Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Japanese Prince found plagiarizing in prize essay

The Japanese newspaper Ashai Shimbun published an article on February 17, 2022, about plagiarism in an essay that Prince Hisahito, the second in line to the Japanese throne, wrote for school. The essay had been submitted to a contest and was awarded the second prize. The  Telegraph in the UK details the plagiarized portions a few days later. It appeared to be picked up in many UK outlets such as Royal Central. Today, April 13, 2022, the German Süddeutsche picked up the story

Strangely, he was allowed to keep the prize despite the plagiarism.

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Germany's problem with academic integrity

This blog post at ICAI by with a student perspective on academic integrity from a German student in the USA just nails it: 

Of course, we were not allowed to cheat in school and university in Germany, and the consequences could have been as severe as they can be at American institutions, but I don’t remember ever having had an explicit conversation with a German teacher or professor about how to be academically honest. There was no academic honesty policy, no Office of Academic Honesty, and no official institutional process for dealing with academic misconduct at my university—at least not that I was aware of—and I never had any formal education about cheating and how to avoid it beyond learning how to correctly cite sources. It was just expected to know how appropriate academic conduct looks like.

Exactly. That is the problem here in Germany. Despite the plagiarism scandals involving politicians, there is very little discussion here about academic integrity. The universities perhaps purchase software and offer a course or two about proper citation. Some universities have writing clinics, but that is about the size of it. Deep and continuous conversations about good academic practice are seldom. Still, I'll keep trying to drag Germany into such conversations!