Plagiarism and publishing in fake journals are largely ignored in the Indian academia. Sanchayan Bhattacharjee speaks to Pushkar, faculty member, BITS Pilani, Goa about the consequences and possible solutions
How widespread is the issue of plagiarism in Indian universities?
Plagiarism exists at all levels, right from faculty to undergraduate students and at all kinds of public, private, state and central universities and so on. PhD dissertations are often plagiarised, or at least large parts of dissertations are not original. Just about everybody is doing it. At the same time, it is impossible to put a number on it because no one has conducted a serious study on the issue.
Is it recognised as an issue that needs to be tackled urgently?
Unfortunately not. The University Grants Commission has only recently appointed a committee to look into the matter. We consider plagiarism to be a small sin when it is actually a huge violation of academic ethics. A number of students and faculty members at smaller colleges and universities do not even know what plagiarism is. When I was a graduate student at McGill University, Montreal in the late 1990s, a new directive was issued to faculty members that they insert in their course outlines a university-approved section on plagiarism, what it was and that it was punishable. Students were also advised to consult instructors or teaching assistants if they did not understand what plagiarism was. All this happened more than 10 years ago and we are still in the process of finalising guidelines on plagiarism for faculty.
You mentioned that a UGC committee has been formed to address this issue of plagiarism. What should the committee's objectives be?
It is a step in the right direction. However, I also think that the focus on plagiarism is narrow. I think that a bigger challenge today is publishing in fake journals where one can publish plagiarised material or even original rubbish for as little as Rs 1000-2000. The scope of the UGC committee looking into plagiarism should be expanded to include other forms of research fraud.
What steps can be taken to solve the problem of publishing in fake journals?
One idea is to begin with a relatively small group of faculty members at elite institutions – those with NAAC A+ grades, whether public or private. Those in the position of hiring new faculty members should absolutely not hire anyone who has published in fake journals. Similarly, faculty at A+ institutions should not be rewarded for publishing books with dubious publishers or in fake journals, many of which use the international label. This is not too complicated. There are websites and blogs which provide an updated list of fake publishers and journals. For example, Jeffrey Beal at the University of Colorado Denver, maintains a very useful list of fake journals and publishers on his blog.
How will these steps help the research scenario in the country?
These methods will prove to be encouraging for those who truly care about research. In the current system, it is very discouraging for honest researchers when fraudsters get rewarded for publishing half a dozen papers in fake journals whereas their genuine efforts are often unacknowledged and even unrewarded.
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