Cheating Professors at Punjab Univeristy (cont.)

Adil Najam

One of the earliest posts we did at ATP (27 June, 2006) was about our societal lack of intellectual morality and highlighted the case of some Punjab University Professors at the Centre for High Energy Physics (CHEP) who had been accused of plagiarism and were under investigation.

I have tried to keep an eye on the story and while some details trickle in the movement has been disturbingly slow and some of the new revelations are even more disturbing.

In September we heard that the cheating professors would be served a charge sheet by the University of the Punjab and the professors given 7 days to respond. In October a single line in a news item suggested this had happened. I was more curious, however, to find out what would happen to the professors as a result of this.

I am still not sure what the answer is, but as of August, at least one of them was given a plushy key job by being elevated to the Advance Studies and Research Board (ASRB) of the University!

What message is the university sending to its students and the world by appointing someone convicted of cheating - i.e., academic theft and deception - to something called the ‘Advance Studies and Research Board’? By the way, the job of this Board is to approve all PhD level theses! According to the news report:

According to PU Registrar Dr Naeem Khan, the accusations of plagiarism had nothing to do with the ASRB. He said: “We have inducted him as an experimental physicist in recognition of services rendered to the varsity as former head of the PhD programme.”

I am still wondering what was their ‘punishment’?

They are still listed - some with smiling photographs - on the University website. Does anyone know? Please tell.

Meanwhile, now there is news from the American Institute of Physics (AIP), which does seem to be doing something about this. According to the Daily Times (14 December, 2006):

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has withdrawn research papers by six Punjab University (PU) teachers from its records after finding the exact details of the plagiarism they were accused of. The AIP had initially doubted chances of plagiarism by the six teachers from the PU Centre for High Energy Physics (CHEP) - Rashid Ahmed, Fazal-e-Aleem, Maqsood Ahmad, Haris Rashid, MA Saeed and Ayub Faridi) whose articles they had added to their records and their website.

The institute has now confirmed plagiarism by the teachers, individually elaborating the scale of plagiarism in each write-up. According to recent developments published on the AIP website, “Upon analysis of the article Computational Methods: Tool for Electronic Structure Analysis of Solids, the vast majority of the text can been attributed to nearly identical blocks of text in three sources that were not cited in the article and to a fourth source that was cited but to which inadequate attribution was given. The publisher, the American Institute of Physics, is thus issuing a retraction of this article.�

Official AIP documents further explain that PU teachers Rashid Ahmed, Maqsood Ahmed, MA Saeed and Fazal-e-Aleem claimed to be the author of the paper. The institute has said that it was 80 percent plagiarised while the details were basically stolen and combined from four other sources, which the institute has also cited in its documents. “Current Status of Exotic Hadrons�, which MA Saeed, Maqsood Ahmed and Fazal-e-Aleem claimed to have written, was stolen from three different sources and was 90 percent plagiarised, according to the AIP. The institute has cited the original sources of the article in their documents. The third article that the AIP has retracted was named “Paths of Elementary Particles on K-Surfaces� claimed by Muhammad Ayub Faridi, Haris Rashid and Fazal-e-Aleem. The institute has also cited the three original sources of the article from where the details were stolen and combined while concluding that 55 percent of the article was plagiarised.

To see the article retractions now on the AIP website go here, here and here.

Surprisingly, this new news report (14 December) ends by saying:

The Punjab University has also formed an investigation committee to probe the matter. The committee has not completed its investigation so far.

When will the investigation end. And how much proof do they need. I realize that some of the younger scholars listed here might just not have known, but the senior ones - especially the Director of the institute - had to; and if he did not, that is itself deplorable.

The irony of having so recently discussed the life, work and indignity inflicted on Dr. Abdus Salam and now finding most of the faculty of this center for high energy physics revealed as liars and cheats is not lost on us.

I had ended the original post by saying that “Plagiarism is a serious academic problem all over the world, including in the West. It is becoming particularly serious in Pakistan because:”

• the internet makes stealing easier; although, plagiarists beware, it also makes catching plagiarism earlier;
• newer and higher incentives to steal because the Higher Education Commission (HEC) rewards publication (thankfully, the HEC seems to be aware of this and has a ‘zero tolerance policy.’); and
• in at least some cases researchers may never have been taught how to distinguish right from wrong; the difference between research that builds on other’s ideas (by referencing) and plagiarism that steams from others (by taking credit for other’s ideas).

Even as, elsewhere on this blog, we quibble about whether ‘our’ univeristy was placed high enough in the HEC univeristy rankings or not, I am more worried about the overall state (i.e., lack) of intellectual morality in society.

Despite the excuses we make to ourselves as students or as scholars, there is no ambiguity at all about what plagiarism is. It is clear and simple. Taking someone else’s ideas and presenting them as if they were your own is not just wrong, its illegal. The rules of what is and is not plagiarism are straight-forward and known.

More and more, I also worry - like Darwaish who has been thinking about student cheating - that just like too many of us no longer consider rishwat (bribery) to be ‘real corruption’, too many of us also do not consider cheating and plagiarism to be crimes. Well, I have information for you. They are!