GMU as expected has taken the minimum slap at Wegman's wrist. Dan Vergano has the storyIn a statement to GMU faculty, provost Peter Stearns said that one investigation committee unanimously found that "no misconduct was involved" in the 2006 Congressional report. "Extensive paraphrasing of another work did occur, in a background section, but the work was repeatedly referenced and the committee found that the paraphrasing did not constitute misconduct," he said, in the statement.
A second university committee found unanimously, "that plagiarism occurred in contextual sections of the (CSDA) article, as a result of poor judgment for which Professor Wegman, as team leader, must bear responsibility." Wegman will receive an "official letter of reprimand", Stearns said, as sanction for the plagiarism.GMU had to acknowledge the plagiarism in the paper by the journal having withdrawn it. Of course, Prof. Wegman was not the one who plagiarized, he was merely responsible for it. Will GMU sanction whoever did? Don't hold your breath bunnies. Other issues not to hold your breath on are the multiple other acts of plagiarism from the Wegman group. Obviously GMU is not interested in following up unless ORI forces them to.
There was, of course reaction
"Yes, plagiarism does matter," says scientific misconduct expert Nicholas Steneck of the University of Michigan, a former Office of Research Integrity official, by e-mail. Plagiarism is one of the "Big Three" of science misconduct offenses, alongside falsifying and fabricating data that trigger punishment from federal research agencies."If the project is federally funded, the results of the investigation must be forwarded to the appropriate agency," Steneck says.The Rabetts will see if ORI accepts the GMU report. GMU is not releasing it. Further surprise.
I predict that Mr Mcintyre will obsess over this plagiarism for several years.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the correct response now is to cease accepting GMU degrees as being the equivalent of other academic qualifications in the US. IF GMU wants to take a stand of permitting plagiarism, as they have, it can no longer be assumed that GMU degrees are actually earned by the students receiving credit for the work.
ReplyDeleteHow often does this sort of situation come up? I get the impression that anything beyond a scolding is rare unless the work happens to be at odds with Fox et al. (as with Ward Churchill or that guy who worked in colonial-era gun ownership).
ReplyDeleteWhat are the rules, operationally speaking?
"How often does this sort of situation come up?"
ReplyDeleteProbably more frequently than most would guess.
I personally know of one case, in one institution where I worked, that should have resulted in an immediate dismissal and in the retraction of a number of papers. The investigating committee was all for doing so (I know this explicitly because I was interviewed and gave a lot of information), but the administration didn't want to make the damage any greater or more conspicuous than it was, so the offender was helped to move to another institution and nothing else was said.
If it wasn't for the fact that I was an undergrad at the time with no real understanding of the import of what I'd observed, I would have kept solid evidence of the multiple misbehaviours and spoken out. As it stands, all I would be doing now would be to attract a libel suit, for an issue that I cannot prove and that long ago became obsolete.
I'm sure that the GMU administration is doing the same thing. They conceded the mimimum that they could without damaging their reputation much, and without making it totally obvious that they had in fact simply lifted up the carpet.
This investigation should have been completely independent. If it had been, the result would probably have been very different. I'm not familiar with US academic oversight, but if there are other mechanisms that can be engaged, it would be worth pursuing them. It is likely that not only would Wegman and his group be called more appropriately for their academic malfeasance, but GMU would be tapped on the shoulder for their desultory and ineffectual attempt at proper investigation.
Bernard J.
(Oo - reacaptcha said 'comyttes urdiab'. How apropos)
The punishment fits the crime. He plagiarized considerable but unimportant text in a small paper for a low impact journal (CSDA). A paper that had no scholarly impact and one that would never had been accepted in a journal of repute (or one where he wasn't Associate Editor). At the minimum, it needed to be retracted (as it already was), but there isn't much else that GMU could really do. It isn't an offense that warrants termination.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, the NIH ORI now must review the process, decisions, and sanctions. They have the final say in what happens, and although they cannot force GMU to take university-level action, they can issue sanctions with respect to federal funding or service on federal panels or for federal agencies.
What is truly more important than the now-former CSDA paper is the fact that the same plagiarized text appears in three doctoral dissertations from Wegman's group. At a university with appropriate academic standards, these students dissertations would be withdrawn and their degrees would be revoked. As an example, see:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/08/26/29882.htm
The plagiarized dissertations were reported to the GMU Provost in October 2010. I'm not holding my breath, but as this issue becomes more widely discussed, the already not-so-hot reputation of of third- or fourth-tier GMU isn't going to improve.
There is also some funny business with Wegman's student Said claiming she was a faculty member at Oklahoma State, when in fact she was never employed there. Oklahoma State now seems to have forced that claim to be scrubbed from the web.
All in all, there seems to be dishonesty everywhere you look in this matter.
Rob
Look on the potential bright side. Next time Smokey Joe or Whitfield approach someone to do their dirty work, the potential toxicity to an academic career may well make it quite difficult for them to stand by and ignore as the academic unwittingly throws their faculty's credibility under a bus.
ReplyDeleteRob, saying plagiarism by a scholar does not warrant termination is like saying that embezzlement by an accountant does not warrant termination.
ReplyDeleteWell, color me stoopid.
ReplyDeleteHide the shame and acute embarrassment, with a gray wash shampoo on the carpet.
Say, it sounds like the internal politics at GMU, of gray washing this sordid affair under the carpet , operate in a very Karl Rove back room poker game like manner, so as to speak.
And like many other universities, GMU would not be adverse to accepting monetary gifts from wealthy patrons, that come with strings attached as well.
Oh well, I wonder watt happens, if you follow the money trail, who knows watt other inconvenient truths one would find at GMU?
Tom,
ReplyDeleteIt would never stand up in court. Not for one irrelevant, sloppy paper. A series of papers that are highly influential, yes. A series of papers that made a name for someone, yes. Now Wegman may lose his federal funding, but to terminate his employment at a third-rate (fourth-rate?) school like GMU, no way.
Rob
See also Chronology on Wegman-related plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteNote the update with a quote from Bradley at Vergano's link: the same copying is considered "no misconduct" by one committee and plagiarism by another.
ReplyDeleteThe first committee seems to be saying there was nothing wrong at all in how the copying/citation was done. What a standard.
Plagiarism is generally considered a broader concept than copyright violation. The fact that there appears to be a decent argument of copyright violation seems to be pretty good proof of plagiarism.
Not publishing the reports also protects GMU from accusations, maybe even litigation, over double standards. I wonder if students have suffered much worse sanctions for equivalent actions.
In a long trip down the rabett-hole starting with Retraction Watch, I found this interesting tidbit:
ReplyDelete"researchers independent of the establishment should audit the 's records of " and "the skeptics are eager to see the results of independent scientific testing. Those who uphold the 'party line' have so far refused."
The above paragraph was actually published as a letter in Science magazine in 1995, with a list of authors from the "Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the Hypothesis", including a member of the National Academies, though also, oddly, including signatories with no expertise in .
Calling McIntyre and his auditors! And Freeman Dyson, Will Happer, and their merry crew of Washington Post editorial-writers! I think I've found them a set of like-minds to pal around with!
(the scientific field in question? The HIV/AIDs link...
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/01/hiv-contrarian-still-publishing-still-wrong.ars
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/267/5200/945.1.full.pdf)
-MMM
In a long trip down the rabett-hole starting with Retraction Watch, I found this interesting tidbit:
ReplyDelete"researchers independent of the *scientific field* establishment should audit the *government agency*'s records of *data*" and "the skeptics are eager to see the results of independent scientific testing. Those who uphold the *scientific field* 'party line' have so far refused."
The above paragraph was actually published as a letter in Science magazine in 1995, with a list of authors from the "Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the Hypothesis", including a member of the National Academies, though also, oddly, including signatories with no expertise in *scientific field*.
Calling McIntyre and his auditors! And Freeman Dyson, Will Happer, and their merry crew of Washington Post editorial-writers! I think I've found them a set of like-minds to pal around with!
(the scientific field in question? The HIV/AIDs link...
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/01/hiv-contrarian-still-publishing-still-wrong.ars
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/267/5200/945.1.full.pdf)
-MMM
ps. Apologies for double posting... my use of brackets in the original disappeared the words that now appear between asterisks...
@Tom Curtis
ReplyDeleteagreed. While we're at it, let's no longer accept degrees from Penn State since that's where Michael Mann teaches.
Second, I suppose you would agree that Elena Kagan should permanently step down from the Supreme Court, as she helped cover up BLATANT plagiarism at Harvard.
Instead, for her handiwork, she was promoted.
Spare us the false comparisons, anonymous at 24/2/12 1:20 PM.
ReplyDeleteYour conflation of Wegman with Mann is one of comparing substantively and profoundly different contexts. Wegman deceived and misrepresented fact in following his ideological agenda, whilst Mann has told the truth as best as objective scientific analysis can determine.
Your premise fails.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it's interesting to see how friends of Denialism are fine about sweeping under the carpet Wegman's committing of an academic cardinal sin, but they're all over Gleick for engaging in what is essentially a whistlebower's or an investigative journalist's tactic to reveal Heartland's version of the bastardisation of important science.
Why don't we just say that Gleick 'plagiarised' the name of the anonymous "board member", so that he can be slapped on the wrist with an even more desultory tut-tut, and leave it to ORI and the IRS to get to the meat of each issue?
Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.
Rob, saying plagiarism by a scholar does not warrant termination is like saying that embezzlement by an accountant does not warrant termination.
ReplyDelete