "blah blah blah see figure 3-6 blah blah blah" which is an exact copy of the doctorate. Except the figure - which is also taken from the doctorate - was renumbered in the habilitation to be figure 4-20. The <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Ut/Herausragende_Fundstellen"><span style="font-style: italic;">herausragende Fundstellen</span></a>, the outstanding discoveries, is a long and fascinating documentation and includes passages taken from common publications of the four. The Charité has apparently already investigated this and found it to be okay. I sent a written protest to the dean in the hopes that the investigation will be reopened.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Case 15</span>: <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Pes">Patrick Ernst Sensburg</a>, member of parliament for the CDU and professor at a college that educates public servants, submitted his thesis to the distance education University of Hagen. He has the distinction of having the first thesis to have a typo in the title. He <a href="http://www.patrick-sensburg.de/article/20111021541213">took up the gauntlet</a>, choosing the weakest fragments documented by VroniPlag and discussing them on his home page, completely ignoring the strongest fragments. Unfortunately, one cannot comment there. He complained to the press that one cannot comment on VroniPlag - strange, as it uses a MediaWiki under the hood that permits a discussion page for each and every page, and there is a forum available - and that one cannot contact the VroniPlag people to discuss things. One magazine offered to set up a discussion between me and Mr. Sensburg, I immediately agreed, but he decided not to pursue this avenue of discussion until his university has reached a decision. So be it.<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Case 16</span>: <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Dd">Detlev Dähnert</a>, honorary professor of the engineering college in Lausitz and manager at the Vattenfall Europe Carbon Storage. Earlier this year anonymous persons set up a VattenPlag Wiki that got itself removed. They had published a link in the VroniPlag forum and the press picked it up, stating that "VroniPlag" had discovered plagiarism. Okay, that starts with "V", too. Anyway, out of curiosity one of the VroniPlag researchers started looking, and soon found plagiarisms. But since only a digital copy of the thesis was available, it took some time to locate and obtain a printed copy. Only when a printed copy can be verified to be identical to the digital copy that is available, will the VroniPlag group go out with a name for the plagiarized work. In the meantime, the number of pages with plagiarism has topped 35%.<br /></li></ul>Is anything happening about all these plagiarisms? Yes. I attended a symposium put on by the <span style="font-style: italic;">Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung</span> (I seem not to have blogged about that) and the German parliamentary committee on education and research will be holding a <a href="http://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/ausschuesse17/a18/anhoerungen/Qualit__t_wissenschaftlicher_Arbeiten/index.html">hearing</a> Nov. 9, 2011 on the topic. I have been asked to participate as an expert witness. And the DFG is holding a (closed) discussion day on the topic the end of November.<br /><br />I have taken to liken changes in the German educational system to glacial movements. Even though many are disappointed that things are not happening faster, the glacier is receding, very slowly, but things are indeed happening. This is very encouraging.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7386519866449214687?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-22342899508565250742011-10-18T23:38:00.005+02:002011-10-19T00:49:09.797+02:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9KcyT_eNPzY/Tp4BJhyBWxI/AAAAAAAAAA4/2MhNkeLwdPY/s1600/Zertifikat.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 230px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9KcyT_eNPzY/Tp4BJhyBWxI/AAAAAAAAAA4/2MhNkeLwdPY/s320/Zertifikat.jpg" alt="Prize certificate" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5664966644477287186" border="0" /></a>This evening at a reception for our new professors Michael Heine, the president of our school, the University of Applied Sciences HTW Berlin, presented me with an award as the school's "Science Communicator" of the year for my work with the press about the plagiarism scandals in Germany this year.<br /><br />The press secretary collected up the original clippings from her clippings file for the year to date (only making copies for herself) and put them in a folder - a big folder. And they gave me a megaphone, painted in the school colors, that is to travel each year to the current prize holder.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-It45DCIMciI/Tp4BT9LSkDI/AAAAAAAAABE/euoZZj1FDmY/s1600/Megaphone.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-It45DCIMciI/Tp4BT9LSkDI/AAAAAAAAABE/euoZZj1FDmY/s320/Megaphone.jpg" alt="Green megaphone" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5664966823629721650" border="0" /></a><br /><br />They told me that they had quite a time locating one, as they are no longer in general use. This is an old one from the Bavarian police, still usable, and painted up in a local body shop.<br /><br />I tried to spread out all the clippings on the dining room table, but it really wasn't large enough. And oh my, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Bild-Zeitung</span> article was on the front page of every single edition of the paper, country wide.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RpooWMDX1fk/Tp4BcvcShjI/AAAAAAAAABQ/oA-jCVot0LQ/s1600/Clippings.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RpooWMDX1fk/Tp4BcvcShjI/AAAAAAAAABQ/oA-jCVot0LQ/s320/Clippings.jpg" alt="A lot of clippings" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5664966974561748530" border="0" /></a><br />I thanked the president - my school has really been great over the past 10 years. Not every school would find it cool to be associated with plagiarism. I've enjoyed a sabbatical, in which I developed <a href="http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/ff/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Fremde Federn Finden</span></a> (that is dated and needs a chapter on zu Guttenberg &amp; Co), and has often given me student researchers for getting the work done and lets me run my plagiarism site off of the school servers.<br /><br />The good thing is that the press now gets the name of the school spelled right - best advertising you can get for free!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-2234289950856525074?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-39006551787702965122011-10-09T23:57:00.004+02:002011-10-10T00:06:51.854+02:00The University of Münster in Germany has barred a professor from accepting doctoral students for two years, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Westfälische Nachrichten</span> <a href="http://www.westfaelische-nachrichten.de/lokales/muenster/hochschule/1726594_Zwei_Jahre_Sperre_fuer_Doktorvater_Professor_war_unachtsam.html">reports</a>.<br /><br />In July 2011 the university <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2011/07/medical-doctorate-rescinded.html">rescinded a doctorate</a> that was found to have replicated one submitted to the same advisor a few years earlier. The duplicate disseration was found by a Wikipedia editor researching a topic.<br /><br />The university continued the investigation into the role of the advisor. It was decided that he had been "inattentive", not remembering that he had seen the same thesis a few years earlier. The faculty voted to give him two years time to work on focusing his attention - he is not allowed to advise doctoral students during that time, but can continue to teach and keeps his job as a professor.<br /><br />He has been quite a popular advisor, and was given a prize for teaching just prior to the story of the duplicate dissertation breaking.<br /><br />The university hopes that everything is now okay, as they make all doctorates and advisors sign a contract with each other and run all the theses through a software system.<br /><br />On the basis of my <a href="http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software-en/2010-2/">tests</a> of plagiarism detection systems I would not be so sure.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3900655178770296512?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-60822948571222235252011-10-07T23:12:00.003+02:002011-10-08T00:31:29.829+02:00I attended and spoke at a one-day conference "<span class="">Responsible conduct of research in academic medicine - From neglect to action plan"</span> at the Charité in Berlin today on good scientific practice. The speakers:<br /><ul><li><div class="ace-line" id="magicdomid252"><span class="">Jens Georg Reich (</span><span class="">Max-Delbrück-Center of Molecular Medicine, Berlin and German <span style="font-style: italic;">Ethikrat</span>) spoke on "Ethic topics in modern biomedical research"</span></div></li><li><span class="">Gretchen Brodnicki, J.D. (Dean for Faculty and Research Integrity, Harvard Medical School, USA)<br />Coordinated approach to research integrity at Harvard Medical School - Lessons learned</span></li><li><span class="">Ulrich Dirnagl (</span>Center for Stroke Research Berlin, Department of Experimental Neurology, Charité)<br />Why most published research findings are false: GSP to the rescue<br /></li><li>John C. Galland (Director, Division of Education and Integrity, <a href="http://ori.hhs.gov/">Office of Research Integrity</a>, US Dept. of Health and Human Services, Rockville MD, USA)<br />Implementing and monitoring responsible conduct of research in academic medicine: The ORI experience</li><li>Sabine Kleinert (Senior Executive Editor, The Lancet, London, UK and Vice-Chair of <a href="http://publicationethics.org/">COPE</a> (Committee on Publication Ethics))<br />Plagiarism, duplicate publication and text recycling</li><li>Hubert Rehm (Freelance Journalist, Freiburg, Germany)<br />Research misconduct in the German medical system: Role of whistle blowing and investigative journalism<br /></li></ul>In the afternoon there were three sessions, one on "Teaching and implementing a culture of responsible conduct of research", one I gave with a colleague on "'GSP - Forensics': Tools and approaches to detect misconduct", and one on "Sanctioning misconduct in academic research".<br /><br />The plenary sessions were held in the anatomy department in a steep lecture theater in wood with inkwells (!) [I thought all day that this would be a great place to put an electrical outlet]. Along the back row were what one participant noted was the data of the anatomists: a large collection of skulls.<br /><br />My head is spinning from all the information I took in, here just a few points:<br /><ul><li>The USA is lightyears ahead of Germany on Good Scientific Practice. They have training courses, GSP officers, procedures, national bodies, a cool <a href="http://ori.hhs.gov/TheLab/">interactive movie</a> on avoiding research misconduct, great <a href="http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts">flowcharts</a> on what to do if you suspect scientific misconduct, info material on <a href="http://ori.hhs.gov/education/products/plagiarism/">avoiding plagiarism</a>, etc.</li><li>A national repository for original data is necessary.</li><li>Training and procedures for dealing with allegations must be the top priority in Germany at the moment.</li><li>John Galland had a cool formula for Research Excellence:<br /><br />RE = β1T + β2R + β3V +β4 C<br /><br />T = does tasks well<br />R = builds strong relationships<br />V = has a vision<br />C = is a person of character<br /><br />The coefficients βi are between 0.0 and 1.0. He asserts that most researchers are at a RE factor of 0.8 and exhorts people to strive for 1.0 by working together.</li><li>Hubert Rehm talked about a number of German scandals, I didn't know all of them: Nazi doctor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Rascher">Sigmund Rascher</a> (the only person ever to be shot for scientific misconduct); Bernhard Schaller, known as the "<a href="http://www.laborjournal.de/rubric/archiv/editorials/205.lasso">Publicator</a>" for all the plagiarized papers he submits; Austrian incontinence researcher <a href="http://www.medical-tribune.at/dynasite.cfm?dsmid=93905&amp;dspaid=713582">Hannes Strasse</a>r accused of fabricating data; Nicolai Savaskan, doctor at the Charité accused of falsifying data. </li></ul>It is a great start to have so many researchers talking about good scientific praxis!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6082294857122223525?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-53255670031905099862011-10-03T01:52:00.001+02:002011-10-03T01:54:10.367+02:00An interesting article by Goetz Richter about the "<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/googling-baron-just-tip-of-plagiarism-iceberg/story-e6frgcko-1226153638872">Googling Baron just tip of plagiarism iceberg</a>" in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Australian:</span><br /><br /><blockquote>It must be concerning for anyone to witness the abuse of universities as failing clearance houses for political impressionism. For we must realise that one important conclusion from the sad matters in Germany is the increasing inability of universities to comply with their own standards of intellectual accountability only to be shown by volunteer websites how doctoral dissertations should have been supervised or examined.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5325567003190509986?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-53087662649112571272011-09-24T19:33:00.002+02:002011-09-24T23:07:49.564+02:00Goodness, you get busy with something else, and the VroniPlag count has again been upped. The new kids on the block are:<br /><ul><li><b>Case 11:</b> Arne Heller, a lawyer in Hamburg, submitted a <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Ah">dissertation</a> on managing boards. He is currently applying for a <i>habilitation</i>, the second doctorate necessary for a university professorship in Germany. There was a nasty spat that ensued over an <a href="http://www.zeit.de/studium/hochschule/2011-08/vroniplag-uni-hamburg">article</a> in <i>Die Zeit </i>accusing VroniPlag of letting itself be instrumentalized by unknown persons from the University of Hamburg using VroniPlag to subvert the <i>habilitation</i> process. Heller has, however, already passed Chatzimarkakis with the amount of plagiarism (72% of the pages) and is not too far behind the gold standard, zu Guttenberg (94% of the pages). Many VroniPlag activists joined the fight on the comments page, which run to 39 pages at the time this blog post is being written. </li><li><b>Case 12:</b> Martin Winkels submitted a <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Mw">dissertation</a> on the <i>Ostpolitik</i> that has plagiarism on 24% of the pages. Since he is neither a politician or well known, there was a longish discussion about whether the name should be made public or not. The VroniPlag group voted that since a thesis is published, it is fair to discuss it and its author. The vote was not unanimous, however. </li><li><b>Case 13:</b> Daniel Volk, Member of the German Parliament for the FDP. His thesis on <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Dv">international law</a> is currently at just over 20% of the pages plagiarized. He insists to the press that nothing is wrong with his dissertation.</li></ul>It is also encouraging to see the activity that is starting in the fall term:<br /><ul><li>The Charité is holdling a <a href="http://www.charite.de/fileadmin/user_upload/portal/charite/organisation/veranstaltungen/2011/Oktober/Programmfolder-07-10-2011.pdf">symposium</a> in Berlin on October 7, 2011: "Responsible conduct of research in academic medicine: From neglect to action plan"&nbsp; </li><li>The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung will be holding a <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBkQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fes.de%2Fstudienfoerderung%2Fhochschul-und-bildungspolitik%2Fhochschul-und-bildungspolitik%2Fpublikationen%2F110818_FLYER_HSP_Plagiate_web.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Plagiatsfa%CC%88lle%20in%20der%20Wissenschaft%20Wie%20la%CC%88sst%20sich%20Qualita%CC%88tssicherung%20an%20Hochschulen%20verbessern%3F&amp;ei=JxN-TturCY-y8QOk392mAQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNGxFxaqQqF8le-mvg_PaZyJ72wgug&amp;cad=rja">conference</a> on October 11, 2011 about quality assurance at university that is said to be streamed on "Plagiatsfälle in der Wissenschaft -Wie lässt sich Qualitätssicherung an Hochschulen verbessern?"</li><li>The DFG is said to be having a conference the end of November, I don't have a prospectus yet.</li><li>I have been invited to speak at many gatherings, and have been asked to attend a parliamentary committee meeting as an expert witness. Both the Green party and the SPD have prepared motions about academic misconduct that they are planning on presenting to parliament.&nbsp;</li></ul>I will try and report on as many of these as possible so that non-German speakers can see what is happening.&nbsp; <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5308766264911257127?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-34303534229751565322011-09-15T23:53:00.002+02:002011-09-15T23:53:58.354+02:00This blog has reported a number of times on what I term fake or write-only publishers (<a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2011/01/spam-publishers.html">1</a> - <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2010/01/massive-write-only-publications.html">2</a> - <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2007/12/write-only-publications.html">3</a>). I am happy to report that German university libraries are fighting back - they are trying to avoid purchasing expensive rubbish.<br /><br />The<i> Süddeutsche Zeitun</i>g <a href="http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/wikipedia-kompilationen-bullshit-amen-okay-1.1015680">reports</a> that after some libraries realized that they were purchasing printed copies of material from the Wikipeida or dodgy bachelor's theses at outrageous prices, they have begun only purchasing the books - often badly produced print-on-demand volumes - with the possibility of returning the book. And they are keeping lists of the subpublishers that are springing up to disguise who is really behind the publishers. If a book is to be ordered from such a publisher, the librarians are asking back if the person ordering the book is aware of the common practices of these publishers.<br /><br />There is a long list of publishers that engage in practices like this:<br /><ul><li>Verlag VDM (Verlag Dr. Müller), &nbsp;Saarbrücken</li><ul><li>Alphascript Publishing&nbsp;</li><li>Betascript Publishing</li><li>Doyen Verlag</li><li>Verlag Classic Edition</li><li>Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften</li><li>Lambert&nbsp;Academic Publishing</li></ul></ul><ul><li>(General)Books LLC</li><li>Bucher LLC</li><li>GRIN-Verlag</li></ul><div>There are a lot of good sources online about these publishers (these are mostly in German):</div><div><br /></div><div>General:</div><ul><li>Tobias Bolsmann: „<a href="http://www.derwesten.de/kultur/literatur/Verlage-verkaufen-Kopien-von-Wikipedia-Texten-id3792294.htm">Verlage verkaufen Kopien von Wikipedia-Texten</a>.“ In:&nbsp;Der Westen. Portal der WAZ-Mediengruppe, Oktober 2010</li><li>Corinna Nohn: „<a href="http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/dubiose-online-lexika-der-grosse-wikinepp-1.1006565">Der große Wikineppp. Dubiose Online-Lexika</a>“ In:&nbsp;sueddeutsche.de vom 30.09.2010</li><li>Thomas Thiel: “Der Marketpl<a href="http://www.faz.net/s/RubCF3AEB154CE64960822FA5429A182360/Doc~E7A20980B9C0D46E99A9F60BC09506343~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html">ace soll es richten. Wikipedia und Amazon</a>”,&nbsp;27. September 2010</li></ul>VDM and their imprints:<br /><ul><li>Persönliche Seite des Wikipedia-Nutzers “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_Publishing_sells_free_articles_as_expensive_books">Prime Hunter</a>” in der engl. Wikipedia, mit zahlreichen Links, September 2010&nbsp;</li><li>Jürger Plieninger im netbib-Blog zu <a href="http://log.netbib.de/archives/2010/08/09/selbes-geschaftsmodell-wie-vdm/">Lambert AP</a>, August 2010</li><li>Blog von Chris Rand: „<a href="http://www.chrisrand.com/blog/index.php/2010/02/27/odd-tale-alphascript-publishing-betascript-publishing/">The odd tale of Alphascript Publishing and Betascript Publishin</a>g”, Februar 2010</li><li>Victoria Strauss, <a href="http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2009/09/victoria-strauss-vdm-verlag-dr-mueller.html">The Writer Beware Blogs zu VDM</a>, September 2009</li><li>Klaus Graf: “<a href="http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5756909/">Mehr zum Verlag Dr. Müller</a>“, samt Reaktion des Verlegers, Juni 2009</li><li>Meike Strüber: „<a href="http://www.sueddeutsche.de/jobkarriere/artikel/158/184579/">Einband fürs Ego</a>: Noch nie war es so einfach, die eigene&nbsp;Abschlussarbeit nach dem Studium als Buch herauszubringen. Die stolzen&nbsp;Autoren werden jedoch in den seltensten Fällen reich und berühmt“, in:&nbsp;sueddeutsche.de vom 11. Juli 2008</li><li>Diskussion in <a href="http://www.ub.uni-dortmund.de/listen/inetbib/msg35566.html">INETBIB</a> (mit den Schwerpunkten Autorenanwerbung des&nbsp;Verlags, Pflichtexemplarrecht), Januar 2008:</li><li>Blog des ehem. Fachreferenten Philosophie J.G. Eberhardt (UB Erlangen) &nbsp;zum Thema <a href="http://philobar.blogspot.com/search/label/VDM">Reprints des VDM-Verlags</a>, Februar 2007 – Mai 2008; inkl.&nbsp;Drohungen des Verlags:&nbsp;Siehe auch: URL: <a href="http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4442450/">http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4442450/</a></li></ul><br />(General) Books LLC and Bucher LLC<br /><ul><li>Andreas Weigel: „<a href="http://members.aon.at/andreas.weigel/Maengeleditionen.htm">Denken Sie, dass Sie das Buch verbessern kann</a>?“,&nbsp;September 2010 &nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Andreas Weigel: „<a href="http://members.aon.at/andreas.weigel/Bucher-LLC">Zweifelhafte „James Joyce“-Publikation mit&nbsp;Austriaca-Schwerpunkt</a>“ [with many pictures of the publication], September&nbsp;2010</li><li>Discussion in the German Wikipedia about the copyright questions involved with publications from Bucher LLC</li><li><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Urheberrechtsfragen&amp;oldid=79507092#Buch_bei_Amazon_aka_Bucher_LLC_aka_Books_LLC">Diskussion von Urheberrechtsfragen in der dtspr. Wikipedia</a>:</li></ul>&nbsp;Hopefully, more and more libraries will realize that these are not legitimate publishers, and quit ordering books from them.<div><br /></div><div>Thanks to C.W. for the linklist!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3430353422975156532?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-11900468614833176372011-09-15T12:56:00.001+02:002011-09-15T23:18:40.607+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>The <a href='http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.urteil-in-mannheim-umstrittener-physiker-ist-doktortitel-los.f8d0b54e-3ce0-4755-a53f-49c06cbca594.html' target='_blank'>Stuttgarter Zeitung</a> (via dpa) reports that <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6n_scandal' target='_blank'>Jan Hendrik Schön</a> has lost his Dr. for good.<br/><br/>Schön, a physicist and shooting star in research, was awarded a doctorate 1998 from the University of Konstanz in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. He moved to a large research organization (Bell Labs) in the US and began producing amazing results in the area of nanotechnolgy - at times publishing one paper every 8 days. 17 papers were published in <i>Science</i> and <i>Nature</i>,  before it was discovered that he was fabricating data. <br/><br/>A number of researchers became suspicious about the exactness of his measurements in 2001, in 2002 Bell Labs started an internal investigation. They determined that at least 16 papers were based on fabricated data, and fired him on the spot. Prized that had been awarded him were revoked, and co-authors withdrew some of the papers. <i>Science</i> withdrew 8, <i>Nature</i> 7 of his publications. <small>(The papers are listed in the Wikipedia article linking his name)</small><br/><br/>The University of Konstanz was so angered by this - and the ensuing public debate about scientific misconduct - that his doctorate was revoked in 2004. It was not revoked on the grounds that his doctorate was false, but on the basis of a state law that provides for revocation on grounds of "dishonorable conduct". There was some controversy about his, because the law was used in the Third Reich to strip doctorates from Jewish scientists.<br/><br/>Schön sued the university and won, and the university appealed to the state court. They overturned the ruling of the lower court, and since this is a state law, no appeal to the federal court is possible. The doctorate remains rescinded. <br/><br/>It was a long, long process, but it is good to know that the courts are upholding decisions taken by the universities. It will be interesting to see if this has any relevance for the other cases in which doctorates were rescinded on the basis of plagiarism, and the former doctorate holders suing the universities. <br/> <br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-1190046861483317637?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-90807843647085062282011-09-12T11:36:00.001+02:002011-09-13T18:23:49.778+02:00<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The German business daily newspaper <i>Handelsblatt</i> <a href="http://blog.handelsblatt.com/handelsblog/2011/09/12/eigenplagiate-von-bruno-frey-weitere-falle-entdeckt/" target="_blank">reports</a> on the case of Bruno Frey, a well-known economics professor in Zürich. There had been a bit of fuss in <a href="http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/oekonomie/nachrichten/staroekonom-schreibt-bei-sich-selbst-ab/4367878.html" target="_blank">July</a> when colleagues discovered that he had published four papers about the sinking of the Titanic with co-authors Benno Torgler and David Savage without mentioning that pretty much the same papers had already been published elsewhere. The texts were not identical, but the research was, and each paper suggests that it is the only one presenting the results. <br /><br />The "Journal of Economic Perspectives" (JEP) has formally censured him, the "Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization" (JEBO) has blacklisted the authors and will not accept any further papers from them. Frey and Torgler have said that Savage is not at fault and have tendered excuses at 3 of the 4 journals <small>[German language detail: The article says that they "excused themselves", I always thought you had to ask the other party to excuse you --dww]</small>. Apparently, Frey had not gotten around to writing to the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" (PNAS) before the <i>Handelsblatt</i>&nbsp;<i> </i>started its investigations. <br /><br />The whole issue seems to have started with the blog <i>Economic Logic</i> and an entry entitled "<a href="http://economiclogic.blogspot.com/2011/04/on-ethics-of-research-cloning.html" target="_blank">On the ethics of research cloning</a>". The author of the blog had a good look at the CVs of the senior authors and finds evidence both of slicing results very thin in order to get much publication mileage out of them, as well as republishing the same results multiple times. In the comments a number of other clones showed up, and a <a href="http://freyplag.wikia.com/wiki/FreyPlag_Wiki" target="_blank">FreyPlagWiki</a> (the currently popular German way to collect evidence on scientific misconduct and plagiarism) was set up. <br /><br />Interesting things have popped up, such as Frey exempting his doctoral students from coursework now required by the University in Zürich, or his being dropped from an editorial board without explaination, according to a <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://economiclogic.blogspot.com/2011/09/bruno-frey-bubble.html" target="_blank">followup blog entry</a>. <br /><br />The Handelsblatt author Olaf Storbeck has set up a <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=de&amp;key=0AuEtgCUuVBDUdFlVc3ZIR2dsRFd1d29iWndjNVdVSFE&amp;hl=de&amp;gid=0" target="_blank">Google Table</a> documenting the cloning in 5 papers - it would be great if this and FreyPlagWiki were unified. It is a wiki, after all.<br /><i><br /></i><br /><b>Update</b><i>: "<a href="http://www.20min.ch/finance/news/story/-Ich-habe-mich-zu-wenig-selbst-zitiert--23158193">Ich habe mich zu wenig selbst zitiert</a>"</i></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-9080784364708506228?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-14704102902907254072011-09-11T23:33:00.001+02:002011-09-12T21:15:30.701+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Andrew I Dayton notes in <a href='http://www.retrovirology.com/content/3/1/55' target='_blank'><em>Retrovirology</em></a> 2006, <strong>3</strong>:55 <span class='pseudotab'>doi:10.1186/1742-4690-3-55 that online journal clubs are springing up for debating papers before they are published (hopefully in an Open Access journal). He discusses </span><em><a href='http://JournalReview.org' target='_blank'>JournalReview.org</a></em>, which is primarily concerned with medical fields, as well as a few others. I do think that this is the way science <b>must</b> go!<br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-1470410290290725407?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-73975511998789361082011-08-09T12:18:00.002+02:002011-09-12T11:40:29.567+02:00<div style="font-family: inherit;">Hermann Horstkotte reports on <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,776909,00.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Spiegel Online</span></a> about a strange plagiarism case.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;">A young woman was working on her doctorate in law at the RWTH Aachen. Since there is no law faculty there, she had to submit her doctorate to the University of Bonn. But she did not submit until after she came back from an extended maternity leave.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;">Her professor in Aachen sent his glowing expertise on her thesis to the Bonn colleague, who, while reading the thesis, discovered that he had read that before. Indeed, the colleague from Aachen had published another volume of his "<span style="font-style: italic;">Handbuch für Europarecht</span>" during her maternity leave. 40 pages of this volume are identical to the thesis submitted.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;">Now we have the chicken and the egg problem: did the professor take the text from his doctoral student? Did she take the text from the handbook? Did both write the text together?</div><div style="font-family: inherit;">Aachen investigated the case and determined, that they could not determine who was the original author. They note that the professor should have noticed in his expertise that there was a large portion that matched his recent book. He agrees that this is a lapse on his part.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;">The University of Bonn now has to decide how to proceed with the case.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7397551199878936108?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-31702231121238665092011-08-08T17:34:00.003+02:002011-08-13T01:46:54.505+02:00Another VroniPlag case hits the 10% level: Prof. Dr. Cornelia Scott <br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110808144027/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/3/31/Cs_plag_graphic.png/600px-Cs_plag_graphic.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 600px; height: 127px;" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110808144027/vroniplag/de/images/thumb/3/31/Cs_plag_graphic.png/600px-Cs_plag_graphic.png" alt="" border="0" /></a> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />More details on the German professor who did her dissertation in Krakow, Poland, here: <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Cs">http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Cs</a> <br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3170223112123866509?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-58235509009955005882011-08-03T17:57:00.005+02:002011-08-03T23:35:07.451+02:00I do apologize to my English-speaking readers that I have not been writing the past few weeks. It is getting quite difficult to follow what is going on without a scorecard, even I get confused at times. And the media barrage has not let up, as there are new candidates up every few days. So here is my modest attempt to get you up to date:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/plagiate-2-potsdam-ruegt-emeritus/4457142.html">Mathematics professor at the University of Potsdam censured</a><br />This blog reported in <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2010/05/plagiarism-or-naturally-given.html">May 2010</a> <span> on the plagiarism dispute between Gumm and Denecke. The University of Potsdam has just revoked the rights that the now-retired Denecke had to still supervise dissertations, and he is to remove the publication from his CV, and withdraw the book from the market.</span></li><li><span class="author-p-10762"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Vs">Veronica Sass</a><br />Doctorate rescinded by the University of Konstanz<br /></span></li><li><span class="author-p-10762"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Mcp">Matthias Pröfrock</a><br /></span><span class="author-p-10762">Doctorate rescinded by the University of Tübingen</span><br /></li><li><span class="author-p-10762"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Skm">Silvana Koch-Mehrin</a><br /></span><span class="author-p-10762">Doctorate rescinded by the University of Heidelberg, she has legally challenged the decision</span><br /></li><li><span class="author-p-10762"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Gc">Georgios Chatzimarkakis</a><br /></span><span class="author-p-10762">Doctorate rescinded by the University of Bonn</span><br /></li><li><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Bds"><span class="author-p-10762">Bijan Djir-Sarai</span></a><span class="author-p-10624"><br />Plagiarism level is currently at 60% of the pages, the University of Cologne is investigating<br /></span><span class="author-p-10624"></span></li><li><span class="author-p-10762"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Ub">Uwe Brinkmann</a><br /></span><span class="author-p-10762">Doctorate rescinded by the University of Hamburg<br /></span></li><li><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Mm"><span class="author-p-10762">Margarita Mathiopoulos</span></a><span class="author-p-10624"><br />Plagiarism level is currently at 46 % of the pages, the University of Bonn is investigating</span><span class="author-p-10624 url"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Mm"></a></span><span class="author-p-10625"></span><span class="author-p-10624"></span></li><li><span class="author-p-10625"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Sh">Siegfried Haller</a> </span><span class="author-p-10625"><br /></span><span class="author-p-10624">Plagiarism level is currently at 21 % of the pages, the University of Halle-Wittenberg is investigating</span><br /></li><li><span class="author-p-10625"><a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Jg">Jürgen Goldschmidt</a><br />is the most recent member of the club, clocking in at a plagiarism level of 10% of the pages, the Technical University of Berlin is investigating. The entire nation is having a good laugh at his footnoting technique, which includes </span>"Tagesschau vom 02.12.2004" (on page 42 of the dissertation), "WDR vom 24.03.2007" (on page 51), and best of all "Super Illu 17/2005" (on page 45). <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superillu">SUPERillu</a> is a weekly family magazine often read in Eastern Germany,<span class="author-p-10625"> </span><span class="author-p-10625">leading Spiegel Online to headline "<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,776967,00.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Magna cum Super-Illu</span></a>". Mr. Goldschmidt tried to delete two sites that he runs on the topic of his dissertation, as they contained the sources for some of the plagiarism. Luckily, the Internet Archive had kept a copy for posterity. </span><a href="http://d-nb.info/990250806"><span class="author-p-10762"></span></a></li><li><a href="http://d-nb.info/990250806"><span class="author-p-10762">Bernd Althusmann</span></a><span class="author-p-10624"><br />The weekly newspaper <span style="font-style: italic;">Die Zeit</span> hired investigators to look into the dissertation of the minister of education of Lower Saxony, currently the speaker for the national committee on education. The calls for him to step down are getting louder and louder.</span></li><li><a href="http://www.rp-online.de/politik/deutschland/CDU-Kultusminister-soll-von-Student-abgeschrieben-haben_aid_1016007.html">Roland Wöller</a><br />The dissertation of the minister of education from Saxony was investigated in 2008, when it was determined that he had incorporated large portions of a master's thesis by another student into his work without proper attribution. The University of Dresden sent him a sharp letter reprimanding him and requesting that he "fix the footnotes" for future editions of the book, but they did not rescind his dissertation at the time. The thesis is being re-investigated by people outside of VroniPlag. Update: The media is trying to make a scandal out of this, as there is nothing else to report on. <a href="http://www.flurfunk-dresden.de/2011/07/28/roland-wollervroniplag-medienmeute-sitzt-verleumdung-gegen-kultusminister-auf/">Flurfunk</a> debunks the scandal.<br /></li></ul>As you can see, the weather has been horrible this summer in Germany, so people are learning how to find dissertations and check and document the sources used. And there appears to be quite a lot to find, all over the republic.<br /><br />Let me close this blog post with a quote from Gerhard Fröhlich, University of Linz, from an interview in the online <a href="http://junq.info/?p=908"><span style="font-style: italic;">Journal of Unsolved Questions</span></a>:<br /><blockquote><i>Self control mechanisms are a myth in science to avoid any serious external control. I have studied all fraud affairs precisely and in almost every case anonymous allegations coupled with mass media outrage – in most recent years with an interim period of outrage on the internet – were necessary before the institutions themselves agreed to take action.</i></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5823550900995500588?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-52450729020259820422011-07-20T07:51:00.002+02:002011-07-20T07:57:32.901+02:00The <span style="font-style: italic;">Nature</span> blog <a href="http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/07/plagiarism_charge_on_new_turks.html">reports</a> that the new Turkish Minister of Education, Ömer Dinçer, lost his title of professor in 2005 on the basis of plagiarism in a textbook published in his name. Turkish Council of Higher Education took back his professorship title, and Dinçer lost his legal appeals case.<br /><br /><p>But on July 8, 2011, the Turkish Council of Higher Education cleared him, and on July 13 he was appointed Minister of Education. <span style="font-style: italic;">Nature</span> spoke with the council, which confirmed that they had withdrawn the charge of plagiarism, but refused to elaborate. </p> <p>Since this is a publicly available textbook, I would hope that Turkish academics can quickly set up a wiki and document the extent of the alleged plagiarism, in order to let the public judge for themselves how extensive the copying is.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5245072902025982042?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-68297049133077905742011-07-15T19:21:00.000+02:002011-07-15T19:21:37.348+02:00A reader sends along this link: <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/07/penn-psychiatrist-accuses-five.html"><i>Penn Psychiatrist Accuses Five Colleagues of Plagiarism </i></a><br />by Jocelyn Kaiser on 13 July 2011<br /><br />It seems to be a case of ghostwriters and "honorary" authors. Quite troubling in the pharmaceutical research community, I feel.&nbsp;<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6829704913307790574?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-76883046222606124972011-07-15T16:56:00.000+02:002011-07-15T16:56:42.950+02:00The Law Faculty of the University of Hamburg has issued <a href="http://www.jura.uni-hamburg.de/nc/aktuelles/single/article/neue-richtlinie-durch-den-promotionsausschuss-beschlossen/">rules</a> for dealing with scientific honesty. They are stated so clearly and explained well, that there is no room for doubt. Here is my attempt at translation:<br /><ol><li>Without exception, the works, ideas and thoughts of others is to be shown the necessary respect by use of appropriate forms of textual layout.</li><li>Every word-for-word use must be set between quotation marks.</li><li>Even for paraphrase or summary instead of word-for-word use, appropriate denotation is to be given. </li><li>In paraphrase or summary, care must be taken not to attribute to the authors something they did not state. </li><li>Translations of texts in foreign languages are to be denoted with reference to the original source. If the translation is not word for word, it must be marked as such. If someone else's translation is used, this too is to be noted.</li><li> General knowledge need not be cited.</li><li>Self-plagiarism is not scientific misconduct per se, but every effort should be taken to give the source and note the extent of the use.</li><li>It is a clear case of scientific misconduct to use a ghostwriter. This is also the case, even if you have permission to use the text.</li><li>Authorship is not just a right, but also carries a responsibility. Substantial portions of work denote authorship. On the other hand, no one can claim authorship who has not done a substantial part of the work. Honorary authorship, hierarchical authorship, leadership authorship or authorship on the basis of obtaining resources are clear cases of scientific misconduct.</li><li>The assessment of dissertations will be done by the mentors will take these rules into consideration and will make sure that they are followed.</li><li>The assessments of dissertations must state whether and how it was made sure that these rules were followed.&nbsp;</li><li>It is obligatory to determine if the texts delivered for assessment follow the rules. The assessors must note what measures they have taken to ensure this.</li></ol>&nbsp;Any questions? &nbsp;<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7688304622260612497?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-83282904975558775212011-07-15T15:07:00.002+02:002011-07-15T16:23:55.189+02:00Very good. The Green Party in Germany has <a href="http://www.krista-sager.de/component/k2/item/2041-dr-grad-raus-aus-dem-personalausweis">submitted legislation</a> calling for the doctoral title to no longer be able to be included as part of the name on official ID cards: <a href="http://dip.bundestag.de/btd/17/051/1705195.pdf">http://dip.bundestag.de/btd/17/051/1705195.pdf</a><br /><br />Good luck with that, this is one step in the right direction! If you read German, the blog <a href="http://deplagio.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/der-plan-von-der-abschaffung-des-titels/#more-278">de plagio</a> has a thorough discussion of the use of titles in IDs in Germany. The author does not see this as useful, as people will continue to use it on their business cards. The author insists that people who lose their titles must automatically lose any public office. I'm definitely in on that one!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8328290497555877521?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-91991443547397706812011-07-15T14:04:00.000+02:002011-07-15T14:04:05.186+02:00The German University of Münster <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://campus.uni-muenster.de/campus-news.html?&amp;newsid=874&amp;cHash=04a8e32224c8191ff4ece04a68fb1440">announced</a> on July 14, 2011 that they have rescinded a doctorate from the medical faculty.<br /><br />A Wikipedia editor reports on a strange occurrence while researching an article about growth factors in prostate cancer in the Wikipedia <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Kurier/Edit?&amp;$NMW_TRANS$=ext#Wikipedia-Autoren_als_Plagiatsj.C3.A4ger.3F"><i>Kurier</i></a> from May 28, 2011. The editor was using a dissertation from 2006 as the basis for the Wikipedia article. Dissertations - the non-plagiarized ones - are very useful for this task, as they offer a succinct overview of the literature on the topic. <br /><br />The editor stumbled over the term <i>Xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx</i> something s/he had not heard before. It was references from a book from 1996. Instead of running to the library to get the book, the editor first asked the "all-knowing garbage heap" if there was anything on this term around. <br /><br />The editor was amazed to find a dissertation from 2009 on the same topic from the same university. The university puts all of its dissertations online, so only a click was necessary to download it. A short read was, as Yogi Berri would have put it, "déjà vu all over again". The editor thought this might just be a typo on the downloads page and that s/he now had two copies of the same dissertation. But no, each was by a different author. <br /><br />Since zu Guttenberg had just recently resigned and VroniPlag was under full steam investigating other dissertations, the editor began a side-by-side comparison. Except for minor (and sometime error-inducing) changes, the general introduction to the topic was identical, down to the the line breaks. Then it got worse: there were even identical results, discussions, and the dedication - except the names were changed. The CVs were, however, different. <br /><br />The editor was not sure what to do, consulted with some scientists. The unanimous opinion was: this must be reported to the authorities. So it happened, and the doctorate has been rightly rescinded from a practicing medical doctor in Westphalia.<br /><br />I have often stated, as here in the <a href="http://www.aerzteblatt.de/studieren/archiv/artikel.asp?src=&amp;id=89990&amp;p="><i>Deutsche Ärzteblatt</i></a>, that we need two kinds of doctorates for medicine: M.D. for the practicing doctors and Dr. med. for the researchers.<br /><br />I'm glad the University of Münster was so quick in reacting.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-9199144354739770681?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-5111784180785657122011-07-13T19:36:00.003+02:002011-07-13T23:14:30.366+02:00The University of Bonn <a href="http://www3.uni-bonn.de/Pressemitteilungen/198-2011">decided</a> today to rescind the doctorate it had granted to Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, German representative to the EU and (alternate) member of the Research Policy Board of the EU.<br /><br />I am relieved that the decision was so clear - and a bit proud that they note the work that VroniPlag did in uncovering the plagiarism. But it was clear to me that there was no other decision possible. Despite Chatzimarkakis' attempts to declare his "method" of citing sources as the Harvard method, or the Oxford method, the university made it very clear that this is not acceptable. Full stop.<br /><br />Chatzimarkakis has announced that he'll just do another doctorate. I think not - I can't believe that any professor would be willing to accept him as a doctoral student.<br /><br />The Spiegel Online has a nice <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,773996,00.html">commentary</a> on VroniPlag and anonymity - they interviewed me Monday about that. I think the author, Oliver Trenkamp, did a great job is pulling together all the arguments about why most of the VroniPlag people prefer to remain anonymous: It's not about us, it's about the thesis. And there are too many words of others in the thesis that are not clearly marked.<br /><br />There are many blog comments and newspaper articles, I'll try to link to some: <a href="http://deplagio.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/ein-guter-tag-fur-die-wissenschaft/#more-248">de plagio</a> - <a href="http://www.sprengsatz.de/?p=3695&amp;utm_source=Sprengsatz&amp;utm_medium=twiddern">Sprengsatz</a> - <a href="http://www.saarbruecker-zeitung.de/sz-berichte/themen/Jorgo-Loewenherz-gibt-nicht-auf;art2825,3844992#.Th2Tuc1J_sI">Saarbrücker Zeitung</a> bedauert der arme GC - <a href="http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/tid-22936/plagiatsaffaere-um-jorgo-chatzimarkakis-der-naechste-doktor-blender-ist-enttarnt_aid_645571.html">focus</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-511178418078565712?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-4090985410696276852011-07-10T22:32:00.002+02:002011-07-10T22:38:31.585+02:00Plagiarized doctoral theses are not only to be found in Germany. Janet Stemwedel reports on <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://scientopia.org/blogs/ethicsandscience/2011/07/07/what-are-honest-scientists-to-do-about-a-master-of-deception/">Adventures in Ethics and Science</a> on the case of chemist Bengü Sezen. She links to <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/89/i28/8928notw1.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Chemical &amp; Engineering News</span></a> with a report on the disseration and three other papers. She quotes:<br /><blockquote>The documents—an investigative report from Columbia and HHS’s subsequent oversight findings—show a massive and sustained effort by Sezen over the course of more than a decade to dope experiments, manipulate and falsify NMR and elemental analysis research data, and create fictitious people and organizations to vouch for the reproducibility of her results. ...<br />A notice in the Nov. 29, 2010, Federal Register states that Sezen falsified, fabricated, and plagiarized research data in three papers and in her doctoral thesis. Some six papers that Sezen had coauthored with Columbia chemistry professor Dalibor Sames have been withdrawn by Sames because Sezen’s results could not be replicated. ...<br />By the time Sezen received a Ph.D. degree in chemistry in 2005, under the supervision of Sames, her fraudulent activity had reached a crescendo, according to the reports. Specifically, the reports detail how Sezen logged into NMR spectrometry equipment under the name of at least one former Sames group member, then merged NMR data and used correction fluid to create fake spectra showing her desired reaction products.</blockquote>Correction fluid? I thought that state-of-the-art fakes used Photoshop these days.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-409098541069627685?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-57953158753575160432011-07-07T21:44:00.001+02:002011-07-07T21:47:47.850+02:00Just stumbled over this blog, <a href="http://elnaschiewatch.blogspot.com/2010/05/concise-introduction-to-mohamed-el.html">El Naschie Watch</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote><span class="fullpost">"Dr. Mohamed El Naschie is pseudoscientist crackpot who makes grandiose claims about being a "paradigm-shifting" high-energy physicist. He also claims that he deserves the Nobel Prize several times over, and has been nominated for it, but that it has been denied him because he's Egyptian, Muslim, and named Mohamed. He does not tolerate criticism and has earned a reputation as a legal bully.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br /></span><span class="fullpost">El Naschie is the founder of a nonsense theory of "fractal Cantorian space-time" that he calls "E-Infinity theory". By founding the Elsevier journal <em>Chaos, Solitons and Fractals</em> in 1991, and being its Editor-in-Chief, he managed to publish hundreds of numerological screeds disguised as real physics. As Editor-in-Chief, he was able to avoid peer review for himself, and to publish otherwise unpublishable papers for favored acolytes. In this way he attracted a dozen or so loyal followers, the "E-Infinity group" or "Brotherhood" as we call them on El Naschie Watch. The most famous, or infamous, member other than El Naschie himself is Prof. Ji-Huan He of Donghua University in Shanghai. Ji-Huan He has called El Naschie "The greatest scientist since Newton and Einstein". Another well-known member is Prof. Otto Rössler of the University of Tübingen, who made the news with warnings that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN might make a black hole that would swallow the Earth."<br /></span><br /></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5795315875357516043?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-1173881197912212922011-07-07T16:00:00.003+02:002011-07-07T16:48:00.503+02:00Just when you think that the plagiarism scandal in Germany might be calming down, the next one shows up. It seems that people are learning how to spot plagiarism, and are finding far too much in the dissertations of plagiarists.<br /><br />The weekly newspaper <span style="font-style: italic;">Zeit</span> <a href="http://www.zeit.de/2011/28/Althusmann-Dissertation-Plagiat">reported</a> on July 6, 2011 that unnamed researchers (not VroniPlag) had analyzed approximately half of the dissertation that Bernd Althusmann had submitted to the University of Potsdam in 2007. He is the minister of education in the German state of Lower Saxony and as such the current head of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kultusministerkonferenz"><span style="font-style: italic;">Kultusministerkonferenz</span></a> (State Conference on Media and Education). This is an organization that tries to coordinate education matters in the 16 federal states, that all have their own ideas of how to go about educating the general populace.<br /><br />The <span style="font-style: italic;">Zeit</span> has posted an excellent <a href="http://opendata.zeit.de/plagiat/Beanstandete-Stellen-Althusmann.pdf">list of plagiarisms</a> and an <a href="http://opendata.zeit.de/plagiat/Analyse-Althusmann-Endfassung.pdf">analysis</a> of the same. Prof. Volker Rieble, author of the book <a href="http://www.klostermann.de/biblio/bib_4101.htm"><span style="font-style: italic;">Wissenschaftsplagiat</span></a>, has called for his <a href="http://www.ndr.de/regional/niedersachsen/hannover/althusmann141.html">immediate resignation</a>.<br /><br />At least the University of Tübingen <a href="http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/aktuelles/newsfullview-aktuell/article/universitaet-tuebingen-entzieht-matthias-christoph-proefrock-den-doktorgrad.html">rescinded the doctorate</a> of Matthias Pröfrock, state politician in Baden-Württemberg, yesterday.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-117388119791221292?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-47346006287341427322011-07-07T01:22:00.001+02:002011-07-07T01:22:16.347+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Jorgo Chatzimarkis, German representative in the EU for the FDP party, is currently being investigated for plagiarism in his dissertation. VroniPlag has him currently listed at 70%.<br/><br/>He was on a TV talk show on Sunday, for whatever reason, trying to defend himself by redefining the rules of what good scientific practice is, in order to "prove" that his thesis is okay. It was quite a bizarre show, as he evaded direct questions, the talkmaster Anne Will asked leading questions that presupposed the correct answer. There was a guy with a "von" in his name and a journalist/blogger, and then Anke Domscheidt-Berg, standing up for VroniPlag. She had joined the chat the night before, spent a few hours asking questions, and understood quite a lot of what the group does and why.<br/><br/>Chatzimarkakis defended himself with, among other things, the argument that the work was "intertextual" and that he was using "Oxford style" quotations, that he learned when he was at Oxford. The latter has so enraged German students in Oxford, that they are energetically defending their school. One blogger, at <a href='http://uxp.de/28' target='_blank'>uxp.de</a>, noted that he seemed to have missed the chapter on "intertextuality" in the 1250 page regulations that were handed out to them the first weeks. He continues:<br/><blockquote>Das können sich die nächsten VroniPlag-Persönlichkeiten gleich aufnotieren: An jeder größeren Uni in jedem Land sind deutsche Studenten unterwegs, die es nicht lustig finden wenn man deren Uni schlechtredet. (The next ones up on the VroniPlag stage please note: There are German students at every larger university in every country, and they are not amused when people talk trash about their universities)<br/></blockquote>I just saw a tweet that Chatzimarkakis has now also resigned from the European research council - but I don't have verification on that yet.<br/><br/><br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-4734600628734142732?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-60346097856423677572011-07-04T00:41:00.001+02:002011-07-04T00:41:28.422+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>If you read German, there is a group blog called "<a href='http://deplagio.wordpress.com/' target='_blank'>de plagio</a>" (a truely wonderful play on words, as you can read it as "Plagiarism in Germany" or "about plagiarism"). They <a href='http://www.coveritlive.com/index.php?option=com_altcaster&amp;task=siteviewaltcast&amp;altcast_code=6fde54d2ae' target='_blank'>liveblogged</a> the appearance of Mr. Chatzimarkakis on a German talk show (Anne Will) this evening. He tried to defend himself on account of his "accusers" being anonymous. <br/><br/>Anke Domscheidt-Berg did a great job of trying to explain to him what good scientific practice is and why what VroniPlag is doing is not judging him but documenting grave similarities between his thesis and much referenced but unquoted material (currently at 70% of the pages in his thesis). The show should be online in the "ARD Mediathek" for a week or so. <br/><br/>The de plagio blog is well worth reading!<br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6034609785642367757?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-89878101202742698002011-06-23T10:03:00.002+02:002011-06-23T20:30:45.418+02:00Sylvana Koch-Mehrin had her <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,768607,00.html">doctorate rescinded</a> by the University of Heidelberg for containing over <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Skm">30% plagiarism</a> in May 2011, and now in June she has been named EU commissioner for research, <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,769950,00.html">Spiegel Online </a>reports. <br /><br />This means that she is in the committee that determines research policy for the EU. She had been an alternate for the committee, her fellow FDP politician, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis (his <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Gc">dissertation</a> is currently at 71% plagiarism, but he is contesting the plans of the University in Bonn to rescind his doctorate as well) had the main seat. They have now changed places.<br /><br />What does this say about research in Germany? What message does this give to the general populace about the importance of research? Plagiarists determining research policy? If today was April 1 I would have considered this an April Fool's joke, but it is unfortunately true.<br /><br />Poor Germany, all of your good researchers do not deserve this.<br /><br /><b>Update</b>: A <a href="http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/resignation-of-silvana-koch-mehrin-from-the-european-pa.html">petition</a> has been started requesting that she step down immediately.&nbsp; It is online in English, German, and French. If you feel so inclined, please sign. There are already almost 2000 signatures - on day 1 of the petition.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8987810120274269800?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-35256717979468147312011-06-22T23:18:00.003+02:002011-06-22T23:44:10.868+02:00The GuttenPlag Wiki was awarded the <a href="http://www.grimme-institut.de/html/index.php?id=1344">Grimme Online Spezial Award 2011</a>, a German journalism prize for it's work in determining the plagiarism in zu Guttenberg's thesis.<br /><br />Here is a translation of the jury's decision:<br /><blockquote>At a time when great confusion reigned about how to assess the dissertation of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the "GuttenPlag Wiki" created clarity. In an unprecedented form of collaboration thousands of web users examined the thesis in detail and found discrepancies. Plagiarisms that were found were precisely documented in parallel with the original sources. An overview of the plagiarisms found was kept current on the first page of the wiki.<br /><br />This method of working produced excellent results in a very short time. The results are verifiable for anyone, making this web site a central contact point for the discussion about plagiarism in the dissertation that was conducted in the media and in the general populace for weeks on end.<br /><br />The fair and unbiased mode of operation used by the administrators of the wiki was outstanding, and channeled the onslaught of prospective users into constructive paths that delivered a sober overview of the findings. The public statements of Minister Guttenberg about his thesis were thus set in contrast to the facts that could be evaluated by anyone.<br /><br />Not only was the project idea of the initiators noteworthy, but also the hundreds of web users who found more and more passages online and offline, that were used in the thesis without proper attribution. The project makes it clear that text comparisons can be well-organized in a collaborative manner and shows the possibilities of the web in general for group work.<br /></blockquote> Congratulations!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3525671797946814731?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-51456210755691809622011-06-11T21:55:00.001+02:002011-06-12T12:50:27.803+02:00Silvia Bulfone-Paus is an immunologist. She worked at the Forschungszentrum Borstel (FZB) outside of Hamburg in Germany, and is a professor at the Medical University in Lübeck.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.laborjournal.de/editorials/userdoc/Bulfone.pdf">Laborjournal.de</a> reports that she published many papers together with the Russian couple Elena Bulanova and Vadim Budagian from Russia. <a href="http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/as-last-of-12-promised-bulfone-paus-retractions-appears-a-disappointing-report-card-on-journal-transparency/">Retraction Watch</a> reported in March 2011 that 12 papers by the three authors have been retracted. The three have published 22 papers together, so there may be more.<br /><br />In October 2009 the biologist Karin Wiebauer realized that the Western blots in some of the papers were very similar - sometimes just the labels were changed, in others a dose of Photoshop was used to mirror, move or distort the bands. This is the same method that Marion Brach used in the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1173372/">Hermann/Brach scandal</a> end of the 90s [strangely enough, there is nothing in either Wikipedia about either them or the scandals].<br /><br />In November 2009 Wiebauer informed the first author, Bulfone-Paus, of her discovery. Nothing happened. Finally, in April 2010 an investigation committee was convened. They determined that there was just sloppy publication, but the results were okay. There was a culprit found - the Russian couple. They were accused of deceit and the 12 papers retracted, although the Russians did not agree to the retractions. <br /><br />There ensued an anonymous Internet-based campaign. Colleagues then published an <a href="http://www.fz-borstel.de/cms/fileadmin/content_fz/downloads/Pressemitteilungen/2011/Open_letter_March_16_2011.pdf">open letter </a>supporting Bulfone-Paus,&nbsp; saying the poor woman, who is a brilliant researcher and has published much, including work together with her husband, was deceived by her postdocs. The Borstel Board of Directors - <i>sans</i> Bulfone-Paus - published a good <a href="http://www.fz-borstel.de/cms/fileadmin/content_fz/downloads/Pressemitteilungen/2011/Responsetoopenletter.pdf">response</a> to the open letter soon after forcing her off the board:<br /><blockquote>Severe failure in one area (as supervisor and responsible senior, corresponding and first author) can hardly be compensated by merits in other areas. [...] For all scientists, one of the greatest goods in science is personal credibility and integrity, and that the most precious currency scientists have is the truthfulness of their data. The scientific community expects rigorous adherence to the rules of scientific research from principal investigators and, in particular, from heads of research divisions or departments. [...] The scientific misconduct in Silvia Bulfone-Paus's lab and her procrastination to go public despite being ultimately responsible has highly damaged the reputation of the Research Center. This is what cannot be tolerated.</blockquote>But now the plot thickens: An additional paper by Bulfone-Paus (not including the Russian couple) in <i>Blood</i>&nbsp; is currently under <a href="http://abnormalscienceblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/blowing-the-whistle-on-blood-93-1999-3531-part-1/">investigation</a>. A co-author on this one is her husband, Ralf Paus, a dermatologist at the University of Lübeck. And the university has verified for <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/vorab/0,1518,767653,00.html">Spiegel</a>, a German news weekly, that they are currently investigating 6 papers of Paus. <br /><br />And now it bubbles up that Bulfone-Paus and Paus both have professorships in Manchester, in England, where they spend 20% of their time, according to the <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&amp;storycode=416365&amp;c=1">Times Higher Education</a>. The couple also have three children, as reported by <i>Spiegel</i> in <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/medizin/0,1518,739146,00.html">January</a>. <br /><br />In other news about Borstel, another director, Peter Zabel, stepped down earlier this month amidst <a href="http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/borstel-update-former-directors-plagiarized-2009-paper-to-be-retracted/#more-2837">plagiarism charges</a>. It seems he double published a paper (once in German and once in English), as well as in 2009 publishing a paper that included large portions of text and diagrams from a 2008 paper published in the US. The double publication is deemed not so severe, although it is not clear that the later publication makes clear that it is in fact a double publication - the abstract has been rewritten, but is still similar. Zabel has now also resigned from the editorial board of <i>Der Internist.</i><br /><br />The double publication was found by someone calling themselves Clare Francis, who informed Retraction Watch, Abnormal Science Blog, and me. It was found using the<a href="http://dejavu.vbi.vt.edu/dejavu/duplicate/51058/"> Déjà vu tool</a> for searching for duplicate content in Medline. <br /><br />Joerg Zwirner, in a recent post to the <a href="http://abnormalscienceblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/germany-needs-ori-style-investigative-panel-to-cope-with-the-borstel-scandal/#more-470">Abnormal Science Blog</a>, calls for setting up an Office for Research Integrity in Germany, as is to be found in the US. I heartily agree - this is far too complicated to understand for non-medical researcher, but it seems that there are deficiencies in the medical research complex in Germany that have existed for decades. And Hermann/Brach did <b>not</b> result in these being adequately addressed. Germany needs action, and it needs it now.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5145621075569180962?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-61849421328102343592011-06-11T20:34:00.000+02:002011-06-11T20:34:23.668+02:00The Münsterländische Volkszeitung <a href="http://www.mv-online.de/lokales/muenster/hochschule/1561663_Plagiat_per_Zufall_entdeckt.html">reports</a> on a strange case of plagiarism. An author for the German version of the Wikipedia was cleaning up the article on <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostatakrebs">prostate cancer</a> and looking for a serious source for one statement. Doctoral theses are great places to find these, as proper disserations include an overview of the current literature on the topic.<br /><br />As the author describes in the <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Kurier">Wikipedia Kurier</a> from May 28, 2011, while looking through the dissertation from 2006 a term showed up that was quite unfamiliar, although the author had been researching the topic for a while. A source was given, from 1996, but not feeling like going to the library, the Wikipedia author just asked the "omniscient garbage can" about the term - and found a few hits.<br /><br />One was a dissertation from 2009 - from the same department of the same university. The author downloaded it, and started reading, and it was <i>déjà vu</i> all over again, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra. The author thought that perhaps the links had been mixed up. But no, they had different authors, different years, but even the same advisor.<br /><br />But Diss 2009 had been slightly changed. For example, 2009 discovered that one source in 2006 was included in the bibliography twice by mistake - it was removed and the references renumbered. Even large portions of the acknowledgments are identical. The CVs are, however, different.<br /><br />The University of Münster was informed in March, the committees are working, there is no word yet on their decision. These kinds of cases tend to be very hush-hush, just in case the charge of plagiarism is being lodged just to throw dirt at someone. If I hear of a result I will report it here.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6184942132810234359?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-83342180392126966442011-06-02T20:58:00.000+02:002011-06-02T20:58:39.710+02:00While we were working on our test using zu Guttenberg's thesis, we were alerted to work being done by researchers at the University of Magdeburg and University of Berkeley: <br /><br /><pre><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman','Bitstream Charter',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; white-space: normal;">B. Gipp, N. Meuschke, and J. Beel, "Comparative Evaluation of Text- and Citation-based Plagiarism Detection<br /> Approaches using GuttenPlag," in <span style="font-style: italic;">Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital<br /> Libraries (JCDL`11)</span>, Ottawa, Canada, 2011.&nbsp;</span></pre><pre><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman','Bitstream Charter',Times,serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; white-space: normal;">&nbsp;</span></pre>The group will be presenting the paper in September in Ottawa, and have put a <a href="http://gipp.com/citation-based-plagiarism-detection">pre-print</a> online.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8334218039212696644?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-13689489607565950752011-06-02T20:12:00.005+02:002011-06-23T09:46:11.197+02:00We* couldn't resist. Here we had a thesis, a very large one (475 pages) for which a group of collaborators, the GuttenPlagWiki people, had already determined which bits were plagiarized from which source. We decided to see how plagiarism software would fare on the same material. <br /><br />We wrote to the 5 systems that we rated "partially useful" in our 2010 test (a top score): PlagAware, turnitin, Ephorus, PlagScan, and Urkund. All of the companies were glad to provide us with a test account for this test. Turnitin did, however, suggest that we use iThenticate. That is one of their products that uses the same engine and backend as turnitin, but has an easier to use interface for the purpose at hand, testing individual files instead of modeling classes.<br /><br />We obtained a copy of the thesis in pdf format, and started in.<br /><br />The first problem was the size of the file. At 7.3 MB and about 190,000 words, it was a heavyweight and was not easily digestible for the systems. PlagAware gave up after just 159 pages; iThenticate chopped it into 13 pieces á 15,000 words; Ephorus first tested it themselves, then reluctantly let us upload our copy because we wanted to have the same copy used by all systems; PlagScan chugged away over night on the results; Urkund ran into trouble with the number of hits, we appear to have taken down their entire system over the weekend. <br /><br />The next problem was with the PDF of the source itself. It was formatted nicely with ligatures and different sized spaces for a very professional look. Many systems struggled with this, assuming these were stray&nbsp; characters and just discarding them, instead of replacing them with the respective letters (fi, fl, or blank). This caused some missed plagiarism.<br /><br />Then we had the result reports - since there are many copies of the same text available online, many systems inflated their results by counting the same source numerous times. We made every effort to disregard anything published on the GuttenPlag site. iThenticate had a nice functionality for disregarding this site. On the other hand, over 40% of the links that iThenticate returned went to 404s, pages no longer available at that URL! The sites have reorganized their material and URLs. We researched a number of them, the sources are, indeed, still online. This is unconvincing for a dissertation board - they need to be able to verify both the source and the copy. <br /><br />The <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki" target="_blank">GuttenPlag</a> people have determined that 94% of the pages contain plagiarism on 63% of the lines. The following are the results for the individual systems:<br /><blockquote><b>PlagAware:</b> Initially 28% on the first 159 pages, however this included a lot of garbage such as pastebin material. After we removed this and the GuttenPlag links, the amount went to 68% before the report disappeared completely. We have not been able to resubmit, it breaks off with an error. <br /><b>iThenticate:</b> 40%<br /><b>Ephorus:</b> 5%! Only 10 possible sources found, of these 3 were GuttenPlag and one a duplicate<br /><b>PlagScan:</b> 15,9%<br /><b>Urkund:</b> 21%</blockquote><br />One general problem that we had with all of the reports was that we could not click on a plagiarism and discover the page number in the PDF source. This is something we would need in the case of preparing a case before the dissertation board, as the side-by-side documentation needs to be marked in copies of the original text and not online. It would be a lot of hand work to find the pages for preparing such a documentation. <br /><br />Another problem was the presentation of the footnotes. These were generally not recognized by any of the systems, and often the footnote number and text was just inserted in the middle of a paragraph. This often got in the way of marking a larger block of 1-1 plagiarism. The Wiki has found an interesting type of plagiarism we now call “Cut &amp; Slide” - from a large block of plagiarized material, a portion is cut out and demoted to a footnote.<br /><br /><big><b>Reports</b></big><br /><br />The <b>PlagAware</b> report disappeared from the database after a software update, we were rather upset that reports that have been produced (and would have been paid for, if we had been real customers) are suddenly gone. The side-by-side that we have always liked turns out to have an extreme problem - the system often marked just 3-4 words, then noted an elision ("[...]") that sometimes went on for a page or so, and then another 3-4 words. Since this was at the very beginning, you had to scroll a good bit to get to the first plagiarism, the Zehnpfennig one (from the FAZ). A law professor might have considered the system broken, reporting minimal plagiarism, and just broken off the check.<br /><br /><b>iThenticate</b> drove us batty with the 404s and the inability to copy and paste from the online report - many of the sources were large online PDFs containing numerous papers, we had to retype some words and phrases in order to be able to search for the plagiarism source in the link given. It also reports proper quotes as plagiarisms, for example, the appendix which contains material available completely online is only reported to be a 60% plagiarism. <br /><br /><b>Ephorus</b> has a nice side-by-side, but included a COMPLETE COPY of the entire dissertation for every source found. We assume that this is why it broke off after just 10 sources, the report had already reached 54 MB! The reports don’t need to repeat things that are not plagiarized, just the plagiarized material, but preferably with the page numbers, please.<br /><br /><b>PlagScan</b> also irritated us with the little dropdown list of sources. We had to open every source and then look to see where the plagiarism was, this took an enormous amount of time.<br /><br /><b>Urkund</b> was extremely slow - we understand that this had to do with the number of hits found. The navigation, as we had found in the 2010 test, was difficult to use, and the numbers given had no real meaning. This report now cannot be loaded, it gives a count up to 90, stays at 89 of 90, and after some minutes gives up and tells us to come back another day.<br /><br />38 out of the currently known 131 sources were found by at least one system. Overall, PlagAware found 7 (5%), iThenticate 30 (23%), Ephorus 6 (5%), PlagScan 19 (15%) and Urkund 16 (12%).<br /><br />Out of the top 20 sources, however, only 8 were “findable”, i.e. online. Many were books that are available on Google books (and are reported by Google through a normal Google search), 7 of the top 20 were papers prepared by the writing services of the German Bundestag and were thus not available to the public. <br /><br />When we take the top 43 sources found by GuttenPlag, then the top 11 sources found by the systems are included (3 found by all 5 systems, 3 by four out of five, 5 by three out of five systems) as well as the top 20 sources that were available online, we have the following results: PlagAware and Ephorus both found 6 of the top 20 online sources (30%), iThenticate 16 (80%), PlagScan 12 (60%) and Urkund 13 (65%). <br /><br />Since iThenticate found so many sources, we wanted to go back and look at which position in the results these were to be found. iThenticate had reported 1156 sources, of which only just over 400 were longer than 20 words. We only looked at the 117 sources reported that had a match of 100 words or longer. Of the 13 top sources reported by iThenticate (one for each portion), 6 were 404s (“File not found”), one was a correctly quoted portion in the thesis, one was a correspondence between the bibliography and the <br />bibliography of another source, 3 were from the same source (Volkmann-Schluck) that is indeed the top source for the thesis, and 2 were of the second most used source that was available online. <br /><br /><big><b>No easy answer</b></big><br /><br />There is no easy answer to the question as to whether the professors at the University of Bayreuth would have been able to discover the plagiarism in this thesis with the help of software: The usability problems are very serious. People who are not computer scientists have a hard time interpreting the results. iThenticate’s links to 404s will lead people to disregard other found sources. But it would have been possible for the university to at least suspect a problem, if not see the abysmal magnitude of the plagiarism. <br /><br /><b>Our suggestion stands</b>: If a teacher or examiner has doubts about a thesis, they should be able to use software systems, preferably two or three, to examine the material. However, they need to be trained in interpreting the results, or have a trained person such as a librarian go over the report with them. We do not find it generally useful to have all papers put through such a system with a simple threshold set for alarming the teacher. Allowing students to “test” their own papers will just encourage them to use one of the many online synonymization tools available until their paper “passes”. Writing, especially scientific writing, is concerned with intensive work on the text itself, not just a superficial attention to word order and choice.<br /><br />The German report on this research can be found in the <a href="http://www.heise.de/ix/inhalt.html" target="_blank">June 2011</a> edition of <i>iX</i>. (<b>Update</b>: Now available online at <a href="http://www.heise.de/ix/artikel/Kopienjaeger-1245288.html">http://www.heise.de/ix/artikel/Kopienjaeger-1245288.html</a>)<br /><br />[*] Katrin Köhler is my co-author for this research and report.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-1368948960756595075?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-30917229792276688592011-05-17T23:08:00.005+02:002011-05-18T00:40:26.324+02:00The next German politician to be found with a large amount of plagiarism in his dissertation is <a href="http://www.chatzi.de/">Jorgo Chatzimarkakis</a>, a member of the European parliament for the German FDP.<br /><br />Last week someone noticed that he had a similar CV to Ms. Koch-Mehrin, and found his dissertation online. Within 2 days people had <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Gc">found plagiarism</a> on over 10% of the pages (the current amount is 37% of the pages). Chatzimarkakis responded with this gem on his homepage (boldface from me):<br /><blockquote>"Die jüngsten Debatten über die Doktorarbeiten deutscher Politiker haben auch mich für das Thema sensibilisiert. In der von mir 2000 verteidigten und auch online publizierten Promotion habe ich nach aktueller Prüfung folgende Zitierweisen verwendet:<br /><br />* Zitate (teilweise) kursiv eingerückt und mit Anführungszeichen, ausgewiesen durch Fußnote;<br />* Zitate nicht kursiv, eingerückt und mit Anführungszeichen, ausgewiesen durch Fußnote;<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">* Zitate im Fließtext, nicht eingerückt und ohne Anführungszeichen, ausgewiesen durch Fußnote.</span><br /><br />Dies schafft Raum für Spekulationen. Ich habe deshalb die Universität Bonn auf die von mir angewandte Zitationsweise explizit hingewiesen."<br /><p>(The recent debates about the doctoral theses of German politicians have made me sensitive to the topic. In the thesis I defended in 2000 and which I published online I have reviewed and found the following types of quotes:<br /><br />* Quotes (partially) in italics, indented and with quotation marks, with a footnote;<br />* Quotes not in italics, indented and with quotation marks, with a footnote;<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">* Quotes in the text, not indented and not with quotation marks, with a footnote.</span> </p><p>This provides room for speculation. I have written to the University of Bonn and explained my quotation style to them.)<br /></p></blockquote>Quotes not marked? Stefan Weber <a href="http://plagiatsgutachten.de/blog.php/textueller-missbrauch-an-deutschen-unis-und-in-der-europapolitik/">blogs</a> about this - after recovering his composure - and calls it "Freestyle" quoting. <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Gc/046">Here</a>'s a nice example of this "Freestyle" quoting.... and the apparent inability to use a <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Gc/GC-Meta">spelling checker</a>.<br /><br />Chatzimarkakis defends himself in a German talk show in the evening, saying that this is the "normal" way to do quotes in science. There are no professors in the talk show to explain that this is not normal (I could have gone, but I was giving a talk in the library sciences department at the Humboldt University this evening). Chatzimarkakis complains of being put on the stocks, of being accused of something like Strauß-Kahn (although the cases are quite different - only CSK and the woman know, what really happened; we have documented plagiarism in Chatzimarkakis' thesis, anyone can check it). He talks and talks and changes the subject and then the talk show goes on with how men don't understand women and vice versa....<br /><br />Far too many people see the work which we call "collaborative plagiarism documentation" as personal vendettas against politicians of a particular variety. But these are doctoral theses, they are published - and the sources are openly available. The documentation puts them in parallel, attempts to classify it, and asks the question: is this okay? It is open to the scrutiny - and commentary - of all. You don't have to have a title to participate, the main thing in the content and the work and not the person doing the work.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3091722979227668859?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-77439627754839986932011-05-14T01:24:00.002+02:002011-05-14T01:26:40.633+02:00<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The GuttenPlag group is honored to have been nominated for the Grimme Preis, a German Online-Journalism prize. However, we would find it better if there was not advertising for two ghostwriting companies on the page for voting for GuttenPlag:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fth4vnlh25I/Tc29-R1DGCI/AAAAAAAAAOw/zirY_W4n7So/s1600/Grimme-Ghostwriter.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fth4vnlh25I/Tc29-R1DGCI/AAAAAAAAAOw/zirY_W4n7So/s320/Grimme-Ghostwriter.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />P.S., you can vote by clicking on "Stimme abgeben", the blue button on the lower right.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7743962775483998693?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-2988348456629132542011-05-13T23:34:00.001+02:002011-05-13T23:34:17.511+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>My goodness. The press has grown bored with all these plagiarisms by politicians. One of the Axel-Springer press organs, <i>Hamburger Abendblatt</i>, decided to go after the messengers this morning. <br/><br/>I had given an interview to a journalist yesterday, and today I find an <a href='http://www.abendblatt.de/politik/deutschland/article1888428/Jaeger-und-Gejagte-Alles-kommt-raus.html'>article</a> that puts lots of words in my mouth that I did not say. The article also uses the word "hunt" or "hunting" or "hunters" eight  (8) times in just one article. The picture looks terrible, me pressed in between the other two. And since that was not enough, they started a "debate" entitled "<a href='http://www.abendblatt.de/hamburg/article1888410/Die-Besserwisser-sind-so-schlimm-wie-die-Betrueger.html'>Die Besserwisser sind so schlimm wie die Betrüger</a>" (The know-it-alls are just as bad as the cheaters).<br/><br/>Now does anyone wonder why most of the activists over at GuttenPlag and VroniPlag use pseudonyms? I really don't get that it is okay for a cheater to be a minister, but that it is bad to point out that an "old" thesis is a plagiarism. May I deduce that the general public does not get it? My email is overflowing with letters like this denouncing me:<br/><blockquote><span>"Sie haben den Splitter in den Augen der Anderen gesucht und <br />gefunden und meinen nun das Recht zu haben, diese Menschen komplett <br />moralisch abqualifizieren zu können, ich wünsche Ihnen, dass man nicht <br />irgend wann einmal einen Balken in Ihrem Auge findet. Ach, erlauben Sie <br />mir eine Frage: Was haben Sie eigentlich in Ihrem 54jährigen Leben <br />bisher an qualitativ Hochwertigem für die Menschheit geleistet? Sie <br />haben viel kostbare Zeit für Ihre Hetzjagd vergeudet, stimmt's? Oder <br />haben Sie vielleicht nichts Besseres</span> zu tun?" (You have looked for and found the splinter in the eyes of the others and believe that you now have the right to morally disqualify them completely. I hope that someone does not find a log in your eye. Permit me to inquire what high-quality work you have done for you have done for mankind in the 54 years you have lived? You have wasted much valuable time on your chasing, haven't you? Or don't you have anything better to do?)<br/></blockquote>Madam, I managed a civil answer for you and then deleted your missive, moving on to more important work for mankind. <br/><br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-298834845662913254?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-47062671119699046162011-05-13T20:55:00.001+02:002011-05-13T20:55:57.874+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>There were a lot of newsworthy happenings around the current plagiarism debate in Germany that I want to link for my English-language readers:<br/><ul><li>First off, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an <a href='http://chronicle.com/article/Band-of-Academic-Plagiarism/127481/'>article</a> about the goings-on today, interviewing yours truely.</li><li>The University of Bayreuth released its <a href='http://www.uni-bayreuth.de/presse/info/2011/Bericht_der_Kommission_m__Anlagen_10_5_2011_.pdf'>final report</a> on zu Guttenberg's thesis. It is an extremely thorough and well-researched document, in that they have also contributed references to German court cases involving plagiarism. The appendix includes the documents that reasoned why he was given top grades for the thesis. The report comes to the conclusion that he did, indeed, plagiarize on purpose:<br/></li><blockquote>"Die Kommission vermag nicht nachzuvollziehen, dass jemand, der über Jahre Quellen für seine Dissertation bearbeitet, derart in einen Zustand der Dauervergesslichkeit gerät, dass ihm die allerorten in seiner Arbeit nachweisbaren Falschangaben vollständig aus dem Bewusstsein geraten."(The commission is not able to fathom that someone who has spent years collecting source material for his dissertation fell into a state of continuous forgetting that the demonstrable misrepresentations found throughout the thesis could be so completely removed from his awareness)</blockquote><br/><li> Veronika Saß has had her doctoral title rescinded by the university in <a href='http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,761849,00.html'>Konstanz</a>. Her nickname, Vroni, is the name given for the plagiarism wiki platform that has analyzed the plagiarism in both her thesis and in Koch-Mehrin's. <a href='http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Vs'>VroniPlag</a> found plagiarism on over 50% of the pages. <br/></li><li>Sylvana Koch-Mehrin was <a href='http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,761849,00.html'>asked</a> by the University of Heidelberg to explain the plagiarisms and made-up footnotes in her thesis. Shortly thereafter she stepped down as vice president of the European parliament and from her offices within her party, the FDP. She has announced, however, that she intends to retain her mandate as a member of parliament. <a href='http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Skm'>VroniPlag</a> found plagarism on over 32% of the pages. <br/></li><li>Matthias Pröfrock,  a state politician in Baden-Württemberg, has <a href='http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.matthias-proefrock-plagiatsaffaere-zieht-kreise.35e7cec6-7799-4c10-9347-bb7bd6fddf72.html'>decided to stop using his doctorate</a> while his university investigates. <a href='http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Mcp'>VroniPlag</a> found plagiarism on almost 50% of the pages. <br/></li> </ul>I will try and keep you posted on the developments.<br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-4706267111969904616?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-52833966563160752992011-05-08T09:13:00.003+02:002011-05-08T12:02:02.419+02:00My bot logged over 100 newspaper articles on Friday on the press release from the University of Bayreuth giving the results of their examination of zu Guttenberg's dissertation (here are links to <a href="http://www.sueddeutsche.de/karriere/gutachten-der-uni-bayreuth-zum-fall-guttenberg-vorsaetzlich-getaeuscht-1.1094121">Süddeutsche</a> - <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,761135,00.html">Spiegel</a> - <a href="http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/plagiator-guttenberg-und-die-universitaet-bayreuth-luegenbaron-jetzt-mit-brief-und-siegel-1682226.html">Stern</a> - <a href="http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2011/0507/politik/0041/index.html">Berliner Zeitung</a>). The bot also logged many links to services offering to write a plagiarism-free dissertation for a price...<br /><br />In a nutshell: The university committee has found that zu Guttenberg did not plagiarize accidentally (and really, with 94% of the pages containing some plagiarism and over 60 % of the lines being plagiarized, there is really no other decision to be taken). They also found that there were no real grounds given for awarding a top grade for the thesis, as there was no particularly new, ground-breaking point in the thesis.<br /><br />Now what does this mean?<br /><ul><li>His title has been revoked. I've asked a journalist, hungry for a story, to see if he can find out if zu Guttenberg applied for a new ID card. He'll have to have the Dr. taken out there. I wonder anyway how all his names fit on the standard German ID card.<br /></li><li>The advisors are retired, no punishment beyond the current shaming going on is possible.</li><li>Since the university has determined that the plagiarism was on purpose, there may now be a case for some of the over 100 charges registered with the local police about this case.</li></ul>Our results from testing some plagiarism detection systems with the thesis will appear in the June issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">iX</span>. You'll just have to be patient. We will report here in English when the German article has appeared.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5283396656316075299?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-75831603983172559072011-05-04T23:35:00.001+02:002011-05-04T23:36:40.349+02:00Just a short note in order to preserve a link - the researchers at the GuttenPlag Wiki are putting together a bibliography on plagiarism: <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Plagiarismus_und_Plagiarismus-Forschung_%28Bibliographie%29">http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Plagiarismus_und_Plagiarismus-Forschung_%28Bibliographie%29</a>.<br />If you have any items to add to the list, please feel free to contribute!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7583160398317255907?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-8874356706053603662011-04-26T00:47:00.007+02:002011-04-26T17:26:42.597+02:00Whew. The International Herald Tribune just published an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/education/25iht-educside.html">article about the VroniPlag work</a> on the New York Times site, and it seems this is very widely read. The Philadelphia area Church of God's magazine, the Trumpet, has a <a href="http://www.thetrumpet.com/?q=8205.6862.0.0">broadside</a> by Ron Fraser about the German doctorate plagiarism scandal that is just filled with venom and rhetorical questions. Never one to duck an honest fight, I just sent this response to him.<br /><br />Hi Ron,<br /><br />I just found your Trumpet article, and I seem to hear you asking for a response.<br /><br />By the way, I spell my name without an h and I'm from an engineering college, not the Technical University. And I've not been in hiding at all. I just use a nick in the online worlds, a nick I have been using on the Wikipedia since about 2004. Besides being a professor who works with media and computing, I'm also dean of a rather large business school, a member of the German computing society's working group on Ethics in Computing, and a lay preacher at my local church. So I do have a smattering of knowledge about ethics.<br /><br />You've asked a lot of rhetorical questions - I'll be happy to answer them. Perhaps you can publish this rejoinder so that English-language readers can understand. I'll put it on my blog as well, just to make sure it gets out.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why initiate such an investigation? </span>Well, we didn't. It was a professor in Bremen, Prof. Fischer-Lescano, who was in the process of reviewing zu Guttenberg's thesis. He found some plagiarism, and zu Guttenberg - a very public figure - tried to play it down. This angered people who are working on proper doctorates, and they had a look. The current count is 94% of the pages containing plagiarism. It does not matter who he is, this is not science, full stop.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why choose the doctoral theses of the three in question?</span> We didn't. After zu Guttenberg, an anonymous tip about the thesis of Veronika Saß had some folks take a look. They found a large block of word-for-word plagiarism, and so the VroniPlag split away from GuttenPlag.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why not choose three high-profile academics rather than three prominent people with such strong political connections? </span>Oh, we have quite a number of more or less suspicious theses around. People are begging for us to look at this thesis or the other one, but since we all have day jobs, we can't do them all. The press loves politicians, so we do politicians for now.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why not choose three high-profile liberals from Germany’s Green Party? </span>Many don't have doctorates. They don't go in for all the title idolatry that is so common in Germany. We've been asking for tips on a Northern German, left-leaning engineering person for weeks, but nothing has materialized.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What does it have to hide? </span>Many people attack the messenger in anger about the news. Since many of the activists work in serious jobs or are completing dissertations themselves, they are trying to shield their jobs from the fallout. They are working here as private individuals. And the attacks are mighty, there are numerous ugly, viscous, and threatening letters and comments that arrive daily.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why not set the example and be wholly transparent itself? </span>Our <span style="font-style: italic;">work</span><br />is completely transparent. Just point your browser to <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Home">http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Home</a> - all work in progress is done in public. We are focusing on the plagiarism, not on the people pointing out the plagiarism.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Coincidence? </span>Well, three is not much of a sample for determining a pattern.<br /><br />You speak of our motives as being "a load of deceitful rubbish" and talk of the "damage done to the reputation of individuals". I think you have your perspective wrong here. It's the plagiarists who have deceived us. They put their reputations on the line in chase of that doctorate that should - in my opinion - only be used in science and education and not in politics and business.<br /><br />You speak of "this national desire for a newly confident and proud national persona". Not all Germans want to have a reprise of what happened the last time a confident and proud national persona took the stage.<br /><br />I am looking for truth in science. I object to people using scientific titles as vanity objects, and misusing the scientific process. Have a look at what Robert K. Merton had to say about the sociology of science - start at the Wikipedia and scroll down to the middle:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Merton"> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Merton</a><br /><br />Germany has been sweeping plagiarism and scientific misconduct under the rug for ages, and it has gotten very lumpy. I think we need to lift the carpet up, give it a good beating to get out the dust, sweep up the garbage that has collected, and get a fresh start. There are so many good scientists in Germany who have to defend themselves against all this bad science.<br /><br />Don't side with the liars.<br /><br />I look forward to continuing this debate!<br />Regards,<br /><br />--<br />Prof. Dr. Debora Weber-Wulff<br /><br />Typos corrected 26. April 2011<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-887435670605360366?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-61745665173721983282011-04-20T15:33:00.004+02:002011-04-20T21:43:45.759+02:00So, because science seems to be all about bashing each other anymore, especially when politicians are involved, everyone wants to look at <span style="font-weight: bold;">my</span> dissertation, as if the quality of my dissertation had anything to do with zu Guttenberg's or Koch-Mehrin's dissertations.<br /><br />I'm so honored.<br /><br />I think that maybe 5 people in the world besides my two honorable advisors ever read the thing, I have maybe 95 copies in a box in the attic, I'll be glad to sell them for 5 € plus postage, just drop me an email!<br /><br />My thesis is called "<a href="http://www.f4.fhtw-berlin.de/%7Eweberwu/diss/list.html">Contributions to Mechanical Proofs of Correctness for Compiler Front-Ends</a>" and it is in theoretical computing. It has been online since about 1997. Yes, I've been online since 1991, I recently found an <a href="https://groups.google.com/group/comp.edu/browse_thread/thread/c8c3e4608a1d0061/feb44e7d9a71ea20?hl=az&amp;pli=1#feb44e7d9a71ea20">ancient posting</a>. The Internet never forgets.<br /><br />Since the thesis was printed using PostScript, your browser may not be able to understand what it needs to do in order to read it. I've fired up Acrobat and produced a version in <a href="http://www.f4.fhtw-berlin.de/%7Eweberwu/diss/ps/9707.pdf">PDF</a> for the general public.<br /><br />I've also added the following to the page:<br /><br />I wish to publicly thank my mentors, Prof. Dr. Hans Langmaack (Kiel) and Prof. Dr. Robert S. Boyer (Austin, TX), for teaching me what science is about. Langmaack taught me to doubt everything I write, to rip the arguments of others apart, looking for the holes. But most importantly they both taught me that we only rip the science, not the person. We go have a beer together, after demolishing the proof. And maybe over that beer we will finally see how the proof needs to be conducted, if my theorem is, indeed, correct. <p>My dissertation is dedicated to the memory of <a href="http://www.f4.htw-berlin.de/%7Eweberwu/family/kerstin/kerstin.html">Kerstin Maaß</a>, my best friend, killed by a drunk driver the day I finished typesetting my manuscript. </p>And now, could we please get back to focusing on the topic of how to avoid plagiarism and make science more honest? Thank you.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6174566517372198328?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-48030158335722724282011-04-14T09:53:00.002+02:002011-04-14T11:33:25.751+02:00I must apologize for not writing more, but there is so much happening and then my day job picked up (semester start). I'll see if I can summarize what is up here.<br /><ul><li>In the <span style="font-weight: bold;">zu Guttenberg </span>case, the <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Plagiate">GuttenPlagWiki</a> has found 94% of the pages or 63% of the lines to be plagiarisms. The group there is continuing producing a final report on the findings. The thesis turns out to have quite some value scientifically as an example text on plagiarism. There is pretty much an example of every kind of plagiarism to be found. The University of Bayreuth appears to be close to deciding whether he plagiarized on purpose or not. The press then reported that zu Guttenberg's lawyers had insisted the university not publish the report. Merkel was not amused, the press ran with it for a day or so, now he is okay with them <a href="http://www.uni-bayreuth.de/presse/info/2011/078-075-guttenberg.pdf">making the results public</a>. There are over 100 legal complaints that have been filed, but there were none from people who were the authors of the sources. The press alleges that now someone has, I'm sure they've been pressured by the press to do so. </li><li>The next public target is <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Home">Veronica Saß</a>. She is the daughter of a prominent CSU politician. Her dissertation in jurisprudence is currently at 44% of the pages containing plagiarism. There is a fascinating block between pages 291 and 297 that is a complete copy of one source and then pages 298 - 315 is from another source. When this was made public, quite a public outcry started - against the chasers. This poor girl, she's not in the public limelight, leave her alone, etc. People keep pointing out that by publishing a dissertation and slapping your name on it, you are stating that it is your work. The University of Konstanz is feverishly looking at this.</li><li>Next up is <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Mcp">Matthias Pröfrock</a>, a CDU politician. His dissertation in jurisprudence (is there a pattern here?) was submitted to the University of Tübingen in 2007. His current plagiarism level is at plagiarisms on 46% of the pages. He published a statement that his thesis may have occasional problematic passages when the level was already at 25%. The University is investigating. I've heard the rumor that another politician plagiarized him, but that is still under investigation. Sort of a chained plagiarism.<br /></li><li>The current target is another politician, <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Skm">Silvana Koch-Mehrin</a>. She is from the FDP party and currently sitting in the European Parliament, where she is one of 14 vice presidents. Her dissertation is on business history and was submitted in 2001 to the University of Heidelberg. This one is lots of work, as it is only available in print and the sources are also only available in print. Many of the fragments are just a sentence, but there are enough that include a complete paragraph, for example <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Skm/Fragment_054_02-14">page 54</a>. The level is only 20%, but the work continues. </li></ul>The blogosphere and the press are running wild with bits about "presumption of innocence" and such nonsense. This is not a court of law, it's about science, and honesty in science. Give your sources, don't steal.<br /><br />I wrote a little piece about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Merton">Robert K. Merton</a>'s <a href="http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Wissenschaft_-_organisierter_Skeptizismus">organized skepticism</a> for the wiki, as many of the people working on this are not aware that there is such a thing as the theory of science.<br /><br />The people doing the work - many anonymous - do not call themselves hunters. The German press calls them (and <a href="http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/thema/1435383/">me</a>) <span style="font-style: italic;">Plagiatsjäger</span>. We are just accepting it, not protesting the title, and continuing the search.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-4803015833572272428?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-31237663058173229122011-03-27T22:31:00.003+02:002011-03-27T23:19:16.663+02:00Prof. Dr. Frank Möbus, professor for German Literature in Göttingen, was kind enough to share an email that hit his email box the other day. He has kindly permitted me to post this, however, we are changing the name of the student. The telephone number given did, however, match the name in a reverse telephone number lookup.<br /><div><blockquote>Dear Prof. Möbus!<br />I found you by way of the Internet and I would like to ask you if you are willing to write an expertise about my dissertation, because I am not happy with the previous expertises. The topic of my dissertation is [...]. If you would be willing to write an expertise, then I would like to ask how much you take and in what time frame you could do this. Many thanks in advance.<br />Sincerely, Nick Clueless, Tel: XXXXXX<br /></blockquote><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div>After Prof. Möbus regained his composure he fired off this response:<br /><blockquote><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;" ></span>Dear Mr. Clueless,<br />were I not completely convinced that your hoax in these post-Guttenberg times is a (perhaps even promising) attempt to gather material that you can use for journalistic purposes, I would immediately expend energy in order to find out at which university you have submitted your thesis and who your advisor is. I would then either chew you out myself or have you so royally chewed out that by comparison "Smoke on the Water" [the song Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg had played during his farewell ceremony] will sound like Joan Baez playing the acoustic guitar on a warm spring evening.<br /><br /> Your request for a purchased expertise demonstrates not only blatant ignorance of academic conventions, but also contradicts all ethical principles of scholarship, were it to have been asked in all seriousness.<br /> <br />I wish you success with the answers that you obtain for what is most certainly a mass-mailing. If someone does, indeed, give a positive answer, he or she deserves to be nailed to the wall. Do keep me informed!<br /> <br /> Amused,<br />Prof. Möbus<span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></blockquote>What on earth was clueless thinking?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3123766305817322912?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-69321937762995692712011-03-17T13:29:00.000+01:002011-03-17T13:29:44.815+01:00The newspaper <a href="http://www.volksfreund.de/nachrichten/region/bitburg/aktuell/Heute-in-der-Bitburger-Zeitung-Gericht-verurteilt-falschen-Professor;art752,2717265">Volksfreund</a> reports that the district court in Bitburg has sentenced a man to 2 years in jail suspended for 4 years for falsely calling himself a professor.<br /><br />The man was born in 1941 in Leipzig, in 1964 he completed training as a physical therapist and then continued training as a nontraditional healer (<i>Heilpraktiker</i>). He also studied acupuncture in Hong Kong. In the 70s he came in contact with practitioners in Hamburg and Tübingen and began calling himself "Professor GUS" (GUS is the abbreviation for the Commonwealth of Independent States, former Soviet republics. In Germany, if you have a foreign title you have to include the name of the place after the title).<br /><br />The man felt that he was entitled to call himself this, because he had been a guest "professor" on cancer in Kiew, Ukraine. Apparently, he had been hounded by courts for using false titles and had been repeatedly fined for using them. But he still kept on, feeling that at least in foreign countries, he was considered an expert. He blames a Belgian group for stirring up all this "slander" about him not having a proper title, and is now so poor that he can't afford to attend conferences.<br /><br />Why the court only gave him a suspended sentence, despite past crimes in the same area, is beyond me. The Wiki esowatch has a page that sounds very much like <a href="http://www.esowatch.com/ge/index.php?title=G%C3%BCnther_Haase">him</a>, and his <a href="http://www.giel.de/or/6614/sendung/598/kundenportal/n24/2010-07-08.html">home page</a> still lists him as Prof. h.c. GUS. So the question comes up - even if someone is taken to court and found guilty of using a false title, who goes around and checks that they remove all traces of this false title?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6932193776299569271?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-56814564885777516962011-03-13T23:01:00.000+01:002011-03-13T23:01:00.810+01:00The blog <a href="http://nebelhorn.posterous.com/armes-deutschland-gutti-fas">Nebelhorn</a> picked this letter to the editor out of the <i>Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung</i> from March 13, 2011. I do think it needs to be translated so that the world can understand what the German general public thinks of the Causa Guttenberg:<br /><blockquote><b>Defaming</b></blockquote><blockquote>I find it appalling and intolerable that a person is so defamed just because he has some plagiarized parts in his dissertation, as long as other dissertations have not been so closely examined for similar plagiarism and their authors put in the pillory, just like in the Middle Ages! I desire a government for German that would introduce a media law like the one in Hungary for print media, so that in the future such biased and polemic newspaper articles that break journalistic ethics can be punished. &nbsp;</blockquote>They really don't get it. So many people think of this as just a little bit of cheating just like everyone does on their taxes and stuff. They do not understand that plagiarism pulls the carpet out from under science.<br /><br />I do agree on needing a pillory, though, and the list of applicants for the next spot up on the pillory is growing by the day over at the <a href="http://de.plagipedi.wikia.com/wiki/Liste_der_zur_%C3%9Cberpr%C3%BCfung_vorgeschlagenen_Arbeiten">PlagiPedi</a>. I assume that there will eventually be need for a group pillory, as illustrated by John Brand in 1842.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/The_stocks.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/The_stocks.png" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5681456488577751696?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-63370264141172562062011-03-13T22:28:00.000+01:002011-03-13T22:28:57.801+01:00Somehow this flew under my radar, so I'm picking up the pieces here. Much is already well documented in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Boldt">Wikipedia</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8360678/Joachim-Boldt-profile-a-glittering-career-built-on-charisma-and-charm.html">The Telegraph</a>.<br /><br />German anesthesiologist Joachim Boldt had a stellar career - he had published about 200 papers, many on the use of&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxyethyl_starch" title="Hydroxyethyl starch">hydroxyethyl starch (HES)</a>&nbsp;during anesthesia. As it turns out though, he did not actually have either the permission of the patients to do the research, nor did he have approval of the ethics board for this research. In one case, the ethics board flatly refused a proposed study.<br /><br />He was a professor at the University of Gießen and mentored numerous dissertations there, at least two of which were conducted without explicit permission after the university set up explicit procedures in 2000, according to the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.hr-online.de/website/rubriken/nachrichten/indexhessen34938.jsp?rubrik=36090&amp;key=standard_document_41025063"><i>Hessischen Rundfunk</i></a>.<br /><br />He has had his professorship withdrawn for not teaching and has had to retract an extraordinary number of his papers. <i>Retraction Watch</i> reported in <a href="http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/after-misrepresentation-allegations-german-anesthesiologist-joachim-boldt-out-as-hospitals-chief-physician/">November</a> and now in <a href="http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/joachim-boldt-retraction-tally-drops-by-one-editors-say-but-records-still-safe/">March</a> on the investigations into almost 90 of his papers. <b>88</b> studies published in 18 journals have had to be retracted, one turned out to be okay, as he could produce documentation of ethics committee permission for the study, although he had changed the title of the study. The studies are funded by the pharmaceutical company producing the HES drug. &nbsp;The complete list of retracted papers is available <a href="http://www.aaeditor.org/EIC.Joint.Statement.on.Retractions.pdf">online</a>, signed by all the journal editors.<br /><br />This, according to <i>Retraction Watch</i>, is a new world record, topping <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Darsee#Aftermath">Jon Darsee</a> with 82 retractions.<br /><br />Luckily for patients in the Ludwigshafen area, he has also been fired from the clinic. The current professor for anesthesiology in Gießen,&nbsp;Markus Weigand, sent an internal email around the department denouncing the TV documentary on the case "<a href="http://www.hr-online.de/website/rubriken/nachrichten/indexhessen34938.jsp?key=standard_document_41025063&amp;jmpage=1&amp;type=v&amp;rubrik=36090&amp;jm=2&amp;mediakey=fs/defacto/20110313_defacto_uni_giessen">defacto</a>". &nbsp;Weigand is said to have called the <i>defacto</i>&nbsp;story unscientific and only interested in scandal. He also outlined the procedure for obtaining ethics board approval for research. It seems much needed.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6337026414117256206?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-86963724850969227252011-03-12T23:45:00.000+01:002011-03-12T23:45:54.080+01:00The data generated by the investigations into the zu Guttenberg thesis is a wonderful basis for visualization people. Here are some links to some fascinating pictures:<br /><br />The complete thesis with all sources in different colors:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.wikia.com/guttenplag/de/images/8/86/Thumb_xxl.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://images.wikia.com/guttenplag/de/images/8/86/Thumb_xxl.png" width="232" /></a></div><br />The bits lifted from his "Doktorvater":<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.wikia.com/guttenplag/de/images/6/67/Haeberle_2006.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://images.wikia.com/guttenplag/de/images/6/67/Haeberle_2006.png" width="214" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Footnotes vs. Full text<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Plagiarized-dissertation-575x676.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Plagiarized-dissertation-575x676.png" width="272" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />The infamous bar code:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.wikia.com/guttenplag/de/images/b/b8/Plagiat_graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="71" src="http://images.wikia.com/guttenplag/de/images/b/b8/Plagiat_graphic.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8696372485096922725?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-31351799728143041512011-03-09T23:01:00.000+01:002011-03-09T23:01:41.701+01:00There are actually other misconduct cases being reported on beside the German former defense minister''s plagiarism. Nature reports on a <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110107/full/news.2011.703.html">Danish neuroscientist</a>, Milena Penkowa, who resigned amidst accusations of research misconduct and misuse of grant money.<br /><br />The young shooting star, who is said to have already published almost 100 peer-reviewed papers, apparently began with serious questions being raised about the experiments done for her dissertation work when the number of rats examined was apparently quite exaggerated.<br /><br />Her work is seeming to be irreproducible and the University of Copenhagen had to return a quarter of a million € in grant money.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3135179972814304151?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-23310824804598803572011-03-08T00:40:00.000+01:002011-03-08T00:40:16.823+01:00I was rather flabbergasted this morning when <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,749409,00.html">Spiegel</a> called me for a comment on the press release by the first and second corrector for Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg's doctoral thesis. Instead of letting the press frenzy die down, they fanned the flames. Here's a fine bit from the middle:<br /><blockquote>While discussing the thesis one should keep in mind that it was not common to check dissertations [for plagiarism] with technical tools in 2006 and it is still not common today.&nbsp; In addition, the technical tools available in 2006 were barely able to detect plagiarism. Plagiarism software [sic] as well as other methods were not as highly developed as they are today. Even Google did not have the finely tuned searching methods as they do today. In particular, software that works with legal texts are still being developed. In the interests of all participants there will surely be technical examinations done on dissertations as well before [they are read by the examiners] (The entire text can be found at the <a href="http://www.faz.net/s/Rub1ED0C280BBA14ACAB16800E2F760DF3E/Doc%7EEE8A1E579AB4442319F1FF94B7635B684%7EATpl%7EEcommon%7EScontent.html">FAZ</a> site in German)</blockquote>After a good laugh I recovered enough to look up my first paper on plagiarism detection that was published in a real journal: <span class="fhtw-black-type">"<i>Kein Kavaliersdelikt: Wie man Plagiate entdeckt und was dagegen getan werden muß.</i>" <a href="http://www.forschung-und-lehre.de/archiv/06-03/index.html">Forschung &amp; Lehre</a>, 6/2003, S. 307-308. (Not a trivial offense - how to discover plagiarism and what to do about it). This magazine is the monthly publication of the association of university professors, <i>Hochschulverband</i>, and is widely read in German universites. And this was published <b>way</b> before zu Guttenberg handed in.&nbsp;</span> <br /><br />Google worked fine in 2003 for discovering plagiarism. Why, I even found plagiarism before the Internet was born! You notice the different styles while reading it.<br /><br />This puts a rather bad light on the situation in Bayreuth. Did they really not know that the other universities were using Internet and software? Sure, the software doesn't pick up much. But let's assume they took a good sample, let's say 10 pages. With the current tally being 75% of all pages are plagiarized, that would mean that 7 of these 10 pages would contain plagiarism. Now, the software is only partially useful and only finds about 60-70 % of the plagiarism. So let's assume that out of 10 pages tested, 3 came up plagiarized - and plagiarized big time. Shouldn't that ring a bell and have a more intense investigation get started?<br /><br />The comments on the newspaper web pages are caustic at best. This did a great disservice to science at large, demonstrating that this corner of the scientific world has remained blissfully unaware of what is going on around them. <br /><br />I used a metaphor in a letter this morning: the entire Guttenberg affair has lifted the corner of the rug under which German academics have been sweeping their academic misconduct for ages. It is time to pull the rug out from under them, smack it clean and hose it down.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-2331082480459880357?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-74411060513387652002011-03-05T00:08:00.000+01:002011-03-05T00:08:15.305+01:00Spiegel Online <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,748941,00.html#ref=rss">reports</a> that the University of Freiburg Department of Sport Medicine, under investigation for doping cases, is under investigation for plagiarism. An external investigation team found a doctoral thesis and a <i>habilitation</i> (a second doctorate deemed necessary in order to be a university professor in Germany) to be extremely similar. It appears that the <i>habilitation</i> - submitted later by the mentor for the doctoral thesis - is the plagiarism.<br /><br />The mentor is currently head of the department. There are also allegations that his wife used parts of theses he mentored in her own doctoral thesis.<br /><br />It is interesting to see so many cases currently coming to the surface in Germany.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7441106051338765200?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-84030182444123463462011-03-04T19:06:00.000+01:002011-03-04T19:06:06.662+01:00We spent the day preparing, among other things, a handout for the workshop we are giving at a high school teacher's conference next week on the ethics of computing. On the handout we have two references, one is to the so-called "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_dilemma">Heinz dilemma</a>". <span class="citation book">Lawrence </span><span class="citation book">Kohlberg proposed this in his </span><span class="citation book"><i>Essays on Moral Development.&nbsp;</i></span><br /><br /><span class="citation book">I just copied and pasted the footnote with the dilemma and the reference into the handout from an older one and kept going. During proof-reading one of the grad students noticed something odd: "It says here that the woman lives in Europe, but the medicine costs $2000. That can't be!" Harumpf.</span><br /><span class="citation book">So we googled. We searched our hard disks. We only came up with this exact quote, and the book was not available in Google books. Another book was that had a very different wording in German, and was also in quotation marks.&nbsp;</span><br /><span class="citation book"><br /></span><br /><span class="citation book">Luckily, we had the footnote. I checked our library - praise be, we actually have two copies! But they are at the other campus. Even though it is a Friday afternoon, the library is still open until 6 pm. So we ordered the book, cleaned up the coffee cups and cookies, packed up the computers and I raced to our other campus by car. The rest of Berlin was already on vacation, so I made it in good time.</span><br /><span class="citation book"><br /></span><br /><span class="citation book">I got to the loan desk at 5.45 pm and there were six (6!!!) people ahead of me in line. To get books. For the weekend. Three cheers for our students, who still read real books! The book was waiting for me, I sat down at the next desk and flipped to the page that was given in our footnote.&nbsp;</span><br /><span class="citation book"><br /></span><br /><span class="citation book">And there it was: Europe and dollars. The quotation is exact, even if confusing.&nbsp;</span><br /><span class="citation book"><br /></span><br /><span class="citation book">So for the handout we will elide the "in Europe" with [...] to make it less confusing. Was it worth the hour's worth of work just to check a footnote? Absolutely. This could have been from someone entirely else. The book might not have existed, although the Wikipedia was sure that it did. It could have been taken out of context. And since most of our discussion depended on this, the quotation should be exact.&nbsp;</span><br /><span class="citation book"><br /></span><br /><span class="citation book">A lot of science has to do with checking what you are doing, doubting yourself at all times. And taking one small step, hopefully in the right direction. </span><br /><span class="citation book"> <i><br /></i></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8403018244412346346?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-42926057099830299382011-03-03T22:26:00.005+01:002011-03-04T13:25:34.579+01:00The bar code symbol with a black line for one plagiarism found on a page and red lines for multiple plagiarisms on a page came to be a symbol of the <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki">GuttenPlagWiki</a> work. Every now and then someone would generate it form the current list of pages found.<br /><br />Of course, people want to see it as a movie, so the challenge was to read the timestamps on the Wiki pages, decoding the page names to understand the page numbers and then produce a nice bar code.<br /><br />Here's a first version, thanks to MoonofA:<br /><a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Datei:Barcode.ogg"><br /><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5579969725788250450" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E8sU2e9mqPI/TXAI5tMK4VI/AAAAAAAAAAM/ertpFxsEu2E/s320/Picture%2B41.png" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 131px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br /><a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Datei:Barcode.ogg">http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Datei:Barcode.ogg</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-4292605709983029938?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-90631129826343541272011-03-01T22:37:00.001+01:002011-03-01T22:57:03.215+01:00A friend, Wolfgang Coy, used <a href="http://wordle.net/">wordle.net</a> to produce these word clouds and gave me permission to post them: <br /><br />This is what zu Guttenberg said today: <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Icm3EtB4CfY/TW1lfiRUrMI/AAAAAAAAAOk/BA5Qy3iLR3c/s1600/Guttenberg-steps-down.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Icm3EtB4CfY/TW1lfiRUrMI/AAAAAAAAAOk/BA5Qy3iLR3c/s320/Guttenberg-steps-down.png" width="320" /></a></div>This is what zu Guttenberg should have said: <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-lQLdeJQxskY/TW1mJvLjstI/AAAAAAAAAOo/e1EZeuRQI54/s1600/Guttenberg-should-have-said.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-lQLdeJQxskY/TW1mJvLjstI/AAAAAAAAAOo/e1EZeuRQI54/s320/Guttenberg-should-have-said.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />This is probably what zu Guttenberg meant:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ZqYDp85q-a4/TW1mUrlUJ4I/AAAAAAAAAOs/4kpxS1E3uqU/s1600/GUttenberg-meant.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ZqYDp85q-a4/TW1mUrlUJ4I/AAAAAAAAAOs/4kpxS1E3uqU/s320/GUttenberg-meant.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-9063112982634354127?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-75452874891007959602011-03-01T21:17:00.001+01:002011-03-01T21:29:46.348+01:00"<i>Weggetreten!</i>" - the military command soldiers are relieved to hear was the title of the special news report after the 8pm evening news. Mr. zu Guttenberg called a press conference for 11.15 and declared that he was stepping down - not because of the pressure, but because the focus was on his person and he wants to avoid hurting the army in the process (<a href="http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/ondemand100_id-video868688.html">video</a> - <a href="http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/guttenbergruecktritt102.html">text</a>).<br /><br />Merkel regrets his decision, the CSU is shocked (they now have to dig up someone willing to take on the job), the scientists are relieved, his supporters are busy liking the Facebook page. One commenter on the GuttenPlagWiki page estimates that there are about 30 likes a second happening. The <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Pressespiegel">GuttenPlagWiki</a> is collecting all the press references to them.<br /><br />Germany's journalists are all disappointed, they've been collecting material like crazy for the past 2 weeks, they now have to figure out how to use it. I am enjoying a lot of questions about ghostwriters and plagiarism detection systems.<br /><br />An interesting phenomenon is the polls asking if he did the right thing. Telephone polls are running 1:9 saying he should not have quit. Some online polls are 1:1 undecided. Other online polls are 9:1 saying it was about time. This demonstrates quite nicely the bias inherit in many of the methods used for polling. Young people often don't have a landline anymore, so calling on the phone will skip many young people. Not all Internet users will take polls, either. So all we know is that we don't really know what the German populace really thinks.&nbsp; <br /><br />Maybe now we can have some peace and quiet. I am currently looking at how the plagiarism detection systems rate the thesis. It's a lot of work, but we are making some interesting discoveries on how the systems deal with this kind of thesis. I will report on the results when we have them!<br /><br />I want to thank all my new readers (and especially the commenters!) and I hope you keep your RSS readers tuned to this station. I am certain that this is not the last bit of plagiarism or scientific misconduct.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7545287489100795960?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-81407969935441617222011-03-01T11:26:00.000+01:002011-03-01T11:26:30.744+01:00I have to get to a meeting, but we have to have this news in English right now:<br /><br />At 11.15 this morning zu Guttenberg held a brief press conference and announce that he is <a href="http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/guttenberg762.html">resigning immediately</a> as Minister of Defense. <br /><br />Yesterday a basket full of signatures from scientists and doctoral students in Germany was taken to the Chancellor's office protesting the opinion that it was just a few footnotes that were missing. Honesty is our currency in science!<br /><br />We are very relieved that he has taken this step. We also hope that this is a wakeup call for the scientific community to look more closely into how we mentor students.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8140796993544161722?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-66247979406733842012011-02-26T18:45:00.009+01:002011-02-28T00:50:13.567+01:00German scientists and doctoral students are signing an <a href="http://offenerbrief.posterous.com/">open letter</a> to the German Chancellor by the droves. There are some 7000 signatures as of Feb. 26, 2011.<br />I've had a request for an English translation, how can I resist that, with so many people now reading this blog and commenting? Since I didn't go to the demonstration in Berlin this afternoon, I will offer this translation<br /><blockquote>Dear Chancellor Merkel,<br /><br />as doctoral students we have been following the current discussion about the plagiarism accusations against the Minister of Defense, Mr. Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. We are shocked and do not understand what is happening. We have the impression that you are trying everything in your power to keep a minister in your cabinet who still insists that he did not knowingly deceive in his doctoral thesis, despite massive evidence to the contrary.<br /><br />With this course of action, the German government and the members of parliament from the coalition [of CDU, CSU and FDP] damage not only themselves, but much more.<br /><br />Zu Guttenberg has had to distance himself a number of times from statements he has made about his dissertation. The Internet community has with an <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki">unparalleled effort</a> managed to demonstrate numerous incidents of clear plagiarism in Mr. zu Guttenberg's dissertation. The evidence can be openly seen and checked by anyone. It should not surprise anyone that experts in plagiarism are united in the opinion that this is not just a few "embarassing errors". This is massive, systematic deception.<br /><p>Zu Guttenberg copied large portions of his dissertation from various sources - apparently with great ambition - and did not name those sources in order to obtain a doctoral title that he used for, among other things, election advertising. The University of Bayreuth did not address this issue of deception [when revoking the doctorate].<br /></p><p>In the face of the extent and amount of plagiarism found, it should be as clear to you as it is to us that at the end of an exact investigation by the university, only one result will be possible with respect to the intent to deceive on the part of the minister. This cannot be done unknowingly.<br /></p><p>Calling the deception a deception has nothing to do with the minister belonging to a particular political party. We would also demand that politicians from opposing parties step down, if they had given their word of honor that the work was only their own, except for sources as noted, and had plagiarized in the same manner.<br /></p><p>On February 23, 2011 Mr. zu Guttenberg stated that he only wants to be judged by his performance as Minister of Defense. He alluded to a phrase you had used when you said that you did not hire him as a research assistant.<br /></p><p>This makes a mockery of all the research assistants and doctoral students who honestly endeavor to contribute to the advancement of science. This makes it sound as if obtaining a doctoral title by fraud is just a trivial offense and that the academic word of honor is meaningless in everyday life.<br /></p>When following the rules of good scientific practice it is not just a question of footnotes, trivialities that can safely be neglected in the face of the larger political problems of the day. This is the foundation of our work and our trustworthiness. We strive in our own work, according to the best of our knowledge and conscience, to reach this high goal at all times. When we fail, we run the risk - and rightly so - of being expelled from the university.<br /><p> Most of us teach younger students. It is often our job to teach them the basics of good scientific practice. We insist that the students be exact at all times, correctly quoting and clearly noting all help that was used. We don't do this because we are fanatics about footnotes or because we live in an ivory tower and know nothing about real life. It is our intention to pass on the understanding that scientific progress - and with it progress for society as a whole - is only possible when we can depend on the honesty of the scientific community.<br /></p><p>When our students violate these precepts, we grade their efforts as unsatisfactory. On repeated violation, as a rule we try to expel them. Those who have been expelled are denied access to numerous career opportunities - and rightly so - even for jobs that are much less in need of personal integrity than the office of the Minister of Defense.<br /></p><p>We may be old-fashioned and are spouting outdated conservative values when we are of the opinion that values such as veracity and a sense of responsibility should also be valid outside of the scientific community. Mr zu Guttenberg seemed to be of this same opinion until very recently.<br /></p><p>Research contributes a valuable service to the development of society. Honest and innovative science is the foundation of the prosperity of our country. When it is no longer an important value to protect ideas in our society, then we have gambled away our future. We don't expect thankfulness for our scientific work, but we expect respect, we expect that our work be taken seriously. By handling the case of zu Guttenberg as a trifle, Germany's position in world science, its credibility as the "Land of Ideas", suffers.<br /></p><p> Maybe you consider our contributions to society as being negligible. In that case, we kindly request that in the future you refrain from referring to Germany as the "Republic of Education and Culture", as you often proclaim.<br /></p><p>Sincerely,</p> <p><strong> </strong></p> <p><strong> </strong></p> <p>The Undersigned<span style="font-size:78%;"> [at the time of translation]</span><strong><strong></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong></strong><strong><a href="https://spreadsheets4.google.com/pub?hl=en&amp;hl=en&amp;key=0AgWY-zdpWZDydFluSlp0RUEyVDVfU29jdDUybWRnVXc&amp;output=html" title="Guttenberg - Weitere Unterstützer des offenen Briefs an die Bundeskanzlerin" target="_blank">3242 </a> <span style=""> </span>doctoral students<a href="https://spreadsheets1.google.com/pub?hl=en&amp;hl=en&amp;key=0AgWY-zdpWZDydFE3elRiZlZoQkZQakhxYU52a1BpbEE&amp;output=html" title="Guttenberg - Weitere Unterstützer des offenen Briefs an die Bundeskanzlerin" target="_blank"><br />1817</a> <span style=""> </span>persons with doctorates<a href="https://spreadsheets0.google.com/pub?hl=en&amp;hl=en&amp;key=0AgWY-zdpWZDydHJHSFBWczFkNEV2S2dZMmJtZWtaRWc&amp;output=html" title="Guttenberg - Weitere Unterstützer des offenen Briefs an die Bundeskanzlerin" target="_blank"><br />2579</a> <span style=""> </span>other supporters</strong></strong></p></blockquote><p>Around 300 persons gather downtown under the motto "summa cum fraude" and walked peacefully to the Ministry of Defense, where they put shoes on the top of the spikes on the railing - a symbolic gesture of disrespect used during recent protests in Northern African and Middle Eastern countries. <strong><strong></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong>Update 1: </strong></strong>Here are some pics from the demo<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>from the Berlin newspaper <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.tagesspiegel.de/mediacenter/fotostrecken/politik/demonstration-gegen-guttenberg/3886892.html">Tagesspiegel</a><strong><strong>.<br />Update 2: </strong></strong>Polished up a bit, thanks to missionmi<strong><strong>!<br />Update 3: </strong></strong>If you want to sign the German version, please click <a href="http://offenerbrief.posterous.com/">here</a> or on the link "open letter" above!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update 4:</span> Wow - the open letter made it to the evening news (<a href="http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/ondemand100_id-video867158.html">Tagesschau</a>)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update 5:</span> Now you can<a href="http://offenerbrief.posterous.com/pages/english-version"> sign the letter</a> in English as well! There is also a possibility for non-academics to sign. Today alone over 12.000 signatories were counted!<br /></p><p><strong><strong><br /></strong></strong></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6624797940673384201?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16036864220530629908noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-60078100574951863302011-02-23T23:07:00.000+01:002011-02-23T23:07:08.294+01:00Well, this has to be a record. I believe this is the shortest university decision process in the last 400 years or so. Last Tuesday evening the story broke, just over a week later the university commission for good scientific work at the University of Bayreuth reached a decision.<br /><br />They are rescinding his doctorate.<br /><br />They didn't go into details, and most important, didn't decide if he plagiarized on purpose. He says he didn't, the documentation found on the <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Plagiate">GuttenPlagWiki</a> screams a different story. Since he has announced that he wanted to withdraw his doctorate anyway, he won't contest it, so they don't have to do the normal detailed analysis.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,747354,00.html">Spiegel</a> notes that he has sacrificed that title for his career as minister. And that his popularity has <b>risen</b> through all this. Some are calling him the German Sarah Palin.<br /><br />And I am a bit worried about the tide of anti-intellectualism washing over Germany at the moment. People who have been irritated for years at people with doctorates pulling rank and being high and mighty about having this special title. It's been demonstrated to be a sham, all this "summa cum laude" stuff, so just ignore them. The Green party was being very snide during the public grillings today, constantly calling him "Herr Dr." - since the doctorate had not yet been rescinded, they could not be rebuked by the president. <br /><br />This whole affair has done a great disservice to the German scientific community. We have been tried in the court of the mass media and found lacking. We must get serious about the topic of plagiarism and scientific misconduct NOW. No more playing around, being gentle to colleagues caught red-handed. No more doctoral titles easily purchased. No more made-up data. The hard part will be convincing the ministers of education that funding universities on the basis of quantitative measures is nonsense. <br /><br />I suppose I should thank Mr. von und zu Guttenberg for getting my topic of plagiarism into every newspaper and every <i>Stammtisch</i>. Can we get back to work now, please?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6007810057495186330?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-71015791401245582852011-02-23T14:44:00.000+01:002011-02-23T14:44:20.923+01:00It's really great to see that the discussion is continuing although zu Guttenberg has said that he will give up his doctorate and has written a letter to this effect to the University of Bayreuth. Some of the major points:<br /><ul><li>How can the two army universities currently deal with plagiarism, if their commander-in-chief is a plagiarist?</li><li>Why do people in business need doctorates on their doors?</li><li>What is the state of science in Germany if simple plagiarisms like this are not found? Does that mean that many more are floating around?</li><li>People who worked hard for their doctorates are madder than hornets at this, as people keep asking them if they really did their own work or only plagiarized. </li><li>People who like zu Guttenberg still insist that this is still just a commie plot to discredit Mr. Clean, even when faced with a mountain of evidence to the contrary.</li><li>Why don't the universities mentor their doctoral students better?</li><li>Why can't a software be written to sort of solve all our problems?</li><li>Mr. Gadaffi, Jr.s <a href="http://saifalislamgaddafithesis.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page">doctorate</a> from the London School of Economics seems to smell a bit like a plagarism</li></ul>Oh, and I think since the nation has been so obsessed with this for the past week that a new stamp needs to be issued:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110221143515/guttenplag/de/images/thumb/4/43/Guttenberg-gutenberg.jpg/319px-Guttenberg-gutenberg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110221143515/guttenplag/de/images/thumb/4/43/Guttenberg-gutenberg.jpg/319px-Guttenberg-gutenberg.jpg" width="274" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the fine collection of <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/index.php?title=Spezial:Neue_Dateien&amp;until=20110221145851">Guttenberg Artwork</a> at the GuttenPlag Wiki, by Freecopy</td></tr></tbody></table>I just listened to him explain himself to the German parliament in a grilling. He's sorry, he had a lot to do, he didn't do it on purpose, it has nothing to do with his job as commander-in-chief, and he's setting a fine example, encouraging people to work hard and be even more careful than normal when doing research.<br /><br />Now, what do I do with the two plagiarists I caught this week reading through papers?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7101579140124558285?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-8290505501682045832011-02-21T23:15:00.000+01:002011-02-21T23:15:19.991+01:00He's given up.<br /><br />The crowd-sourced project at GuttenPlagWiki published a <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Zwischenbericht">summary</a> (in German) of the most interesting bits of plagiarism found during these intensive days. It's fascinating - and very well done. They have worked hard to remain scientific about this, slapped down the gleeful punks (they get rid of their excess energy in the chat: "<i>Mein von mir verfasste Plagiat ist keine Dissertation</i>", my plagiarism written in my own hand is not a dissertation), and brought it to a sharp point. I spoke briefly - and anonymously - on the phone with the main author today. He is said to be a doctoral student, and I think he did a smashing job getting this organized and sorted out and written. And very nicely sourced. <br /><br />Guttenberg announced this evening, just in time to squeeze into the <a href="http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/guttenberg670.html">evening news</a> that he reread his thesis over the weekend and has decided to ask the university to rescind his dissertation. He will hand back the certificate, and asks forgiveness from his mentor. Oh, and he's staying Minister of Defense. <br /><br />The university still needs to continue the proceedings, I feel. And I very strongly suggest that the University of Bayreuth take a deep, hard look at how the mentor doctoral students and how they go about determining grades. <br /><br />On a side note, it was fascinating to watch a grass-roots movement with some simple, sharp tools (a wiki, a chat, a forum, a scanner) deconstructing the text, determining the sources for most of the pages and even visualizing how the thesis was written: copy &amp; paste, change a word here and there, move some stuff around, translate a bit mechanically. This is the stuff that can radically change science: working in the open as opposed to a closed lab; fending off opponents as you work; and collaborating instead of working alone.<br /><br />Thanks, <a href="http://www.wikia.com/">Wikia</a>, for providing the storage space!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-829050550168204583?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-9444796332698337592011-02-19T22:56:00.001+01:002011-02-19T22:56:54.127+01:00The <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki">GuttenPlag Wiki</a> is expanding and now has a large collection of <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Spezial:Neue_Dateien">funny collages</a> and cartoons people have contributed. <br /><br />This simple visualization of the current state of the work shows that there is not much left without a flaw. The table of contents and the appendix (blue) are not considered when the percentages are calculated. Black is for pages with at least one improperly sourced copy; red is for pages with more than one.&nbsp; <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-udSvvSEELNo/TWA5jkD_zRI/AAAAAAAAAOg/7MLMJfWuPAQ/s1600/Picture+30.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-udSvvSEELNo/TWA5jkD_zRI/AAAAAAAAAOg/7MLMJfWuPAQ/s320/Picture+30.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />I've just checked a few pages at random. They are, indeed, exceedingly close. Just some minor editing here and there, and not necessarily for the better.<br /><br />I'm wondering if KTzG thought that this crazy quilt is how we do science. Or if he is perhaps suffering from an advanced version of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptomnesia">cryptomnesia</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptomnesia">Wikipedia</a> quotes Macrae, C.N., Bodenhasen, G. V. &amp; Calvini, G. (1999). <i>Contexts of cryptomnesia: May the source be with you</i>. Social Cognition, 17, 273–297:<br /><blockquote>Cryptomnesia is more likely to occur when the ability to properly monitor sources is impaired. For example, people are more likely to falsely claim ideas as their own when they were under high cognitive load at the time they first considered the idea.</blockquote>Sounds fitting. The saga continues.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-944479633269833759?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-21678607641798736412011-02-18T21:30:00.002+01:002011-02-21T23:15:56.511+01:00The Germans have now turned to one of their favorite ways of dealing with problems - the jokes. Since there was really no news today other than that Minister Guttenberg will not be using his title socially until this gets cleared up, people spent the day joking.<br /><br /><ul><li>Why doesn't Ursula von der Leyen [German Minister for Work] want to sit next to the defense minister at cabinet meetings? Because he is always copying.</li><li>News flash - von Guttenberg copied his first names from the Wikipedia (a joke about the prank someone played on German journalists by adding an extraneous first name to his full name in the Wikipedia: <i>Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. </i>The Bild-Zeitung even printed the wrong name on the cover.)</li><li>Guttenberg's stock appears to consist mostly of companies that produce copy machines.</li><li>"Wetten dass",&nbsp; an extremely popular German quiz show that contains a crazy bet, has him betting that he can have all of the authors of his thesis&nbsp; show up and salute in front of the Cologne cathedral.</li><li>Helene Hegemann (the young German author <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2010/02/plagiarism-and-no-end.html">caught plagiarizing</a> early last year) to be the next minister of defence. </li><li>We have people selling "<a href="http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&amp;item=330532505527">ergonomic Guttenberg keyboards</a>" on eBay with just the CTRL, A, C, and V (for "mark all", "copy", "paste")</li><li><b>Update: </b>An intern in the Ministry of Defence asks "Where's the copier?" "Oh, he's in Afghanistan this week!"</li></ul>Okay, they lose a lot in translation.<br /><br />All these jokes didn't keep the media from constantly trying to interview me, although I was in a doctoral seminar all day. I fobbed off the interview service to my research assistent. She had not been interviewed before, but there has to be a first time for everyone, so I threw her into the cold water with instructions to only contact me if a national or local TV show wanted me. She almost drowned in all the interviews, and even ended up on the <a href="http://www.rbb-online.de/abendschau/archiv/archiv.media.%21etc%21medialib%21rbb%21rbb%21abendschau%21abendschau_20110218_plagiat.html">local news</a> herself. Moi? I had a taxi pick me up and drive me to the next state for the <a href="http://www.rbb-online.de/brandenburgaktuell/archiv/index.media.%21etc%21medialib%21rbb%21rbb%21aktuell%21aktuell_20110218_plagiat.html">3 minute interview</a> on the Brandenburg local news.<br /><br />I hope that all of this media attention wakes schools and universities up and gets them serious about all aspects of scientific misconduct. That has been my goal since I started working in the area of plagiarism, to get Germany to start talking about it and not try and keep a lid on the bubbling swamp that is out there.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-2167860764179873641?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-78859263080697253062011-02-17T21:34:00.003+01:002011-02-21T23:16:36.254+01:00Every journalist in the country, it seems, needed to speak with me over the past two days. They need to understand plagiarism, now. They wonder why we just can't stuff Guttenberg's doctoral thesis - which appears to have been heavily plagiarized - into some kind of software and let it chug away and tell us how much was plagiarized.<br /><br />Every newspaper in the country had an article on it, every news station reports hour by hour on new developments. Guttenberg, the conservative German defense minister from Bavaria, has left the country and gone to Afghanistan. They say this was planned, but right now, he's probably safer there than in the streets of Berlin. The opposition is gleefully taking potshots at him (metaphorically, you understand). His supporters accuse the scientist who discovered the plagiarism of being part of a commie plot to undermine the country, if I understand their tone of voice correctly.<br /><br />No one believes that a professor might sit down one evening at the computer, in the midst of writing a review of a doctoral thesis that had been around for a while, but had a very prominent author, currently under fire for other things. The professor, Andreas Fischer-Lescano of the University of Bremen, <a href="http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/guttenbergs-doktorarbeit-summa-cum-laude-mehr-als-schmeichelhaft-1.1060779">poured himself a glass of Argentine red wine</a>, looked over the thesis and put three words into Google: "säkularer laizistischer multireligiöser" (secular lay multireligious - the thesis includes a chapter on putting references to a god in a constitution).<br /><br />And he got a hit. From an article in the Neue Züricher Zeitung by Klara Obermüller, written a few years before his thesis was published. Oops. He poured another glass and tried some other terms, and some more. Fischer-Lescano wrote a <a href="http://www.kj.nomos.de/fileadmin/kj/doc/zu_guttenberg.pdf">scathing review</a>, and includes as an appendix 24 word-for-word passages that are not quoted and not referenced. The review will be published the end of the month in <i>Kritische Justiz</i>, 44(1), pp. 112-119.<br /><br />A number of journalists have spoken with me today to question this way of working. How do I look for plagiarists? "Well," I said, "pretty much the same. Except that I prefer Austrian wine."<br /><br />There is speculation about whether his doctorate will be rescinded. I remind journalists that this is for the University of Bayreuth to decide. They did the granting (top grades, by the way, they might want to rethink how they grade theses); they are the only ones who can take away. Apparently, KT, as he is affectionately known, has 2 weeks to prepare a statement explaining where the quotation marks disappeared to. Meanwhile, a <a href="http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/">crowdsourcing project</a> is checking all 400+ pages for more sources. <br /><br />I give top awards to the reporting of the case to the Financial Times Deutschland for their print edition from Feb. 17. Their lead story, "Freiherr zu Copy and Paste¹" includes 9 proper footnotes, including the one in the heading and one in the subheading. <br /><br />In between all of the interviews I also spent an hour on <a href="http://www.br-online.de/bayern2/tagesgespraech/tagesgespraech-doktor-titel-ID1297923036890.xml">Bayern2 radio</a> on the topic of what a title is worth in Germany (I also explained this in English to "<a href="http://www.thelocal.de/society/20110217-33171.html">The Local</a>") and spent a good few hours with a camera team from Focus TV. They are going to have a show on Tuesday evening on Kabel 1. But it looks like they have sold some of the shots to other media already, I saw me reading the paper mentioned above (my rings are rather unique).<br /><br />One does wonder if there is no other real news to report on, but it is nice that people are talking about plagiarism. And our hits are just tremendous:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I2SkJmi83RU/TV2FqUWqADI/AAAAAAAAAOc/8HKhOt-7T4U/s1600/Picture+28.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I2SkJmi83RU/TV2FqUWqADI/AAAAAAAAAOc/8HKhOt-7T4U/s320/Picture+28.png" width="266" /></a></div><br />Tomorrow I will turn off my phones and attend our doctoral students seminar. And I suppose I shall say a word or two about footnotes. <br /><br /><blockquote><br /></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7885926308069725306?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-66572067418827593012011-02-16T19:26:00.001+01:002011-02-21T23:17:19.576+01:00Yes. I noticed. The German defense minister, Baron von und zu Guttenberg has been accused of plagiarizing in his dissertation. I spent all day on the phone, trying to explain plagiarism to journalists. I will try and get something put together in English tomorrow. For now just the picture of the hit statistic on my plagiarism portal:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dcXFHBZ7MhY/TVwWsSM7kHI/AAAAAAAAAOY/pX2RriHac04/s1600/Picture+27.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="304" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dcXFHBZ7MhY/TVwWsSM7kHI/AAAAAAAAAOY/pX2RriHac04/s320/Picture+27.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6657206741882759301?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-80993764783585012012011-02-04T11:31:00.000+01:002011-02-04T11:31:40.980+01:00The German research funding organization DFG has again censured plagiarists. A <a href="http://www.dfg.de/service/presse/pressemitteilungen/2011/pressemitteilung_nr_05/index.html">press release</a> was issued this week stating that a <i>schriftliche Rüge</i> (written reprimand or censure) has been issued to two professors.<br /><br />They had submitted a funding proposal together that included large passages of text taken without giving the source. This was noted by the referees, who notified the DFG. They started an investigation and asked the professors for a statement. They said that they had prepared the proposal together with input from subordinate researchers, who were responsible for including the plagiarism.<br /><br />The DFG makes it clear that the submitting researchers are responsible for what is in the proposal, even if they have junior researchers doing the writing. They must ensure that the text meets appropriate standards of scientific writing, especially as they want funding for research. They must meet at least basic scientific standards.<br /><br />This is a very good decision, as it clearly demonstrates that professors can not publish or submit proposals under only their own names, and then point the finger to a junior researcher or student if it turns out to be a plagiarism.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8099376478358501201?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-25801431428022701862011-01-25T23:29:00.003+01:002011-01-25T23:37:25.087+01:00<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Last year I was "asked" to contribute to a journal that I considered fake, Modern Applied Science, and I <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2009/05/modern-applied-science-another-fake.html">blogged</a> about it. <br /><br />This year it is not so generic, they refer to a paper that I published online a few years ago:<br /><br /><blockquote>Dear Debora Weber-Wulff,<br />I read your article of “Learning Software Engineering via Internet” on line.I know that you are an expert in this area.<br /><br />I am Cindy,the editor of "International Education Studies (IES)" ,which is a peer-reviewed, open access journal, published by Canadian Center of Science and Education.The scopes of the journal include, but not limited to, the following topic areas: education, training and educational administration.The journal is published in both printed and online versions. The online version is free access and download.Please click on "about" above to see information on editorial board, policies, submissions etc.<br /><br />It’s my honor to invite you to contribute manuscripts to our journal. Please find more details athttp://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ies/index/.<br /><br />If you have any questions, please contact with me at: [].<br /><br />It is appreciated if you could share this information with your colleagues and associates. Thank you.<br /><br />Best Regards,<br />Cindy Xu<br />Editor<br />International Education Studies<br />Canadian Center of Science and Education<br />*************************************<br />Add: 4915 Bathurst St. Unit #209-309, Toronto, ON. M2R 1X9</blockquote>I love the language misuse and the missing commas after periods.&nbsp; Google now has Streetview here, so we can see that the Canadian Center of Science and Education is in a shopping center: <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TT9O6Yb24BI/AAAAAAAAAOM/wuQXajn9VOE/s1600/Picture+184.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TT9O6Yb24BI/AAAAAAAAAOM/wuQXajn9VOE/s320/Picture+184.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finchurch Plaza, 4915 Bathurst St., Toronto, Ontario</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TT9PCpg4SSI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/ZJxVbvkcZzE/s1600/Picture+185.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TT9PCpg4SSI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/ZJxVbvkcZzE/s320/Picture+185.png" width="119" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />and it has interesting neighbors: an Asian&nbsp; grocery, a Subway, a nail studio, a dentist, a florist, a shoe repair, a podiatrist. And not to forget the Buck Stop.&nbsp; <br /><br />Is this a legitimate scientific endeavor? I think not. <br /><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-2580143142802270186?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-36169833547302188022011-01-23T14:18:00.002+01:002011-02-02T23:06:10.704+01:00<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A former student alerted me to this company this morning, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDM_Publishing" target="_blank">VDM publishers</a>, operating out of Mauritius. She was written to on Xing, a business social platform, in German by the "Acquisition Editor" from VDM Publishing House, Ltd. He noted that he had happened upon her bachelor's thesis while browsing the web at our school and found her thesis interesting. He requests that she send him her email address so he can send her information about publishing her scientific work. She was quite thrilled by this, but luckily Skyped me first to ask it it was permissible to publish her thesis herself. Now, I used the Vienna Development Method (VDM) in my doctoral thesis, so I thought I would just check up on what kind of publisher it is, as I generally smell a rat at cold calls like this. <br /><br />Oh dear, just as I suspected: This is what I normally call a "fake publisher", but should perhaps call a spam publisher, "Verlag Dr. Müller". The Wikipedia article linked to above references an article in the <a href="http://www.bernerzeitung.ch/schweiz/standard/Wenn-die-Etikette-schwindelt/story/10946017" target="_blank">Berner Zeitung</a> from 2009 about this publishing house that purports to publish scientific books under diverse imprints such as Alphascript, Betascript, FastBook Publishing, Fromm Verlag, Saarbrücker Verlag für Rechtswissenschaften, Lambert Academic Publishing, etc. etc. <br /><br />What they seem to do is to pick up free content, such as the Wikipedia, or bot around looking for students that have just completed their theses, and ask if they may publish them as books, offering a free copy of the book to the author. And since the books have an ISBN number (although the country code for the publications is from Algeria or other exotic places), this sounds like a great idea to a young graduate. I checked to see how you find the correct title for her thesis at our school - the only way is to use the public OPAC at the library, but there is a helpful search function there for theses from our school that can then be listed in the order received into the library. <br /><br />The books are offered at a stiff price (30-60 €) via online booksellers such as Amazon. There are lots of "novels" such as the works of "<span class="ptBrand">Lambert M. Surhone, Miriam T. Timpledon, and Susan F. Marseken", who have collectively published &gt; 81214 (!) books on subjects from M16 Rifles to Sine Waves. Many include - according to the cover - "High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles![sic]", and for only 34,99 € instead of 36,99 €. What a deal for content you can have for free and current on the Wikipedia itself. The "abstract" of these books is often the first few sentences from the Wikipedia article.<br /><br />I just checked amazon.com, there "</span><span class="ptBrand">Lambert M. Surhone" has 230,556 publications this morning. </span>Wow, that's impressive. I've found a German blog post on this from April 2010 in <a href="http://www.basicthinking.de/blog/2010/04/07/die-wikipedia-amazon-nummer-wie-sich-mit-gratis-content-einen-haufen-geld-machen-laesst/">basicthinking.de</a> and two US bloggers, <a href="http://www.chrisrand.com/blog/index.php/2010/02/27/odd-tale-alphascript-publishing-betascript-publishing/">chrisrand.com</a> and <a href="http://www.realtimerendering.com/blog/best-book-title-ever-period/">Real-Time Rendering</a>. According to Chris Rand, Amazon had stated that the books are being "retired". No sign of that in January 2011. Real-Time Rendering suggest writing a bot to publish reviews on all of the books that they are Wikipedia copies - any takers?<br /><br />This is just one more example of why the "simple" system that is being instituted in Germany to measure publishing output "quality" in Germany is broken. Only publications with an ISBN or an ISSN are deemed legitimate, in Berlin anyway. Anyone can - and does - publish anything at a print-on-demand publisher. And who can tell from the fancy names that this is not a high-quality publisher? <br /><br />And for the customers? <i>Caveat emptor</i>.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3616983354730218802?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-15107289948514743692011-01-07T18:20:00.001+01:002011-01-07T22:46:43.507+01:00We held an online press conference today, one in German visited by over 30 persons and one in English with 16. There were journalists, bloggers, system developers, and interested university people from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Netherlands, Spain, Finland, England and the USA gathered to listen and to ask questions. It was great that we were able to use the Adobe Connect system that the DFN provides for German universities, thanks a lot!<br /><br />I am exhausted after the effort of concentration, and we still are not done with the entire web site, but it is coming along slowly. We have the results in English for the first time, the link is <a href="http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software-en/">http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software-en/</a>. We will be growing the web site over the next few weeks.<br /><br />The top group only found between 61% and 70% of the plagiarism, so our best grades were just a C- for effectiveness. We were also evaluating usability and professionalism this year, and were able to demonstrate that one system resells access to another system (without permission) and another runs a term paper mill from the same street address and almost the same telephone number.<br /><br />The systems in the top group are <a href="http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software-en/2010-2/s10-05-plagaware/" target="_self">PlagAware</a>, <a href="http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software/2010-2/s10-01-turnitin/" target="_self">Turnitin,</a> <a href="http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software/2010-2/s10-02-ephorus/" target="_self">Ephorus,</a> <a href="http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software/2010-2/s10-11-plagscan/" target="_self">PlagScan</a>, and <a href="http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software/2010-2/s10-06-urkund/" target="_self">Urkund.</a><br />The long version of the report is also <a href="http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software-en/wp-content/uploads/PlagiarismDetectionTest2010-final.pdf">available</a> online.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-1510728994851474369?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-83241880574687853922011-01-03T11:26:00.000+01:002011-01-03T11:26:24.730+01:00„Plagiarists beware – we use software!“<br /><br />Many universities attempt to coerce their students into compliance with good scientific practice with the use of plagiarism detection software. And there are many systems that offer such services. They suggest a fast, cheap, and easy way to winnow out the plagiarists from the honest authors. But do they work as promised? <br /><br />Prof. Dr. Debora Weber-Wulff, professor for media and computing at the University of Applied Sciences HTW Berlin has been testing plagiarism detection systems since 2004 and has published widely on the topic. In this fourth test series that was just completed at the end of 2010 26 systems out of 47 available systems were closely examined. Particular focus was given to seeing how well the systems detect a known amount of plagiarism, and how they react when offered original material. <br /><br />Prof. Weber-Wulff and her student research assistant will be presenting what works – and what fails spectacularly – in an online press conference.&nbsp; <br /><br /><b>Online Press Conference: „Plagiarism Detection Systems“&nbsp; </b><br /><br /><b>Friday, January 7, 2011
</b><br /><b>9:00 UTC (10:00 German time) in German</b>: <a href="https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/plagiat10/">https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/plagiat10/</a><br />Technical prerequisites: Standard browser with Flash<br />Technical problems can be solved half an hour before the conference by
 Katrin Köhler, Tel: +49-30-5019-3499<br /><br /><b>15:00 UTC (16:00 German time) in English</b>: <a href="https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/plagiarism10/">https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/plagiarism10/</a><br />Technical prerequisites: Standard browser with Flash<br />Technical problems can be solved half an hour before the conference by
 Katrin Köhler, Tel: +49-30-5019-3499<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8324188057468785392?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-46040963079649943732011-01-01T12:57:00.001+01:002011-01-01T12:57:32.171+01:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>A sportswriter for ESPN in the USA has been suspended for lifting text from a columnist and using it word for word in his television commentary of the game. <a href='http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/espnews-anchor-apologizes-for-plagiarism/?ref=media' target='_blank'>New York Times</a> and <a href='http://www.mediaite.com/online/los-angeles-sports-writer-accuses-espnews-anchor-of-plagiarizing-his-column/' target='_blank'>Mediaite</a> report. The columnist blogged<br/><blockquote>“Hey, Will Selva of ESPNEWS. Glad you liked my last column so much. Try not to plagiarize it next time.”<br/></blockquote>Selva has admitted to the plagiarism, is very sorry, and promises not to do it again, but has been suspended indefinitely. The comments on the NYT article are quite good, HS teacher observes <br/><blockquote>1. People who plagiarize think they have an invincible quality to them - they will never be caught.<br/>2.<br /> Most people who plagiarize (at the high school level) do not take it <br />for what it is - an egregious act of indignity that speaks to a person's <br />lack of hard work and diligence.<br/>3. People who plagiarize always have<br /> multiple excuses, such as- I forgot, I didn't realize, I didn't do it, <br />etc. They can lie their way right to vindication.<br/></blockquote>Others comment that ESPN is in the entertainment business, not the journalism business, but I don't see that that makes a difference - the entertainment industry gets its knickers in a knot about "intellectual property theft" all the time when speaking about filesharing, why should this be different?<br/><br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-4604096307964994373?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-163867515221493542010-12-05T00:51:00.001+01:002010-12-05T00:51:21.254+01:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), one of the largest research grant organizations in Germany, has <a href='http://www.uni-protokolle.de/nachrichten/id/208242/' target='_blank'>officially reprimanded four researchers</a>.<br/><ol><li>Dr. Armin Heils published a study about Epilepsy in "Nature Genetics" in 2003 in which he supposedly proved that certain genetic mutations caused epilepsy. Internal investigations revealed in 2007 that the study was based on incorrect data. Heils was the only one of 24 authors of the paper unwilling to withdraw the publication. Since the research was funded by the DFG, he is prohibited from applying for money for the next 3 years.</li><li>A manuscript that had been accepted for print turned out to have fabricated data. The unnamed researcher is prohibited from applying for money for the next 5 years, in particular because this was a senior scientist.</li><li>An applicant gave incorrect data about the current state of publications (submitted, accepted, in print) for an application for funding. The researcher was given a written reprimand.</li><li>The fourth case is a plagiarism case - an application for funding contained passages from other sources that were not quoted. Since the passages applied to the core of the research, it was considered serious. The applicant tried to explain that the plagiarism was due to the passages being written by students, but the DFG does not accept this as an excuse, the applicant is responsible for the text, and thus this researcher was also given a written reprimand. <br/></li></ol></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-16386751522149354?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-16427530496778977812010-12-02T19:49:00.001+01:002010-12-02T19:49:54.523+01:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>[Thanks to a correspondent for the link!]<br/><br/>A new blog, <a href='http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/' target='_blank'>Retraction Watch</a>, written by two medical journal editors, links to and comments on retractions of papers from scientific journals. The blog started in August 2010 and has some interesting cases reported, including a number of plagiarisms that have been retracted. There is also a link to a <a href='http://www.the-scientist.com/2007/3/1/37/100/' target='_blank'>glossary of retractions</a> from The Scientist, 2007, explaining the sanctions from a correspondence to a retraction without permission.<br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-1642753049677897781?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-78053432045042105862010-11-24T08:30:00.002+01:002010-12-01T14:25:24.102+01:00<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The <i>Tagesspiegel</i> <a href="http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/plagiat-charite-zieht-buch-zurueck-erhebliche-teile-stammen-aus-anderen-werken/3199542.html" target="_blank">reports</a> this morning on a withdrawn book. <br /><br />The prestigious Berlin university medical center Charité is celebrating its 300th anniversary in 2010. In honor of the occasion they put out a book about their history, and commissioned a journalist, Falko Hennig, to assist in producing the volume.<br /><br />The historian of medicine, Philipp Osten, was looking forward to the book and immediately opened it to the chapter on orthopedics, his specialty. There he discovered about 8 pages lifted from his own book, <i>Die Modellanstalt</i>, without permission and with a different author listed.<br /><br />He contacted the editors and the publisher, who immediately investigated the allegations. They soon found more plagiarism by Hennig in other chapters, and so they have decided to withdraw the book. The publishers are suing Hennig.<br /><br /><b>Update</b>: Spiegel Online <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,731186,00.html">reports</a> that the Charité's own medical history department did not want to produce such a book. The supposed "authors" of the chapter on orthopedics had no idea that they were authors, and the editors are doing a lot of hand-washing, as they were "only" editors. Spiegel Online also reports that Henning is looking for a good intellectual property rights lawyer, as he reports on his Twitter stream. &nbsp; </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7805343204504210586?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-17029373206561711152010-11-21T14:43:00.002+01:002010-11-21T15:35:14.599+01:00<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">During a visit to Sweden I was made aware of this group blog that deals with research. One of the bloggers, retired associate professor in ethics Birgitta Forsman, wrote about <a href="http://www.fof.se/blogg/birgitta-forsman/oredlighet-i-forskning" target="_blank">scientific misconduct</a> in Sweden. <br /><br />It seems the government has put forth a new proposition about scientific misconduct. Her major criticism is that much of research today is done outside of universities, and that the local lords have a much too strong influence in the decision about what is worth being researched. <br /><br />She discusses the STAN study which was published in <i>Lancet</i>. The inventor of a technology that was to be studied (and co-owner of the company that uses the technology and was financing the study) was monitor and responsible for the quality of the study, although he was not listed on the paper. <br /><br />This is a different kind of scientific misconduct than what has often been linked to here. This is not someone who is not involved in the study putting their name on the paper in order to pad their CV. This is someone who was involved not being listed so that when <i>Lancet</i> asked if any of the authors had any connection to the company whose technology was being investigated, they could all truthfully answer "no". <br /><br />An investigation into this research deemed it problematic, but not scientific misconduct, begging the question of where exactly scientific misconduct begins. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-1702937320656171115?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-6248333125822890082010-11-18T23:02:00.001+01:002010-11-18T23:02:56.421+01:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I keep trying to explain to people that plagiarism detection systems are helpless when faced with other forms of academic misconduct. In this <a href='http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/125329/' target='_blank'><i>Chronicle</i> article</a> a reader sends to me a ghostwriter bares all, and the sight is not pretty. Money is exchanged for papers - the college system is broken. Actually, the moral system seems to be in quite a degenerate state:<br/><blockquote>I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat in courses that are largely about walking in the light of God and providing an ethical model for others to follow.<br/></blockquote>So fellow professors - if you wonder how your incoherent student wrote such a great paper, maybe they didn't. <br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-624833312582289008?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-23690410390250707872010-11-15T10:41:00.000+01:002010-11-15T10:41:48.832+01:00The German radio station SWR2 broadcast a 30-minute report in German on scientific misconduct on November 10, 2010:<i>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/wissen/betrug-hochschulen/-/id=660374/nid=660374/did=6974276/1ifyn73/index.html">Abschreiber, Fälscher, Ideendiebe</a>.</i><div><i><br /></i><div>Interviews with <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2010/05/plagiarism-or-naturally-given.html">Hans Peter Gumm</a>, <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2010/08/book-forbidden.html">Volker Rieble</a>, Ulrike Beisiegel (DFG Ombud for good scientific praxis), Eberhardt Hildt (the whistleblower in the <a href="http://www.iwp.jku.at/lxe/wt2k/standard/untitled3.htm">Herrmann/Brack</a>&nbsp;data fabrication case), and yours truely from about 23:00, although the journalist got the name of this blog wrong.</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-2369041039025070787?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-52924998017935512762010-11-15T09:42:00.000+01:002010-11-15T09:42:12.771+01:00The Huffington Post <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/12/george-bush-book-decision-points_n_782731.html#s180908">reports</a> on George Bush's memoirs "Decision Point" - it appears that whoever ghostwrote it prepared a crazy quilt of plagiarisms, including "eyewitness" reports about circumstances that Bush provably did not attend, such as the inauguration of Afghan president Karzai<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;">.</span><br /><blockquote>Bush "recollects" - in a more literal sense of the term - quotes by pulling his and others verbatim from other books, calling into question what he genuinely remembers from the time and casting doubt on any conclusions he draws about what his mindset was at the time.</blockquote>Even if we are not awarding Bush a degree for his words, one begins to despair of ever educating people of the difference between writing and copying.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5292499801793551276?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-1509115156618833632010-11-01T10:38:00.000+01:002010-11-01T10:38:47.064+01:00Found on a "free essay site":<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TM6E7cOMPgI/AAAAAAAAAOE/TXX6bK9kqeY/s1600/Picture+134.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TM6E7cOMPgI/AAAAAAAAAOE/TXX6bK9kqeY/s1600/Picture+134.png" /></a></div><br />The next time you see language like this on a paper, it may not be the student writing, but an "excellent" free essay from an essay mill.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-150911515661883363?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-65497033821839544922010-10-31T12:56:00.000+01:002010-10-31T12:56:24.157+01:00Science Daily <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025121901.htm">alerted</a> me to this publication on PLoS<br /><blockquote><a class="article icon" href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012704" title="Back to original article">Systematic Characterizations of Text Similarity in Full Text Biomedical Publications</a><span class="citation_author"><br />Sun Z, </span><span class="citation_author">Errami M, </span><span class="citation_author">Long T, </span><span class="citation_author">Renard C, </span><span class="citation_author">Choradia N, </span><span class="citation_author">et al. </span><span class="citation_date">2010</span> <span class="citation_article_title">Systematic Characterizations of Text Similarity in Full Text Biomedical Publications. </span><span class="citation_journal_title">PLoS ONE</span><span class="citation_issue"> 5(9):</span> <span class="citation_start_page">e12704.</span><span class="citation_doi">doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012704</span></blockquote>The authors of <a href="http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/updatereport/?p=2656">eTBLAST</a>, a text-similarity search engine, have expanded their work that at first investigated text- and author-similarity on PubMed abstracts (CSP <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2008/01/duplicate-papers.html">article</a> from 2008). They have now accessed full-text articles to dig deeper into text similarities.<br /><br />They investigated over 70.000 full papers, and determined that abstract similarity is a good predictor of full text similarity. They caution, however, that the automatic identification of possible cases of plagiarism must be checked by hand to determine if indeed plagiarism is present. They only uncovered 34 highly similar papers, and all were updates or multi-part articles that did indeed share larger sections of text.<br /><br />However, they note that many of the currently uncovered plagiarized publications, for example in Chile and Peru [1], were translations and these are not included in the PubMed database.<br /><br /><br /><br />[1] Sources given in the article about the Chilean and Peruvian cases:<br /><ol class="references"><li><span class="authors">Arriola-Quiroz I, Curioso WH, Cruz-Encarnacion M, Gayoso O</span> (2010) Characteristics and publication patterns of theses from a Peruvian medical school. Health Info Libr J 27(2): 148–154.&nbsp;<a class="find" href="http://www.plosone.org/article/findArticle.action?author=Arriola-Quiroz&amp;title=Characteristics%20and%20publication%20patterns%20of%20theses%20from%20a%20Peruvian%20medical%20school."></a></li><li><a href="" id="pone.0012704-Salinas1" name="pone.0012704-Salinas1"></a><span class="authors">Salinas JL, Mayta-Tristan P</span> (2008) [Duplicate publication: a Peruvian case]. Revista de Gastroenterologia del Peru 28: 390–391.&nbsp;<a class="find" href="http://www.plosone.org/article/findArticle.action?author=Salinas&amp;title=[Duplicate%20publication:%20a%20Peruvian%20case]."></a></li><li><a href="" id="pone.0012704-RojasRevoredo1" name="pone.0012704-RojasRevoredo1"></a><span class="authors">Rojas-Revoredo V, Huamani C, Mayta-Tristan P</span> (2007) [Plagiarism in undergraduate publications: experiences and recommendations]. Revista Medica de Chile 135: 1087–1088.&nbsp;<a class="find" href="http://www.plosone.org/article/findArticle.action?author=Rojas-Revoredo&amp;title=[Plagiarism%20in%20undergraduate%20publications:%20experiences%20and%20recommendations]."> </a></li><li><a href="" id="pone.0012704-Reyes1" name="pone.0012704-Reyes1"></a><span class="authors">Reyes H, Palma J, Andresen M</span> (2007) [Ethics in articles published in medical journals]. Revista Medica de Chile 135: 529–533. </li></ol><div class="intro"> </div><div class="intro"> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6549703382183954492?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-71384241971400596252010-10-31T12:15:00.000+01:002010-10-31T12:15:42.167+01:00The German online news site <i>Telepolis</i> <a href="http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/33/33292/1.html">reports</a> in October 2010 about the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, which belongs to the Pfizer concern, hiring a public relations company (DesignWrite) to inject ghostwritten advertising into peer-reviewed articles that appear in closed-access medical journals.<br /><br />The PR company carefully wrote articles that in diction and appearance seemed to be scientific articles that surveyed the literature on the topic of hormone replacement studies for menopausal women. The surveys downplayed the negative side effects, which include a higher risk of breast cancer, and praised the positive side effects, such as lowering the probability of dementia, of the substances. Later studies have shown that these hormone replacement medicines actually increase the probability of dementia. These surveys were given to researchers, who "edited" the articles and submitted them for publication to peer-reviewed journals. <br />&nbsp; <br /><a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2009/08/elsevier-published-ghostwritten-papers.html">This blog</a> noted the article published in 2009 in the New York Times. <span rel="dc:creator"><span><a href="http://fugh-berman.com/">Adriane J. Fugh-Berman</a>, an </span></span>associate professor for Complementary and Alternative Medicine<span rel="dc:creator"><span> at Georgetown University, has now published her study of the incident in the open-access journal PLoS: </span></span><a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000335">The Haunting of Medical Journals: How Ghostwriting Sold “HRT”</a>.<br />Fugh-Berman has published a meticulously linked and documented article that demonstrates the depths of this relationship between the ghostwriters. One sample:<br /><blockquote> One co-author seemed puzzled by the concept that she was to author, but not write, an article <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000335#pmed.1000335-20">[34]</a>: “From what you have written, I would be more of an ‘editor’ rather than the major writer—that is, you guys would be writing the versions—with me ‘altering, editing, etc.? Is that correct?’” <span class="note public" title="User Annotation"><a class="bug public" href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000335#" id="annAnchor1" title="Click to preview this note"><span>1</span></a>This query was in response to an e-mail from Karen Mittleman (a DesignWrite employee who supervised medical writers) that stated: “The beauty of this process is that we become your postdocs! … We provide you with an outline that you review and suggest changes to. We then develop a draft from the final outline. You have complete editorial control of the paper, but we provide you with the materials to review/critique”</span> <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000335#pmed.1000335-20">[34]</a>.</blockquote>This would also suggest that the "normal" way of writing is to have the postdocs do the work and the PI publish the paper. And even when a peer review tried to question a paper, documents show that DesignWrite responded to the reviews (and not the supposed authors), at times scolding the reviewers for misusing the peer-review process!&nbsp; <br /><br />Fugh-Bermann summarizes:<br /><blockquote><span class="note public" title="User Annotation">Acceptance of ghostwriting, euphemistically termed “editorial assistance,” may be so widespread that it is considered normal.</span> This could explain why several authors of ghostwritten articles have defended their involvement.</blockquote>As a researcher for complementary and alternative medicine, it is of course to her advantage to demonstrate that what we have considered to be "hard science" in the area of medicine up until now has degenerated into an advertising circus. But her results are not based on just a single case - the list goes on and one. Fugh-Bermann: "Medicine, as a profession, must take responsibility for this situation. Naïveté is no longer an excuse."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7138424197140059625?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-34815879122765433482010-10-17T13:28:00.001+02:002010-10-17T13:28:16.987+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><i>The Atlantic</i> has an interesting article by David H. Freedman in its November 2010 issue, "<a href='http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269' target='_blank'>Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science</a>", about John Ioannidis, one of the world’s foremost experts on the credibility of medical research.<br/><blockquote><p class='blurb'>Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science.</p></blockquote> <h5 class='author'><br/><span class='authors'/></h5><br/><br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3481587912276543348?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-60306842872187924802010-10-09T14:33:00.001+02:002010-10-09T14:33:17.854+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57738/#ixzz11h6FJTJc' target='_blank'>The Scientist</a> has an opinion piece by Suresh Radhakrishnan on preventing fraud in research. The author was fired as a senior research associate from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for scientific misconduct in May 2010. I find it very good that the author reflects on what caused him to falsify data and to propose solutions for preventing this in the future. <br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6030684287218792480?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-58764003375700104292010-09-23T00:15:00.001+02:002010-09-23T00:15:11.248+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Ethics blogger Janet Stemwedel has a <a href='http://scientopia.org/blogs/ethicsandscience/2010/09/21/first-dispatch-of-the-semester-from-the-cave-of-grading/' target='_blank'>video message</a> for her plagiarizing students. Maybe this will be something they understand. <br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5876400337570010429?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-39385376848741820912010-09-19T15:23:00.001+02:002010-09-19T15:23:48.964+02:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>The Summer 2010 online issue of "Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship" includes a nice viewpoint by Edward J. Eckel entitled "<a href='http://www.istl.org/10-summer/viewpoint.html' target='_blank'>A Reflection on Plagiarism, Patchwriting, and the Engineering Master's Thesis</a>":<br/><blockquote>"How many times has a graduate student asked you questions such as the <br />following: "How many words do I need to change so I'm not plagiarizing?"<br /> or "If my professor gives me his article or patent and tells me to go <br />ahead and 'use it', do I need to cite it?" Such questions indicate a <br />profound need for clarification of issues like plagiarism and <br />attributing sources. This need is a result of a disconnect between <br />expectations for graduate students in the sciences and technology, and <br />how they are being educated to meet those expectations. [...]<br/>Rather than focusing on punishment or ethics, we librarians and faculty <br />members need to teach these students a more realistic view of the <br />writing process, one that allows and encourages the reuse of generic <br />strings of text and yet scrupulously attributes the ideas and <br />distinctive written expressions of other authors."<br/></blockquote><br/><br/><br/></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3938537684874182091?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-87925762850219671892010-08-26T00:43:00.000+02:002010-08-26T00:43:43.443+02:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/THWTnUe5CJI/AAAAAAAAAN0/ZAOdT6tsPWg/s1600/5100zMris7L._SL160_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/THWTnUe5CJI/AAAAAAAAAN0/ZAOdT6tsPWg/s320/5100zMris7L._SL160_.jpg" /></a></div>Jenny Erdal: <a href="http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841956376/plagiatundimi-21/"><i>Ghosting</i>. <i>A Double Life.</i></a> Canongate Books, Edinburgh. 2005. German translation: <a href="http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3378010991/plagiatundimi-21/"><i>Die Ghostwriterin - Ich war sein Verstand und seine Stimme. </i></a>Kiepenheuer, Berlin. 2008.<br /><br />I was given this book a while ago, but have only now gotten around to reading it. It is the biography of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennie_Erdal">Jennie Erdal</a>, a Scottish writer who began translating Russian novels for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naim_Attallah">Naim Attallah</a>, the publisher of <br />Quartet Books. Over the years she began writing more and more for him, first preparing and then transcribing and editing interviews that he conducted, but finally also writing two novels that were published in his name only.<br /><br />She describes the slow process by which her boss asks for just a little bit more, he himself still completely convinced that it is all his own work. She begins thinking of quitting after 15-16 years, but she has 3 kids, 2 in college, and a mortgage to pay. The job pays well, and she can work from home, so she continues to write for him, and puts up with his control-freak nature, at times calling her over 40 times a day.<br /><br />She begins reflecting over what it is that she is doing and I find this paragraph about fraud to be extremely thoughtful. I quote the German version, as that is the one I have before me. A re-translation follows. <br /><blockquote>"<i>Über den Betrug wird hingegen [im Gegensatz zu Selbstbetrug] sehr viel strenger geurteilt, was angesichts seiner Alltäglichkeit und Allgegenwart fast ebenso merkwürdig ist. Täuschung ist ein fester Bestandteil unseren Alltagslebens, angefangen bei dem höflichen Dank für etwas, das wir lieber von uns weisen würden, bis zur kalkuliertern Lüge, um eine Freundschaft zu erhalten. Sie ist eines unserer Mittel, sich in die Welt einzubringen, und es scheint fast, als hätten die Menschen eine besondere Begabung dafür. Wir betrügen einander, um unsere emotionalen Bindungen zu schützen, gleichzeitig binden wir uns emotional an abstrakte Ideen wie Ruhm oder Macht. Jene, die lügen oder betrügen, haben keine besonderen Kennzeichen; man kann es von außen nicht erkennen, sie sehen aus wie du und ich. Wir alle tragen Masken, einige Masken jedoch wiegen so schwer und werden so lange getragen, dass sie das Gesicht dahinter zu zerstören beginnen.</i>" <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(pp. 253-254)</span><br /><br /><span class="long_text" id="result_box"><span style="background-color: white;" title="">On the other hand, fraud is judged much more strictly, which, given its ordinariness and ubiquity is almost as remarkable. </span><span title="">Deception is an integral component of our everyday life, from the polite gratitude for something we would rather not have, to the calculated lie to keep a friendship. It</span><span style="background-color: white;" title=""> is one of our resources for participating in the world, and it almost seems as if&nbsp; people have a special talent for it. </span><span title="">We betray each other to protect our emotional bonds, while we bind ourselves emotionally to abstract ideas such as fame or power. </span><span style="background-color: white;" title="">Those who lie or cheat bear no special marks, you can not see it from outside, they look like you and me. </span><span style="background-color: white;" title="">We all wear masks, but some masks weigh so hard and are borne for so long that they begin to destroy the face behind it. <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Re-translation Google Translate and dww)</span></span></span></blockquote>It is hard to quit, hard to say that a line has been crossed, that one cannot continue with this fraud. I'm sure that many researchers have experienced this same thing. First an assistant prepares some material. Then something is written by an assistant and rewritten by the researcher before publishing. Then under the pressure to publish more and more and more a text gets passed through without change, but the true author is kept hidden, and the researcher does not even find anything wrong with this.<br /><br />Reading through the <a href="http://www.arlindo-correia.com/020405.html">reviews</a> there is an often mentioned aspect: here she is, taking his money for 20 years, and now she is betraying him! She is seen as somehow morally deficient for describing him in such intimate detail. She sees herself, however, as a sort of prostitute:<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> From <a href="http://www.arlindo-correia.com/020405.html">The Guardian, October 23, 2004</a>:&nbsp;&nbsp;<b><span style="color: silver;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.kniff.de/cgi-bin/cgiproxy/nph-proxy.cgi/010110A/http/www.guardian.co.uk" style="color: #cc3300; text-decoration: underline;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></a></span></b></span><br /><blockquote>"Ghost-writing is not new. It might almost qualify as the oldest profession if prostitution had not laid prior claim. And there is more than a random connection between the two: they both operate in rather murky worlds, a fee is agreed in advance and given "for services rendered", and those who admit to being involved, either as client or service-provider, can expect negative reactions - anything from mild shock and disapproval to outright revulsion. A professor at my old university, a distinguished classicist with feminist leanings, was appalled when she heard what I did for a living and pronounced me "no better than a common whore". This - the whiff of whoredom - is perhaps the main reason why people opt for absolute discretion! </blockquote>I found the book quite interesting, although I still do not understand why an intelligent woman would put up with him, much less with ghostwriting, for so long.&nbsp;<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-8792576285021967189?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-56197092987470347792010-08-25T23:48:00.000+02:002010-08-25T23:48:13.679+02:00Tagesspiegel reporter Hermann Horstkotte <a href="http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/kann-jedem-passieren/1909638.html">reports</a> that a law professor from the Humboldt University in Berlin,&nbsp;Hans-Peter Schwintowski, has announced that he is leaving the German professional organization of university professors, the <a href="http://www.hochschulverband.de/cms1/">Deutscher Hochschulverband</a>. <br /><br />The reason is that the DHV is considering forcing him out, because his university found that his book <i>Juristischen Methodenlehre </i>did not properly quote the sources used.The DHV feels that this is incompatible with their professional honor code. Schwintowski insists that this was just an oversight that has probably happened to every member of the organization. <br /><br />Another law professor, Axel Wirth, an expert on building law from the TU Darmstadt, has also announced that he will leave the organization as it is also considering forcing him out because of a commentary that he published under his own name that one of his assistants had secretly plagiarized from another source. Wirth complains that with the organization acting in this way, they are not giving the professors in question their constitutional right of re-socialization after having been found guilty of an offence.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5619709298747034779?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-13613244485579916272010-08-25T23:30:00.000+02:002010-08-25T23:30:07.825+02:00Kate Shaw <a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/08/harvard-professor-found-guilty-of-scientific-misconduct.ars">writes</a> at arstechnica: <br /><blockquote>"After a three-year internal investigation by Harvard University, animal cognition researcher Marc Hauser has been found 'solely responsible' for eight counts of scientific misconduct. Since its beginning, the matter has been shrouded in secrecy, with Hauser admitting only to certain 'mistakes.' However, Hauser is now on a one-year leave of absence from Harvard, and in response to the investigation’s findings, the University's Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has vowed to 'determine the sanctions that are appropriate.'" (<a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/08/harvard-professor-found-guilty-of-scientific-misconduct.ars">more</a>)</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-1361324448557991627?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-12637465211226544412010-08-15T13:28:00.001+02:002010-08-15T13:28:34.550+02:00I just ran across an <a href="http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/08/plagiarism-and-falsified-data-slip-into-the-scientific-literature.ars">article</a> from 2007 about arXiv.org, one of the many Open Access databases, that withdrew 65 papers on <span class="primary-subject">General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology</span> by <a href="http://arxiv.org/new/withdrawals.aug.07.html">14 Turkish authors</a> on the basis of the papers containing plagiarized material. One of the authors, a grad student at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, was listed on 40 (!) of the papers. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TGfO5SAyMeI/AAAAAAAAANs/nar6pPwG9AU/s1600/Picture+66.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TGfO5SAyMeI/AAAAAAAAANs/nar6pPwG9AU/s400/Picture+66.png" width="400" /></a></div>The papers in question are replaced with a reference that they are plagiarized and the true sources are given. This is extremely important - don't just remove without a trace, but leave a note both of who the plagiarist was and the true source, in case any of the plagiarized versions are referenced elsewhere. <br /><br />This is one of the advantages of online Open Access - in a printed journal, the retraction appears sometime later. Online, the reference itself can be replaced with the retraction notice, giving credit to the original authors.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-1263746521122654441?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-70550009727595974552010-08-15T13:03:00.000+02:002010-08-15T13:03:40.786+02:00A Japanese correspondent has alerted me to the strange case of <a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/">Serkan Anilir</a>.&nbsp; He is a German-born researcher of Turkish descent who was said to be an Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo.<br /><br />He has an impressive biography - but depending on which language you are reading (English, Japanese or Turkish) it is different. He claims to be a <a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/2009/10/is-dr-serkan-anilir-astronaut-candidate.html">Turkish astronaut candidate for NASA</a>, but closer inspection will show that this is his head photoshopped onto the body of Richard Hieb.<br /><br />He has had "guest professorships" all over the world, according to the list is on the Turkish Wikipedia (translated <a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/2009/10/turkish-wikipedia-entry-serkan-anilir.html">here</a>). It appears that he gave talks at these schools, but not that he had guest professorships. He is not listed in the <a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/2009/10/dr-anilirs-official-positions.html">official researchers lists</a> for projects he supposedly worked on. <br /><br />His <a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/2009/10/dr-anilirs-mysterious-publication-list.html">publication list</a> has a number of anomalies: wrong publisher; long article in a journal that only prints short ones; an examination of a given journal issue shows no article with that name; one publication can be found with the same name and co-author, but not with his name on it.<br /><br />He also claims to be an Olympic gold medalist in skiing. However, there is no record of this. <br /><br /><i>Asahi Shinbum</i>, a respected Japanese newspaper, picked this up and <a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/2009/11/denied-in-turkey.html">reported</a> that they checked his reference that was supposed to be from the Turkish Air Force, but they <a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/2009/11/denied-in-turkey.html">denied</a> that it was from them. <br /><br />When things got hot in the Japanese press, an investigation into his dissertation was started. Since it turned out to be more than&nbsp;<a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/2009/11/getting-ph-d-is-so-easy-for-him.html"> 40% plagiarized</a> (later reports: <a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/2009/12/59-and-done.html">59%)</a> the University of Tokyo <a href="http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/public/public01_220305_j.html">revoked his doctorate</a> in March of 2010 (press release in Japanese <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&amp;prev=_t&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;layout=1&amp;eotf=1&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.u-tokyo.ac.jp%2Fpublic%2Fpublic01_220305_j.html&amp;sl=ja&amp;tl=en">translated</a> by Google) - the first time in the history of the university that they have done such a thing!<br /><br />In the aftermath, his talk at <a href="http://dranilir.research-integrity.net/2009/10/canceled.html">TEDxTaipei </a>in Taiwan and other places were mysteriously canceled. It is a shame that they were not open about this. He is <a href="http://www.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/etpage/faculty_members/index01.html#S">no longer listed</a> as a professor at the University of Tokyo. And the university has announced a <a href="http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20100428-212874.html">crackdown</a> on plagiarism. <br /><br />Nice to hear of a success story, even if it did take 10 years!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-7055000972759597455?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-60981180607835750922010-08-14T21:12:00.000+02:002010-08-14T21:12:13.587+02:00Over a round of "Friday beers" in a European capital, a group of researchers gathered who happened to be from four different fields and worked in three different European countries. We got into a plagiarism discussion, and I found there were some disturbing observations made:<br /><ul><li>The chemist noted that it is normal for the PI to put his/her name on any papers written in their lab. Not always do they read the papers before submitting them.</li><li>The chemist also noted that the last paper which was sent to the PI had three authors on it, the two doing the research and the PI. When it was returned it had four names on it - and neither researcher knew the fourth one. They questioned the PI, who responded: Oh, that's a former postdoc of mine. He's applying for a professorship in X and needs some more publications.</li><li>The chemist had a previous PI in a previous lab in another European country. Here a big-shot American researcher was added to a paper to "insure" that it would be accepted for Nature. Needless to say, this researcher had neither done the research, nor written or even read the paper.</li><li>The political scientist started into citation indices and how important they were for their field. Of particular importance is the number of quotations you get within two years of publication. The historian grumbled that it would be lovely to get papers <u>published</u> within two years of writing them, and having anyone read them and maybe one person publish a review within two years would be wonderful, but nothing will get cited within that time frame.</li><li>The computer scientist noted that conference papers are more important than journal articles in her field, much to the shock of the chemist.</li></ul>From this brief, non-scientific exchange we can gather that honorary authorship is normal in some sciences, and citation metrics don't really help tell how productive a researcher is. The chemist noted that the post-docs don't like these extra names on their papers, but they don't feel that they can say anything or they will anger the PI and endanger their careers.<br /><br />What can be done to get rid of "honorary authorship"? Or should we just accept it as the way things are done in some fields?&nbsp;<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-6098118060783575092?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-38074535719766192272010-08-12T17:45:00.000+02:002010-08-12T17:45:12.285+02:00The Neue Züricher Zeitung <a href="http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/schweiz/maturand_wegen_internet-plagiat_von_pruefung_ausgeschlossen_1.7177157.html">reports</a> that the Swiss Federal Administrative Court has upheld the decision of the national examination board (Schweizerische Maturitätskommission) regarding the exclusion of a student from the final exams for his high school diploma (<i>Matura</i>) on the basis of plagiarism in his thesis work.<br /><br />The student from Waadtland had used the Wikipedia and other Internet sources word-for-word in his thesis without referencing them. He had previously been warned by a teacher that it was necessary to reference Internet sources. It is also stated clearly in the rules for the thesis that it must be written by the student alone.<br /><br />The student was also fined 500 Swiss Franks and must pay lawyer and court costs.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-3807453571976619227?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-53409817880161514702010-08-03T16:50:00.000+02:002010-08-03T16:50:04.964+02:00I am happy to announce that we are, indeed, continuing to test so-called plagiarism detection systems. Last year we moved offices to a new campus, so there was no time to deal with research. But I again have a student researcher to help this summer.<br /><br />We have developed 10 new test cases, this time in English. They include some "normal" plagiarism, some with European characters sprinkled in, an original, one that contains program source code in Perl, a translation from the French Wikipedia to English, a longish passage from a Google books, and an extensively rewritten version of a text from the Project Gutenberg.<br /><br />We have identified 44 (!) plagiarism detection systems, with more showing up in blogspam every day. We are not sure that we will be able to test them all, but we will be giving it a good try. I have applied to extend the funding so that we can try as many as we can, and also do our write up in English and in German.<br /><br />The current list:<br /><ul><li>AntiCutAndPaste</li><li>AntiPlag</li><li>AntiPlagiarist</li><li>ArticleChecker</li><li>Attributor</li><li>Blackboard / SafeAssign</li><li>BOSS 2</li><li>CatchItFirst</li><li>CodeSuite</li><li>CopyCatch Gold</li><li>CopyScape free edition</li><li>CopyScape Premium Edition</li><li>CopyrightSpot</li><li>Doc Cop</li><li>Docoloc</li><li>Ephorus</li><li>Eve2</li><li>FairShare (von Attributor)</li><li>GenuineText</li><li>iPlagiarismCheck /checkforplagiarism</li><li>JPlag</li><li>Kopi Protection</li><li>MOSS</li><li>Picapica</li><li>PlagAware</li><li>PlagiarismChecker.com</li><li>Plagiarism Detector</li><li>Plagiarism-Finder</li><li>Plagiarisma </li><li>PlagiarismAnalyzer</li><li>plagiarismdetect.com</li><li>plagiarismsearch.com</li><li>plagium</li><li>PlagScan</li><li>ProfNet / PlagiatService</li><li>StrikePlagiarism</li><li>TextGuard </li><li>Turnitin</li><li>The Plagiarism Checker</li><li>Urkund</li><li>WCopyfind</li><li>YAPLAF&nbsp;</li></ul>The criteria are more quantified than they were before, and we have a detailed usability test included. We also insist on being able to find a proper real world address for the companies and get a response to our emails that is not generated by a robot.&nbsp; <br /><br />We started testing last week and noticed that many of our first test cases now come through clean because the sources that we plagiarized from are no longer available online. However, Bing has taken copies of our first group of test cases, so we have to exclude these from the results. We look forward to seeing how the systems have changed!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5340981788016151470?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-11534382458497815932010-08-02T10:18:00.000+02:002010-08-02T10:18:16.540+02:00I owe this blog at least two book reports that I have not gotten around to on account of semester pressures. I'll take them one at a time.<br /><br />The German law professor Volker Rieble published a thin blue book entitled "<a href="http://www.klostermann.de/biblio/bib_4101.htm"><i>Das Wissenschaftsplagiat - Vom Versagen eines Systems</i></a>" in April of this year. It is fascinating in that it names names. I ordered my copy immediately, fearing that it would be removed from the market. And so it has happened - a court injunction has forced the book out of print, effectively forbidding it. The publisher, Vittorio E. Klostermann <a href="http://www.klostermann.de/verlegen/vek_13.htm">writes</a>: <br /><blockquote>Two law professors who were named in Volker Rieble's book and whom he criticized on their citation methods, have obtained an injunction from the Hamburg regional court (<i>Landgericht</i>) against this publisher. We are not allowed to publish certain passages from the book. The currently bound and sold copies of the book are, however, not included in the injunction. This has made it easier for this publisher to forgo an expensive legal battle and to accept the injunction as the final legal arrangement.&nbsp; <br /><br />As I am not a lawyer, I do not want to discuss the subtle points of law that both of the plaintiffs brought forth to establish their cases. Why the court decided the way they did is not known, because an injunction does not come with justification. I have learned that a German court can forbid a statement without giving a reason. I don't find this a good thing. It would have been useful if the Hamburg judges had at least given a brief sketch of their reasoning. Then we would know if they had read the book, or only the passages in question, and how the judges interpret the passages in the context of the book. <br /><br />I decided to publish Volker Rieble's book because I found his concern to be important - pointing out problematic conventions in the scientific community. His goal is scholarly honesty: Not (only) plain-old plagiarism, but also the bad habit of using other people's intellectual property without properly identifying the author is problematic. For the various practices of this kind he introduced the term "<i>Wissenschaftsplagiat</i>", scholarly plagiarism, and used it in the title of his book. He explains this thoroughly from page 80 onwards.&nbsp; <br /><br />The debate about the things Rieble writes about does not belong in court, but in the glaring light of the professional scholarly public. That the scientific discussion that we are attempting to further in publishing our books could be gagged under threat of punitive action has happened for the first time in the 80 years of the existence of this publishing house. <br /><br />But we have known, at least since the FAZ reported on June 2, 2010 about the Weigend review of the book by Calvo-Goller about the International Criminal Court (the <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/NYU-Professor-Faces-Libel/64370/">Chronicle</a> reported in English), that scholarly free speech is threatened. </blockquote>Many of the cases Rieble discusses are, of course, from the area of law. Many of these cases were new to me, and I am thankful for the good footnotes that he uses to document the cases. My only quarrel is that he has a bizarre bit at the end where he finds Open Access to be responsible for the increase of plagiarism, something I cannot follow. Open Access helps us to better find those guilty of plagarism! The texts are open, dated, and the authorship is clear. I think we need <b>more</b> Open Access and not less. I have an essay on this topic that will be published the end of 2010, more on this later. <br /><br />It is sad to see academic discourse being subjected to the vagaries of legal decisions.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-1153438245849781593?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-45206829088977971652010-07-22T19:18:00.000+02:002010-07-22T19:18:11.139+02:00The University of Bergen in Norway has put out an amusing video on plagiarism:<br /><br /><object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Mwbw9KF-ACY&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=de_DE&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Mwbw9KF-ACY&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=de_DE&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br />It is in Norwegian, with English subtitles. Enjoy!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-4520682908897797165?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-50978366827512783562010-07-17T21:03:00.000+02:002010-07-17T21:03:01.700+02:00While researching that last posting on <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-fake-conferences.html">fake conferences</a> I found a number of interesting sites I want to link to here:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://diplomamillnews.blogspot.com/">Diploma Mill News</a>, a blog dedicated to "<span>[e]xposing scammers of every ilk: diploma mills, fake diplomas, fabricated transcripts, bogus accreditation, plagiarism, cheating, essay mills, identity theft, impersonation of licensed professionals, and more."</span></li><li><span>The State of Oregon has a <a href="http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.aspx">long list of unaccredited schools</a> </span></li><li><span><a href="http://academic-spam.blogspot.com/">Academic Spam</a>, a blog that collects the solicitations ("</span>If you are a pseudoscientist, then a new bogus conference is calling you to send fake papers")</li><li>A scientific paper:&nbsp; Zhuang, Z., Elmacioglu, E., Lee, D., and Giles, C. L. 2007. <a href="http://clgiles.ist.psu.edu/papers/JCDL2007-conference_ranking.pdf">Measuring conference quality by mining program committee characteristics.</a>&nbsp; In <i>Proceedings of the 7th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries</i> (Vancouver, BC, Canada, June 18 - 23, 2007). JCDL '07. ACM, New York, NY, 225-234. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1255175.1255220 </li><li>Some Japanese guy has <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.austria/browse_thread/thread/cc880555a293c5a8?pli=1">plagiarized</a> my first article on fake conferences...</li><li>A <a href="http://www.anti-plagiarism.org/">blacklist</a> of conferences and journals</li><li>A 10-page <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TVN-4YPT1MF-1/2/b753d5dc36a2df1efb1cb8d58c7b6753?&amp;zone=raall">paper</a> from CERN that has 3469 authors (!) [Did they all get money from their institutions for this publication?]</li></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-5097836682751278356?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9091218950079982154.post-907034498562670312010-07-17T20:17:00.000+02:002010-07-17T20:17:08.287+02:00I had a discussion with the GI Ethics group yesterday on the topic of <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2008/12/fake-conferences.html">fake conferences</a>. How exactly do we decide if a conference is a fake - only there to provide researchers with publications to pad their CVs and a trip to a nice place? One of our group had submitted a paper to a conference that sounded legit, but when he arrived he was shocked that most of the week was dedicated to local tours and the few papers that he heard given were either very thin, very wacko, or given in such bad English as to be incomprehensible. <br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br />We proposed these factors:<br /><ul><li>Exotic location that is interesting from a tourist perspective</li><li>No call for papers or a call for papers that includes pretty much all fields</li><li>Steep registration fee </li><li>You must pay your registration fee before your paper is accepted</li><li>No referee comments</li></ul>But we got to thinking - sometimes we have conferences just like this. Berlin is an interesting place, we invite people and they have to pay for coffee before we accept them, and we don't referee. Maybe we should include "Held at a hotel and not a university", although many legitimate conferences are held at hotels now, although I am not sure why: surely university rooms would be cheaper and have better WLAN?<br /><br />Another member of the group sent me this gem from his inbox this morning: <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TEHO45KSx7I/AAAAAAAAANk/Tn-V78p1N3U/s1600/Picture+43.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="464" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1xlCgvOTQsA/TEHO45KSx7I/AAAAAAAAANk/Tn-V78p1N3U/s640/Picture+43.png" width="640" /></a></div>Wow! Three co-located conferences in Malta! I was expecting IEEE to be the sponsor, as <a href="http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2009/08/suspicious-chinese-ict-conferences.html">they tend to sponsor many iffy conferences</a> in far-away places. But no - this is a fake IEEE! They call themselves the "Institute for Environment, Engineering, Economics"! The domain ieee.am is registered via IARAS (International Association for Research and Science, a Cyprus-based organization) in Armenia. They run all sorts of conferences that have very long program committee lists with names from the Arabian, South American, and Far Eastern world. I do understand that it is difficult for them to get accepted at the big European and American conferences. But shouldn't they be organizing their own local conferences and not have some organization set up a very broad venue just so they can take a trip and get a publication?<br /><br />But I want to know more about ieee.am. Their home page lists a Prof. Dr. Brigitte Weissenbach - in Berlin! Well, how nice! I google her, and there is an artist and a teacher with that name, but no university home page for Brigitte Weissenbach. She's listed at "Hohenzollerndamm" in Berlin, a *very* long street. I look her up in the phone book: no one with that last name in Berlin, and no institute with that name in Berlin, I looked up a number of variations.<br /><br />There are other names mentioned: Prof. Andrej Resnick from Boston. That sounds like Harvard, except that there are 7 Bostons in the US, and no Andrej Resnicks there. I then searched the entire US telephone book for "A Resnick" - there were only 13 hits. Maybe he only has a mobile phone.<br /><br />Oh, but wait - I can google the telephone number. Hmm, the area code is in central Iowa. There is a "New Boston" in Iowa, but it is in south Iowa and has a different area code. The same telephone number for IEEE.AM is also the Technical Conference Information Center (is perhaps a <a href="http://www.techexpo.com/events/10.09.SEP.html">list of more fake conferences</a>?).&nbsp; A reverse phone lookup traces this to a phone in Little Cedar, Iowa. And there's a "Marc Resnick", a teacher in Little Cedar. But no Andrej.<br /><br />There's a third name listed on the call for papers: Prof. Takis Mihail. I don't find a university affiliation for him, either. However, he's associated with WSEAS, "World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society". They have been running massive co-located very broad conferences since 2002, they say. This is the list for the rest of the year:<br /><ul><li>6 in Taipei, Taiwan, August 20-22, 2010</li><li>3 are at the Constantza Maritime University, Constantza, Romania, September 3-5, 2010</li><li>11 in Malta, September 15-17, 2010</li><li>5 at the Iwate Prefectural University, Iwate, Japan, October 4-6, 2010</li><li>4 at Politehnica University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania, October 21-23, 2010</li><li>one starts the next day at West University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania, October 24-26, 2010</li><li>8 at University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal, November 3-5, 2010</li><li>3 at Puerto De La Cruz, Tenerife, November 30- December 2, 2010, and&nbsp;</li><li>6 at Vouliagmeni, Athens, Greece, December 29-31, 2010</li></ul>47 conferences in 18 weeks! They write themselves:<br /><blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><i>Approximately each year about 4000 academicians attend the WSEAS Conferences and more than 4000 papers are published by WSEAS each year out of more than 13000 submitted papers. While from 13000 papers in WSEAS Conferences, approximately 5000 are approved and from them around 4000 thousand make registration and attend the congresses.</i></span></blockquote>Can this be serious science? It sounds more like academic spam to me, a business for producing publications needed for CVs and for "quality" measures. I do wonder why a university that I consider to be reputable, the University of Cambridge, will be the venue for 9 conferences next year. Maybe they are just staying at a hotel in Cambridge called the "University of Cambridge". <br /><br />Back to the Malta conferences. I will be dean at my school from October and will have to approve travel applications from colleagues. If a colleague should apply to attend some such conference - how can I tell if it is a fake conference? Is there such a thing as a fake conference? Isn't scientific endeavor, especially in Germany, to be free? <br /><br />What are we to make of this, and more importantly: what, if anything, can be done?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9091218950079982154-90703449856267031?l=copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Debora Weber-Wulffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01602911135725939409noreply@blogger.com0