For PhD supervisors: Suspected plagiarism and fraud

A medical participant in one of my cross-disciplinary seminars for supervisors told a thought-provoking story. He was a guest overseas in the house of his research student who held a prestigious position in her home country. As part of her research she was measuring blood sugar levels in a group of local people. He was somewhat surprised at how quickly she seemed to be making these measurements. Then, during Ramadan, not only did she again come back with her measurements quickly, but they were not significantly different from the previous measurements, even though the individuals concerned were fasting during the day. He strongly suspected that she had not really made any measurements at all, but had invented them on the basis of her previous measurements. He asked the other seminar participants what he should have done.

This story polarised the seminar participants. Some hotly defended the student, suggesting reasons why the measurements should not have been significantly different. Others felt equally strongly that the supervisor had a duty to his discipline and the academic community to check the matter out to ensure that academic standards were not being compromised. Yet others felt that he had a duty to himself because, if the measurements were in fact fraudulent, then his own academic professionalism and position would be at stake. No-one felt that he should have ignored the matter, as he had seen it as possible fraud. Yet, the outcome was, as he told the seminar, that, neither at the time nor later, had he found the courage to question the student about her measurements, and that he had worried about it ever since. Fortunately for him, his professional community had not noticed anything amiss.

Judging from the diverse reactions of the seminar participants, the resolution of such dilemmas, in practice if not in theory, seems to lie with personal value systems - which are likely to vary from individual to individual. Fortunately objective guidance is available in the publications of many learned societies, and it may be worth finding out if the learned society for your discipline publishes one. Your institution may even have one or be in the process of developing one. What is crucial is to be prepared and ready to act as soon as a suspicious situation arises. There are ethics to research, and supervisors need to be able to live at peace with themselves by conducting their supervision according to those ethics and not allowing suspected fraud to go unquestioned.

A related issue is what to do about those students who copy excessively and apparently mindlessly from the works of others. Where the students are from a non-Western culture, the copying can be intended to show respect for the authority of the discipline by showing respect for a published author. The problem is best resolved by spotting occurrences early on and then explaining why they are not acceptable. Where the excessive copying is not attributed to its rightful author, there is more of a problem. If supervisors suspect it, they can readily check it out through questioning verbally to probe understanding. It is also worth ensuring that the suspected student is made to realise that institutions have gone as far as stripping graduates of their degrees in severe cases of plagiarism.

edited extract from no 2 in the Guides series

Resolving Common Dilemmas in Supervision

by Pat Cryer

* This term is a shorthand for "research degree supervisor", and applies to varying extents to all research degrees: PhD, DPhil. MPhil and even undergraduate and masters' projects.