http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4232994
Great University, Great Business School.

It is an interesting piece of information that you present.

I notice that when the “notice of violation” terminology is put into the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers database, that there are a total of 415 such references.

Exploring just a handful at random, I discovered a similar citation from April 2005 by an author from

– “Dept. of Comput. Sci., California State Univ., Los Angeles, CA, USA” and

– “Dept. of Electr. Eng., South Carolina Univ., Columbia, SC”

No real surprises there to me other than noticing that the papers are still for sale on the IEEE site despite the lack of a citation by the authors. Can you shed some light why that would be?

Perhaps they consider the violation to be minor. Citation errors could be made if one does not know the exact rules. The real question for me is whether it was actual plagiarism of attributing someone else’s work as their own. I would think that if they are selling these papers that there must be some value to the work of the author.

I see the local paper was presented for a MSc degree and that the auhor appears to be pursuing a PhD at another University.

I would love to hear your comment on that since I hope you know more about this than I do.

On re-reading what I jut posted, I am looking for general information on the violation of failing to reference another author’s work and how major a violation that actually is considered to be. I am not seeking further information about any particular author’s work.

I would think that if it is a major vilation that the IEEE would be ethical enough to not accept the work into their database. I would also think that the IEEE is ethical enough to notify the authors involved to allwo them to withdraw the paper from the IEEE database.

Let’s have a discussion on ethics in the world of education, research and professionals, since you brought it up.

gus, did you notice what the IEEE notice said : “This paper contains significant portions of original text from the paper cited below. “
I believe that papers with minor violation would not be retracted by IEEE.
It is easy to check – pay $30 and download the paper, and download a few others: The paper has 4 pages of contents including references. I can see that around 1 full page length of the contents were verbatim copied from the papers/webpage plagiarized, except that all the occurrences of the word “face” were replaced by the word “digit”.

I think IEEE is ethical to keep the work in their database. It was the shame of IEEE for having had published these papers. It is not ethical for IEEE to simply remove these papers to pretend that the cases did not happen.

I checked a few of the 415 references of “notice of violation” — no other Canadian or US universities was involved. It is a shame of BC university education.

The paper has 3 authors, two of them from UNBC. One of them is a full professor in business school of UNBC.

It is the university’s responsibility to keep the ethic standards — can we expect the students get fair grades when a professor is involved in such a paper? Dose this university offer any ethic courses to business students and business professors?

It is not our concern that no other North American university is involved. Our tax money did not pay to those universities.

It is also not our concern whether IEEE should withdraw these papers.

We need to know the quality of education that UNBC provides, we need to know why it happens in UNBC. Prince George struggled to establish a university in northern BC — the university should make sure that it maintains international standards of ethics.

Please define “international standards of ethics”. Before you answer that, you might want to educate yourself in the reasons why there are none to the best of my knowledge. But, then again, you might have some breaking news. ;-)
Since there are supposedly the names of two business teachers on the paper, this link might be relevant even though the paper is really in the realm of applied science research. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/address-differences-ethical-standards-international-businesses-5254.html

What is important is what are the IEEE standards for publication? They are listed on the site. Those are the standards which need to be met. The IEEE has a board which reviews each paper put forward for presentation and publication in the conference proceedings.

I am not sure what happened in that case and likely 414 others over the years that they did not catch the fact that words were not properly attributed to previous publications.

I know that such conference papers are frequently put together at the last minute because someone is pushing you to attend and present, often the conference organizers. Chit happens, as they say. Clerical errors are made even at the post grad research level (the term absent minded professor is based on real life situations). A paper based in part on literature review is assembled; in the first draft, the words of the author are included verbatim rather than paraphrased; a note is made to get the permission of the author and proper contact, title, etc. for the citation; and, after several attempt to contact the individual or spokesperson no contact is made and the paper is mistakenly sent by the department assistant or even the presenter himself without adjustments. There are many more scenarios of such cases which do not have to go to intentional, surreptitious and true plagiarism – attributing the work of others to oneself.

Even though the IEEE has three key categories of publication standards for conference papers and two or more levels of non compliance, they use the same wording to provide notice. I am not sure if they inform the individual or whether there is an appeal process. In my opinion, that would be a professional ethical standard.

More to the point, the IEEE, based on its own promotional information, publishes over 1,000 conference papers per year. These are exactly that, papers presented at conferences. They are not masters theses or PhD theses.

Typically such presentations might be any range of a stage of work the presenter is working on, that includes review of the literature of work by others. I am certainly not going to pay $31 to read 4 pages of what to me would be gibberish. If it was a topic I had some level of expertise and thus interest in and, more importantly, likely understanding of what may have been written before and would not be original work (original work is getting more and more difficult to find these days) then I might spend the money.

I have cited two cases which were discovered in a relatively random search by looking at the front end of about 20 papers (5% of the 415 cases). So, 10% of those were from US universities. If you want to find them, all you have to do is put the names of the authors or universities into the IEEE database search engine. I will gladly post the links if you cannot find them.

From the site: “Articles submitted for publication follow a paper selection process and are peer-reviewed BEFORE THEY ARE PUBLISHED.”

“It is the university’s responsibility to keep the ethic standards”

It is the IEEE’s responsibility to do the best they can do to not publish material which is copyrighted. There were likely about 415 cases where the IEEE failed to do so. What else can they do?

The University is not publishing the material. If they were, then they would be in the same position as the IEEE.

As with any other such organization, they are responsible for doing what the general standard for edcuational institutes is.

So, what is that? Requiring graduate students to take an ethics course? They do that? Screening all papers being put forward by students and profs and others working at the University who may participate in such activities? I do not know that standard. Please educate me on the guidelines/protocols, if any.

In my opinion it is primarily the author’s responsibility and they should bear all consequences.

We need to know the quality of education that UNBC provides”

We need to know many things.

We need to know the quality of the engineering profession in this country. The same for doctors, the same for accountants, etc. etc.

We have engineers whose structures fail on occasion. Doctors are cited for malpractice on occasion. Accountants make false financial representation on occasion. None of these things are 100% avoidable.

If a profession is significally compromised by such activities, the government will step in.

The question is, in this case, is the quality of education that UNBC provides significantly compromised by such an incident and, if so, what has the University done to find out how deeply seated the problem is at UNBC and whether it is unique,average, worse than average or better than average. Yes, to you surprise, the norm has to be discussed. UNBC is not a university woirking in isolation.

So, now that we have gotten this far in the “conversation”, what is your real beef? Did someone give you a lousy assessment that you feel you did not deserve?

gus, I challenge your opinions.

“I am not sure if they inform the individual or whether there is an appeal process. In my opinion, that would be a professional ethical standard.”

Well, why do you care about IEEE itself? IEEE is not paid by Prince George tax money, but UNBC is. I don’t know if there was an appeal process; however, after reading the paper and the other 3, it is clear: when “verbatim copy” was caught, do they need an appeal process?

“So, what is that? Requiring graduate students to take an ethics course?…”

Many universities do offer ethics courses!

” Please define “international standards of ethics”. “

I am sure that you are aware of the basic knowledge: Plagiarism = Theft.
Theft is theft, that is it.

Is this an international standard?

“I see the local paper was presented for a MSc degree”

You admitted that you did not read the paper. How did you assess that this is a paper for MSc degree? If it is for a MSc degree. UNBC should revoke his/her degree. Wasn’t it the responsibility of the university to publicly revoke the degree after plagiarism was caught? I guess this was (part of) the university’s responsibility that Reichard meant.

I find that UNBC has a few ethics courses — taught by a few most respectable professors, Dr. Saif, Dr.DeWiel and Dr. De Feo, …, at UNBC. Iwama should consult with these professors for the standard zero tolerance policy against plagiarism across international universities.

The government should also investigate Nowicki’s complaint on other ethics issues.

My tax money have been used to support educations in Prince George since I moved in in late 1980s. We cannot support a university with no ethics standard.

“however, after reading the paper and the other 3, it is clear: when “verbatim copy” was caught, do they need an appeal process?”

Most certainly!!!! Every ruling body of a credible educational institute and any other organization which can affect a person’s livelihood, credibility and reputation must have an appeal process so that an person can be heard.

The right to appeal is a fundamental right in law and is also an ethical duty in my opinion.

Here is an example from Queens Univeristy (no slouch as far as Canadian Universities go)
http://www.queensu.ca/secretariat/policies/senateandtrustees/SARD_Policy.pdf

The section under “Breach of Academic Integrity and/or Fraud” might be appropriate in this case.

I hold IEEE to a similar standard. They are active in the field of research which is very much involved with the academic world as well as the corporate world. We would not want corportions to be unethical, unlawful and unsupportive of the notion of equity and right to face one’s accusers, would we?

BTW, I thought I brought forth quote a plausible scenario which would, as far a I am concerned, alter the severity of the case.

Be that as it may, I stand by my position that if the fellow was 100% guilty by intentionally using the words of reports to appear as his own to a third party, there is no longer any merit to the paper and it should hae been removed from the database a long time ago.

Oh, forgot about why I care about IEEE. They are part of the research community and as such they have a reputation to protect. If they are not reputable, then their decisions cannot be relied on. It has nothing to do with who pays whom.

We are not isolated. The research community is a global community. After all, is that not why you are concerned about the reputation of UNBC. If it was not for the community they are part of, why should you and the rest of us care?

“if the fellow was 100% guilty by intentionally using the words of reports to appear as his own to a third party, there is no longer any merit to the paper and it should hae been removed from the database a long time ago.”

“fellow” should “fellows”. The Notice by IEEE stated:
“reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper, and future references should be made to the following article (sic):…”

Wasn’t this enough as an assessment of the merit of this paper?

As you commented, IEEE was also at fault for not catching it before the paper got published. As a professional society, it should not deny its guilty by silently removing this paper from the data set.

If the paper was removed silently, all past references to this paper would have no chance to be removed.

It is reasonable to keep the paper there with the list of the papers it plagiarized, let all responsible people / society / university bear all consequences.

gus, You reasons for caring of IEEE is convincing.

Do you think it is ethical for IEEE to remove such papers from its database and pretend that IEEE has never made any mistake on Platonism?

Anyway, we should care more about Prince George, BC, Canada than US, China, Iraq …, right? It is ironic that 250news focuses on Prince George community rather than the policy of UN.

“Most certainly!!!! Every ruling body of a credible educational institute and any other organization which can affect a person’s livelihood, credibility and reputation must have an appeal process so that an person can be heard.”

We don’t know if the “authors” of this paper had been given an appeal process. — Assume IEEE did not give the “authors” an appeal chance (we don’t know), if you are right and if UNBC cares its reputation and credibility, UNBC should request IEEE to offer an appeal process or sue IEEE. Or should we Prince George tax payers should sue IEEE on behalf of the “authors”? (Authors with quotation marks ;-) )