I, many visitors this blog and others have, from time to time, been individually or collective guilty of claiming, erhmm.. <\/strike> suggesting we know precisely what GMU “must” do during a plagiarism investigation and how it will unfold. Others are more cautious. <\/p>\n
Still, blogs being blogs, it seems to me some people have been making proclamations that there can only be one answer to questions like: <\/p>\n
No. I’m not going to hunt links at 11enty-7 blogs finding evidence that someone somewhere has given a definitive proclamation on these sorts of things.<\/p>\n
But, I am going to do something novel. I’m going to try to list the relevant GMU documents I found and we probably ought to read if we wish to begin to guess the answers. Of course, I’ll add a bit of speculation. \ud83d\ude42 The portion that seems most relevant to plagiarism investigations at GMU appears to be: <\/p>\n 83B2.10.2 Professional Ethics This is a shame because this<\/i> document, might enlighten us more than pages governing undergraduates. Does anyone have a link to the AAUP document? (Those inclined to google might be interested in knowing the AAUP book discussing policies is called “The Red Book”.)<\/p>\n I googled a little and found this tidbit from http:\/\/www.umich.edu\/~aaupum\/plag01.html<\/a> which appears to be associated with University of Michigan’s Chapter of AAUP:<\/a><\/p>\n The AAUP “Red Book” in its Statement on Plagiarism (page 109) defines the offense as: “taking over the ideas, methods, or written words of another, without acknowledgement and with the intention that they be taken as the work of the deceiver.”<\/em> In this case, attribution for the alleged plagiarized document is given to the Department of Aerospace Engineering. The parent document listed four members of that department as authors. In addition the AAUP Statement acknowledges that issues of academic plagiarism are influenced by “complexities and shades of difference”<\/em> and they temper their edict that “the professor must scrupulously acknowledge every intellectual debt for ideas, methods, and expressions”<\/em> with the conclusion “by means appropriate to the form of communication”<\/em>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n The obvious question vis. Copygate is what means are appropriate in a report to Barton’s Congressional Committee? On the one hand, the report is not a book, journal article, or ph.d. thesis The report is not mere oral testimony, email, or conversation over beer after a conference. <\/p>\n Oddly, as I ponder the question “What is the form of this communication”, the more mystified I feel. After discussion at ClimateAudit,<\/a> and some hunting around, I doubt it’s part of the Congressional Record, I’m not sure if it’s officially ‘published’ by anyone<\/em>! That might argue for a very low standard of acknowledgment. Yet, since authors know reports to congressional committees will be widely read, the appropriate form of acknowledgment falls ought to be quite high. <\/p>\n I tend toward the later view. Will GMU thinks so? Are their precedents to tell us what GMU or other Universities decided in the past? I don’t know! <\/p>\n University Policies<\/b> Reading the procedure, it seems to me that GMU would start with a list of specific allegations, likely based on a written complaint by someone communicating a finite list of complaints with evidence for each. The committee would form a plan to investigate those specific<\/em> allegations; the plan need to be designed to investigate allegation “out there” on the web, but not in the formal complaint filed with GMU. If, during the course of investigating those<\/i>, the committee found evidence to support other allegations, the committee would be required to follow a formal process for expanding the scope of the investigation. So, at least in principle, the list of allegations could expand beyond those in the original complaint. <\/p>\n However, it also seems to me that depending on the precise list of allegations at the start of the investigation there is no guarantee the the committee would discover evidence to add new allegations to the list. This is true even if evidence exists on some blog, somewhere. A focused plan might not include the step of “scour the blogs!”<\/p>\n As I do not know the list of allegations, I can’t guess the likely outcome of the GMU investigation! <\/p>\n Turning to the impact on people other than Wegman: It seems the investigation can spawn investigations of people other than Wegman if, in the course of following their plan to investigate, they find evidence against others in their jurisdiction. <\/p>\n Some have suggested former graduate students could be caught in this snare. I found nothing specifically discussing initiation of investigations of former graduate students for past academic mis-deeds while at GMU. So, for the time being, it seems that GMU<\/i> would not do anything about that. (That seems a bit odd to me, but maybe it is so.) If you find anything let me know. <\/p>\n Turning to Bradley, one wonders whether Bradley would have an active role in the investigation, and whether his referencing practices of Bradly in his book could, under any circumstances, be relevant. <\/p>\n It seems to me the answer to the former question is, yes. Bradley would likely be interviewed either as a complainant or as a person having information. I suspect his being willing to drop his complaint in return for something he would like Wegman to do would have little effect on further investigation. <\/p>\n Reading GMU’s policies, it seems to me the answer to the second question also appear to be yes, Bradley’s referencing practices might be relevant to the outcome of the investiation. This is not because Bradley is Bradley, or even that he might the one complainant. It is because GMU’s policy reads:<\/a><\/p>\n A finding of research misconduct requires that (b) The allegation be proven by a preponderance of the evidence; and<\/p>\n (c) There be a significant departure from accepted practices of the relevant research community.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n We can argue until the cows come home about (a) and (b). But I think most on the panel investigating Wegman would think practices by Bradley as exhibited in his textbook are relevant pieces of evidence if one wishes to gauge of “accepted practices of the relevant research community”. <\/p>\n Of course, as one blog visitor in particular likes to remind people, nothing we in the peanut gallery say or think matters because it’s all in the hands of the committee at GMU. <\/p>\n True enough. <\/p>\n But the irrelevance and likely invisibility of our opinions, evidence or discussion to the committee, is no reason why we (and voluble he) can’t all continue to share our ideas about the investigation, compare the referencing practices of Wegman vs. Bradley, speculate about the precise allegations of the complaint sent to GMU, or pretty much discuss anything we wish to discuss (provided it doesn’t amount to libel, defamation or what not.)<\/p>\n So, with that, I recommend you curtail discussion on the previous comment thread, and start up here. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I, many visitors this blog and others have, from time to time, been individually or collective guilty of claiming, erhmm.. suggesting we know precisely what GMU “must” do during a plagiarism investigation and how it will unfold. Others are more cautious. Still, blogs being blogs, it seems to me some people have been making proclamations … Continue reading GMU Documents & Speculation<\/span>
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\nFaculty Handbook<\/strong>
\nI think it’s best to start with the faculty<\/em> handbook. The current GMU faculty handbook appears to be this rather brief document available for download here<\/a><\/p>\n
\nAlthough no set of rules or professional code can guarantee or take the place of a scholar’s personal integrity, the University believes that the “Statement of Professional Ethics” and the “Statement on Plagiarism” promulgated by the American Association of University Professors at http:\/\/www.aaup.org\/aaup<\/a> serve as a reminder of the obligations assumed by all members of the professoriate. Faculty members must also adhere to the ethical standards of their respective professional associations and to university policies related to professional ethics (e.g., Research and Scholarship Misconduct, Responsible Use of Computing) while employed by the University<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nAAUP “Statement on Plagiarism”<\/strong>
\nNaturally, I wanted to read the AAUP “Statement on Plagiarism”. The AAUP policy documents are listed here<\/a>. But the “Statement on Plagiarism” is not hyperlinked. <\/p>\n
\nMoving away from what is plagiarism and how does it apply to reports to congressional committees, I tried, to learn more about procedures that might govern the Wegman plagiarism investigation itself. I found University Policy Number 4007
\nSubject: Misconduct In Research and Scholarship is here<\/a>, which I found by clicking “research” in the sidebar at the top level page discussing University Policies.<\/a><\/p>\n
\n(a) The misconduct be committed intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly; and<\/p>\n