

Plagiarism Haunts Europe - lostlogin
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/18962349

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lostlogin
I was a student representative on a disciplinary committee at tertiary level,
and was left a bit disbelieving at how bad plagiarism was, and how weak the
penalties were. I pushed hard for a system whereby the first offense required
the work to be resubmitted, and the second offense would require resisting the
whole paper (the next year). I was the only voice calling for harsher
penalties though, and nothing changed.

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activepeanut
Does this make an American degree more valuable?

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sentenza
Short answer: Hard sciences: absolutely not. Social sciences: depends.

Long answer: First you have to distinguish between the different European
higher education systems which are merging only slowly and thus can't be
considered uniform. Everything I write is based on the situation in Germany,
which may or may not be similar to other northern European countries.

The _average_ PhD given out in Germany can't compete with a PhD degree from
Stanford. However, the _average_ PhD given out in Germany leaves the _average_
PhD given out in the US in the dust. The reasons are as follows: In Germany,
you can't just open a bunch of universities, accredit each other and start
giving out degrees. Every University has to be accredited by the state and
most universities (including all of the top tier universities) are run by the
state. In addition to that, it is illegal to call yourself a PhD in Germany if
you are not really a PhD (ATTENTION REST OF THE WORLDERS: If you come to
Germany be sure that your degree is recognized or you might run into this.).
Degrees are taken very seriously throughout German society, so "the people"
demand quality control.

Also, at least in the hard sciences, plagiarism will make you a pariah. Once
you are found out to have plagiarized something, people won't want to touch
you with a ten foot (approx 3m) stick. Every physicist knows the name Jan
Hendrick Schön.

What you actually see when you look at the case of Guttenberg and others is a
bunch of people (quite possible mainly hard science folk) banding togehter in
a wiki and dissecting some controversial cases from the soft sciences. The big
plagiarism cases in Germany of the last years took place primarily in the
realm of 300-page text only PhD theses in social fields or law.

Looking at it from the other side, you should consider wether or not
plagiarisms are easier to be found out in Europe or the US. I really
appreciate the no-nonsense attitude that Americans generally have and I don't
doubt that a media shitstorm would ensue, should a big name politician be
caught at something like this in the US, but the American system has a bunch
of things against it. To list a few: Everybody needs a degree, no one has the
time/interest to check PhD theses after the fact (would you start a guttenplag
wiki?), more money is involved, translation plagiarism is very unlikely to be
found out.

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dalke
You are right in that the US does not accredit universities. Instead, "the
Secretary of Education is required by law to publish a list of nationally
recognized accrediting agencies that the Secretary determines to be reliable
authorities as to the quality of education or training provided by the
institutions of higher education and the higher education programs they
accredit."

Which means that while you can start a bunch of fake universities and have
them start an accrediting agency, it isn't the case that that agency is
considered equivalent to, say, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
(which accredits Stanford, among many).

You wrote: "In addition to that, it is illegal to call yourself a PhD in
Germany if you are not really a PhD." My understanding is that the rule is a
bit broader than that. For example, <http://chronicle.com/article/What-s-Up-
Doc-German-Law/40636> highlights an example where the "director of a
prestigious research institute in Jena, Germany", with a PhD from Cornell, was
charged with Missbrauchs von Titeln because the law did not then allow him, in
Germany, to call himself a "Doctor" - Cornell being outside of the EU. The
"state education ministers met last week and decided to allow holders of
degrees from designated American universities to call themselves "Doctor."",
so this is probably not a problem now.

However, it does seems to mean that Germany has to 'accredit' that a given US
PhD program is good enough for a recipient to deserve the title "Doctor" in
Germany.

