Saturday, 5 January 2008

Plagiarism in Chinese Academia

Although not specifically related to economics, plagiarism by students is a major concern in UK academia.

It appears in China the problem is not only with the students but also some of the academics.

There is an interesting blog run by friends of Fang Shimin aka Fang Zhouzi, who

...has been fighting a lonely crusade exposing the many frauds in China's scientific and academic communities. His efforts has gained as many enemies as friends.


I must say I have had some doubts and always ask my students and colleagues about academic life in China. When discussing publishing in journals one colleague quipped that allegedly some journals pay you to publish in them (the good ones) and the others you have to pay the journal to publish in them (the bad ones). I am sure this is not strictly true.

Does that rule make economic sense?

The only papers that can really be trusted are those in peer reviewed international journals. I suspect that other academics in China already know this.

China's Scientific & Academic Integrity Watch

Some examples of the stories of this blog:

An Academician Who Plagiarized

Yale Professor Criticizes Wide Spread Plagiarism at Peking University

This is an excellent post and contains a letter from the Professor complaining about student plagiarism. It appears to be institutionalised which may explain some of the problems we face in the UK. If a student has done an undergraduate degree in China and comes to the UK to undertake a postgraduate degree it might be argued that certain bad habits travel with them.

H/T to China Law Blog

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