Dialyzing the Academic Misconduct from the Academic Exchange System

Abstract

At presently, the Academic dishonorable behavior had become a bad phenomenon in the academic circles. This paper points out that it was the result of the whole of the academic exchange system, and the author is only one of respect. The paper analyzes the causes of and countermeasures from authors, publishers, library and information institutions, users, etc.. And pointes out that the phenomenon of academic belongs to social problem that requires a wide range of common boycott.

Key words: Academic dishonorable behavior; Academic exchange system; Analysis of reasons

Résumé

À l’heure actuelle, le comportement déshonorant de l’académique est devenue un phénomène mal dans les milieux universitaires. Ce document souligne que c'était le résultat de l’ensemble du système d’échange universitaire, et l’auteur est un seul de respect. Le document analyse les causes et les contre-mesures par des auteurs, des éditeurs, des institutions de bibliothèques et d’information, les utilisateurs, etc et souligne que le phénomène de la académique appartient à un problème social qui nécessite un large éventail de boycott commune.

Mots clés: Comportement déshonorant de l’enseignement; Académique du Système d’échange; Analyse des raisons

ZENG Qingxia (2012). Dialyzing the Academic Misconduct from the Academic Exchange System. Cross-Cultural Communication, 8(2), -0. Available from URL: /index.php/ccc/article/view/j.ccc.1923670020120802.1563

DOI: /10.3968/j.ccc.1923670020120802.1563

Introduction

Academic misconduct has become a major drawback in the modern society. So far, many articles have stated this phenomenon. The author had retrieved more than 100 records from the “Chinese full-text journals database” and after reading and analyzing those texts, the author found that those paper were mainly talking about the study of academic misconduct, the definition of academic misconduct and its causes, and moreover they were researched this problem mainly from the author's point of view (Lu, 2007). In fact, the author is only one part of the entire system. This issue has more to do with the entire academic communication system rather than just a part of the whole. Because that more or less reflects another kind of social phenomena associated with the digital age, with globalization, with things speeding up, the…the hyper-speed of the internet... .

Elements of the academic exchange system

Author

No matter from the traditional or modern academic exchange system, we can find that the authors are at the forefront of the system, they create the research works which are published by the publishing company. Throughout the academia, I think that the authors can be divided into two groups, one is the real academic leaders, they work hard not for fame or fortune, but only for the learning. And they always stand in the front of the subject, leading the new areas of academic development. The other part is perhaps the stream of academic misconduct, including someone who does not have the ability of scientific research or conditions, or maybe they are compelled helpless by the technical titles, assessment and eager for success, so there is the formation of plagiarism, forgery, tampering and other fraudulent malpractices.

We know that a new concept or a new point is filled with the author’s intellectual work. There is no denying that it embodies the author’s hard labor. Even each word in the article is the author’s thoughtful crystallization. Therefore simply taking other people’s work is the ultimate disrespectful to both the author and the academic accomplishment. According to statistics, since the 1980s, the book named Marxist Philosophy in China or like that was published more than 500 kinds of versions. Despite the great work of Marxist, as a basis for materials used for students, is this really necessary to publish so many versions? If there is a new point of view in each book, and we will have all more than 500 types (Yang, 2005), there should be a new “Das Capital” being written. Marx has spent nearly 40 years writing “Das Capital”, now days, scholars can write several books and countless papers in few years. Although someone made a comment or behind indicate the source in the article, they can’t copy directly from the context being not modified.

In ancient times, learners advocating “moral standards”, which means that people view more moral than achievements. Every field has its regulations, so with the academic and science. Everyone has to comply with the academic moral nature and engage in academic learning to develop a correct understanding of the relationship between inheritance and innovation, also respect for others research results and intellectual property. Some people have attributed the academic misconduct to the imperfect mechanism, and the lack of necessary moral education. In fact, we have been accepted these education, for example, we could not plagiarize other people’s work; we could not cheat in examination, and so on. Therefore, the current lack of education is a decline of moral standard and awareness; they are fundamental aspects of academic misconduct.

Publishing Agency

In information theories, the writing draft belongs to semi-finished products. The copy-and-paste paper writing technique results in semi-finished products, even if there are misconducts in it, no one knows except the author himself. But once they are published, and the publishing agency should bear the responsibility.

Publishing agency is in the second part of the academic system, it is the necessary gate for drafts to becoming published articles. As an important part in the academic system, and in order to truly represent the academic authority to defend the sacred academic hall, publishers firstly must have a keen insight, and superb analytical sense, the predictive power and notarized evaluation force, therefore they can develop a certain field and to provide a platform for any exchanges. If the publishers deviate from the academic track, and fell into a purely commercial circles, with the maximum profit for the purpose, naturally it became a breeding ground for the phenomenon of academic misconduct and to enable it to spread.

For the other subject areas, I can’t deceptive philosophy, but I am familiar with the library information system, for I have been engaged in library and information work more than 10 years.

Although I can’t read all hundreds of library journals there, I can read carefully more than 20 kinds of library science journals subscribed in our library. Without listing all of them, it is obvious that some of journals not only represent the trend of library and information science, the application of theory and practical, as well as the wisdom of the editors, and the responsibility to defend the academic authority. But we also know that there are also some publications, that the title itself is meaningless, the content has no insight, or simply add some seemingly advanced transplant or actually obscure formula chart. We do not say that editors are genius, but some editors despite the quality of the publications and the impact of the academic community, with the main focus of profit; it is natural to cause academic misconduct.

Obviously, some academic publishing houses are opened mainly to meet the demand for quick success and profit rather than developing the academic study. According to our rough survey, the current article page charge is in an average of RMB800, while the royalties of a textbook is around 5 million. The capacity of some publications is more than 100 articles; they seem like collected papers but with high publishing frequency. So in order to curb academic misconduct, it is the key factor to rectify the publishing industry and strengthen the academic responsibility of editors.

The Library and Information Institutions

Library and information institutions are the device to expand social knowledge, information and cultural memory, but with the development of society, the function “collect books” of the library has greatly abated. Especially the university libraries, in view of its service object is university teachers and students, so it should be a treasure -house full of high, refined, sharp, deep intellectual achievements. But the fact is not so. In order to achieve the evaluation standard, the library pays too much attention to the quantity instead of the quality (Steering Committee for Academic Libraries of China). During the evaluation time, I still remember clearly the scene we all the librarians getting together to catalogue. A large number of discount books, donation books and some other pirated books began the source of the library collection.

Currently, numerous publications is mixed in the university library resources, I have searched “History of Chinese Revolution” in the selected casually university library collections. There has 295 kinds in Jinan University library; Shandong University Library has 125 species, National Library has 128 species. In fact, the library should be based on “quality” and “practical” principles to the construction of literature resources. Such low-level duplicated collection, not only increases the cost of management, but also increases the conflict and funding between demand and supply; moreover, it contributed to the academic misconduct.

Users

The user is in the end of the academic system, and is often confused with the rich information resources although the use of modern network technology, which can easily lead to distortion of information and data, so they usually lack of judgment to some misconduct phenomenon. In most cases, users and editors are both important parts in the academic exchanges system; the main users’ attitude of academic misconduct also reflects the author’s individual academic psychological trend. I have done a simple survey on this issue, 80% of students think that plagiarism is normal, because the official published articles are like that. Most teachers are also not strongly against plagiarism, because they are thinking that how many unlucky celebrity scholars were revealed? So to a certain extent, the users’ tolerance attitude, would lead to the proliferation of academic misconduct.

Other Factors

In addition to all aspects of academic problems, the community now has profitable agencies that write paper for others. Their presence seriously interferes with the academic order, and provides convenience for academic misconduct.

Conclusions

Modern technology can bring people speedy and convenient in deed, but easily, it can also make some person inert. People are used to cutting and sticking by the mouse and the keyboard. If time returns to ancient years, and how many people can written so many papers and books in a few years? It is a good way to hold back the academic misconduct by making the papers unable to download print or stick.

In this case, academic misconduct is not just a pure academic question, but also is a complex social problem. In other countries, there are also have academic misconducts, but they have taken effective measures based on their own national conditions. In America, there is a special agency to prevent and control the misconduct, and at the same time, there are more perfect laws and regulations, and also have regulatory measures of academic institutions for self-discipline, so thus it have formed a system for preventing of the academic misconduct in the United States. In Britain, and Sweden, there also has special supervisory center for the academic (Yang, 2005); In Germany and France, they pay attention to ethics education to cultivate good academic morality, and reduce the academic misconduct factors. So it is complicated to the prevention and control of academic misconduct, which involves many factors of academic exchange system and needs joint effort.

In China, the government has also taken measures. In March 2007, the China Association of Science and Technology has defined the concepts of academic misconduct (China Association for Science and Technology, 2009). In March 2009, the Ministry of Education issued a circular, which requires universities seriously punish the academic misconduct included copying, plagiarizing and devour others, Otherwise, the university scientific research institutions should have directly responsible for this (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2009).

But in view of social and complexity of the problems, it is not enough to resist the academic misconducts only depending on a few of government notice. This requires our government to establish and perfect the fair and reasonable academic evaluation system, and make scientific and strict management policies, in order to guide the academic circles, at the same time, the elements of academic exchanges also need to strengthen the consciousness of self-discipline, promote the academic standardization.

References

Lu, Yanjun (2007). Analyzing the Causes of Academic Misconduct in Thesis Paper. Science and Technology Management Research, (9), 51-53.

Yang, Jinjun (2005). Talking about the Misconducts of Scientific Research and the Prevention Strategy. China, Chengdu: Southwest Jiaotong University.

Steering Committee for Academic Libraries of China. (2009). The Library Evaluation Index of Ordinary University (Amended Version). Retrieved April 30, 2009 from 162.105.140.111/tugongwei.

China Association for Science and Technology. (2009). The Ethics of Scientific and Technical Workers. Retrieved May 19,2009 from .cn/n3508.

Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic ofChina. (2009). The Notice of Punishing Seriously Misconducts of College Academic. Retrieved from /edoas.