Lecturer missed self-plagiarism twice - then reports me when too late to fix it

liljellytot

Hi all, apologies for the long post but I just want some opinions on the following.

I recently handed up my final version of my thesis (for my masters) but my supervisor reported it for plagiarism. There was 20% of it that came from an essay I did in my final year of my undergrad.
At the time, I wasn't aware that reusing bits of an old work, that belonged to me, was an offence - as long as I built upon the research and this work was substantially new. I know better now!

The thing is... I handed in an essay to this particular lecturer (my supervisor) the year before, and it too had pieces of the old essay in it - I found out later it was about 75% in fact, as it was run through turn-it-in! (Again, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong, as I was building on research and presented a new case study with it). But the lecturer never informed me. They gave me a grade and never said a word about plagiarism... so I thought everything was hunky dory. And continued to believe I could build on this research path I was going down.

When it came to my thesis year, this lecturer became my supervisor. I went down the path of partly reusing my own work for the literature review with the intention of conducting my own research to add to it. I handed up my literature review and again, they said nothing to me about plagiarism. I was oblivious to the issue!

Then when I submitted my final thesis, the lecturer in question rings me up and says they have to report it - landing me in a very serious position, where I was brought up for review and punishments of 0% were put in place - even though 80% of the work was brand new and I worked so hard on it...

despite being my supervisor - the lecturer has not contacted me since they reported me - not to give any assistance or ask how i was getting on or anything. Not even when they new a decision came back on the case..

I'm not sure how to feel about this. I feel really let down by this lecturer and honestly - angry.
But am I justified?...

As a side note, I brought up in my review (multiple times, to various officials in the college) how the lecturer didn't tell me on two occasions that work I had handed up was plagiarised. But nobody would address it... I really felt like they were protecting their own, while I was basically on trial... But again, wondering if I am justified?...

username123

How can you plagiarise your own work?!?!??

The very definition is passing off someone else's work as your own.

liljellytot

I know haha

But its true - its clearly defined in the new NUIG plagiarism policy that came into effect 2012/2013 academic year.

"Self-plagiarism, or auto-plagiarism, is where a student re-uses work previously submitted to another course within the University or in another Institution."

I know all about it now, but this definition wasn't in the old policy, which is the one I had been working off - they never told us a new policy had come into effect.

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism#Self-plagiarism

TheBoffin

"Self-plagiarism, or auto-plagiarism, is where a student re-uses work previously submitted to another course within the University or in another Institution."

Maybe if they put half the effort into practicality in their courses and less emphasis on stupid policy making, Ireland would be a better place. I feel your pain!! I've been here before

liljellytot

TheBoffin wrote: »

Maybe if they put half the effort into practicality in their courses and less emphasis on stupid policy making, Ireland would be a better place. I feel your pain!! I've been here before

I agree! All through the review process they were all about policy, policy, policy. I hope your situation worked out!

TheBoffin

As with some Uni's, Doing a job RIGHT the first time gets the job done. Doing the job WRONG fourteen times gives you job security.

Neon_Lights

That begs the question, how can lecturers feasibly expand on their own papers if they can call out students for self plagiarism. Its a double standard.

TheBoffin

Its a double standard.

Exactly! As in most Uni/Colleges its a case of do as I say and not as I do.

Neon_Lights

TheBoffin wrote: »

Exactly! As in most Uni/Colleges its a case of do as I say and not as I do.

Yeah I had a group thesis for my masters, which isn't so bad, until we got handed a lazy American bull****ter into our group. The rescue job I and two others had to do on his part was phenomenal. I know that feel


But yeah turn it in is making it statistically impossible to plagiarize. Its just a huge referential database and search engine. I think if it was a good approximation of 20% it could have been unlucky in some colleges. Depends on the originality limit they put on the paper.

reap-a-rat

Neon_Lights wrote: »

That begs the question, how can lecturers feasibly expand on their own papers if they can call out students for self plagiarism. Its a double standard.

But surely all you need to do is use correct referencing and citations and it's OK? I've seen plenty of my lecturers' papers and many of them do indeed cite their own work and that's perfectly acceptable because they have it referenced.

OP, did you have a reference/citation to you previous work included in your thesis? If not, then it was correct that you were called out on it but still unfair that you weren't allowed to just say, sorry, forgot to reference, I'll do that and it'll be grand.

IMO your supervisor was a right unfair gombeen for not chatting to you about it first, instead just heading straight to reporting you. That's very unfair, I'm glad supervisors I've had have both been very reasonable and more supervisors that I know would 100% would not do something that'll have such a drastic impact on you before telling you about it first. Sounds like a right twat.

TheBoffin

The college system overall is teaching students more about red tape, political correctness etc and less about what they went to study in the first place. This is why students recently graduate with no work experience are at the bottom of the job barrel. In my own industry (IT) they would be far better off focusing efforts on getting students into professional certification programs during college like Microsoft Certifications and Cisco Certs etc and less of the bullsh1t! I did a course for 4 years and all i learned was how to pass exams and how to thread on egg-shells around lecturers for fear of hurting their 50 yr old outdated ego and knowledge.

3rd level is an endurance test.

liljellytot

reap-a-rat wrote: »

But surely all you need to do is use correct referencing and citations and it's OK? I've seen plenty of my lecturers' papers and many of them do indeed cite their own work and that's perfectly acceptable because they have it referenced.

OP, did you have a reference/citation to you previous work included in your thesis? If not, then it was correct that you were called out on it but still unfair that you weren't allowed to just say, sorry, forgot to reference, I'll do that and it'll be grand.

IMO your supervisor was a right unfair gombeen for not chatting to you about it first, instead just heading straight to reporting you. That's very unfair, I'm glad supervisors I've had have both been very reasonable and more supervisors that I know would 100% would not do something that'll have such a drastic impact on you before telling you about it first. Sounds like a right twat.

No I hadn't cited myself, as I had no idea I was doing something wrong and, to be honest, I would have felt silly referencing myself as the work wasn't published - but if I get a chance to rewrite, I will definitely ask if citing myself will solve the problem!
I fully accept my mistake, but I really do feel let down by the supervisor. They're supposed to be there to help, guide and you in your work, and I had handed my work up for them to review... if they had caught it on the 2 occasions my work was reviewed before final submission... I wouldn't be in the mess
(I fully accept the final responsibility lies with me by the way, I just feel let down)

Neon_Lights

I agree, but as a mixture, Say for example you're not going to get them to do Professional level courses like MCSE in BI or CCNP from cisco if you're in college. Perhaps Associate level in a few areas. It wouldn't tie them down.


Looking at it from their side (why they don't) that would add to the cost of the courses and with university funding decreasing colleges simply wont shell out. Plus you're assuming the colleges would have access to Enterprise applications for students to play around on. With 1 licence per user from a lot of vendors bonkers money were talking.

If you look at accountants too, they do 3, 4, 5 years in university and still have to do exams. Its a money racket in certain cases.

liljellytot

TheBoffin wrote: »

The college system overall is teaching students more about red tape, political correctness etc and less about what they went to study in the first place. This is why students recently graduate with no work experience are at the bottom of the job barrel. In my own industry (IT) they would be far better off focusing efforts on getting students into professional certification programs during college like Microsoft Certifications and Cisco Certs etc and less of the bullsh1t! I did a course for 4 years and all i learned was how to pass exams and how to thread on egg-shells around lecturers for fear of hurting their 50 yr old outdated ego and knowledge.

3rd level is an endurance test.

I so agree! My field is IT as well and, while I liked my course and provides a good foundation, VERY LITTLE is actually applicable to the real world. I came into a job via work experience with the college and thats where the real learning is.

reap-a-rat

liljellytot wrote: »

No I hadn't cited myself, as I had no idea I was doing something wrong and, to be honest, I would have felt silly referencing myself as the work wasn't published - but if I get a chance to rewrite, I will definitely ask if citing myself will solve the problem!
I fully accept my mistake, but I really do feel let down by the supervisor. They're supposed to be there to help, guide and you in your work, and I had handed my work up for them to review... if they had caught it on the 2 occasions my work was reviewed before final submission... I wouldn't be in the mess
(I fully accept the final responsibility lies with me by the way, I just feel let down)

I wasn't saying you weren't taking responsibility by the way, I just wanted to ensure you hadn't referenced yourself - if you had, there's be no case.

I do empathise with you, though. It's bad form by the lecturer to not point it it to you. If he had, it would have been such a simple fix for you. Is he out to get you for any reason? Would it be worth your while approaching the head of department or dean of your school to explain your situation?

biko

Did you put in footnotes or refer to previous work by yourself?
I'm not sure it would help..

liljellytot

reap-a-rat wrote: »

I wasn't saying you weren't taking responsibility by the way, I just wanted to ensure you hadn't referenced yourself - if you had, there's be no case.

I do empathise with you, though. It's bad form by the lecturer to not point it it to you. If he had, it would have been such a simple fix for you. Is he out to get you for any reason? Would it be worth your while approaching the head of department or dean of your school to explain your situation?

No i know you didn't mean that - I'm just expecting some people to say 'its your own fault' lol so wanted to explain I know I should have been more vigilant myself from the beginning.

I asked the plagiarism officer could I appeal and they said there was no appeals process for plagiarism. But my boss at work told me that there should be an appeals process for any official decision, by law.
So, I went to the students union, the head of postgraduates and the student experience officer about it. Both the students union and the head of postgraduates simply said 'proper policy was followed'. The student experience officer was really nice and said that there was no appeal process - but that she would set one up for me. So i banged out a 5 page explanation of why I felt they were being too harsh and that they policy is flawed. An appeals board considered it and got me a rewrite opportunity with a 50% cap on my grade.

But they didn't address anything to do with the lecturer/supervisor. And that supervisor hasn't contacted me since... very odd

TheBoffin

I so agree! My field is IT as well and, while I liked my course and provides a good foundation, VERY LITTLE is actually applicable to the real world. I came into a job via work experience with the college and thats where the real learning is.

Like you my incident was re-use of some of my own work. In IT courses it is almost impossible to come up with a unique project without re-use of some (in my case, code). Long story short, i changed all the methods to shakesperian and re-submitted it

Dim Hamlet As New Heroine etc etc...

When i was approached about it, i just said ask for stupidity and get stupidity.

liljellytot

TheBoffin wrote: »

Like you my incident was re-use of some of my own work. In IT courses it is almost impossible to come up with a unique project without re-use of some (in my case, code). Long story short, i changed all the methods to shakesperian and re-submitted it

Dim Hamlet As New Heroine etc etc...

When i was approached about it, i just said ask for stupidity and get stupidity.

Haha, well played

reap-a-rat

liljellytot wrote: »

No i know you didn't mean that - I'm just expecting some people to say 'its your own fault' lol so wanted to explain I know I should have been more vigilant myself from the beginning.

I asked the plagiarism officer could I appeal and they said there was no appeals process for plagiarism. But my boss at work told me that there should be an appeals process for any official decision, by law.
So, I went to the students union, the head of postgraduates and the student experience officer about it. Both the students union and the head of postgraduates simply said 'proper policy was followed'. The student experience officer was really nice and said that there was no appeal process - but that she would set one up for me. So i banged out a 5 page explanation of why I felt they were being too harsh and that they policy is flawed. An appeals board considered it and got me a rewrite opportunity with a 50% cap on my grade.

But they didn't address anything to do with the lecturer/supervisor. And that supervisor hasn't contacted me since... very odd

That's something - at least it's not a zero. Still frustrating though... Have you been in contact with the lecturer yourself? Students aren't always on their list of priorities, and considering he seems like a bit of a tool anyway, he may have forgotten?

Ficheall

Just because the lecturer/examiner doesn't pull you up on something the first time you do it, it doesn't mean they're not fully-entitled to pull you up on repeat offences.
"Your honour, I'd never gotten in trouble for being drunk and disorderly before..." wouldn't really pass as an excuse.

When you say "they have to report it", do you mean the supervisor or the examiners? The supervisor may well not have spotted the plagiarism, because honestly, he probably couldn't care less. However, if they're running it officially through a system like turnitin, it's possible that the thesis was flagged automatically by the system.

It is unreasonable that they're punishing you for plagiarising your own work, but it sounds like there's something more going on here. Have you contacted the supervisor since they reported you or informed you they were going to report you? It's more than likely an awkward topic for them to broach too.

ZRelation

Your supervisor is probably a bit miffed about the whole thing, hence the lack of contact. Maybe they could have been more vigilant, but that depends on the degree of interaction both of you had during the write-up.

I realise you know that you've messed up. In explaining the supervisors attitude they're probably upset that you've wasted both of your time by not making yourself aware of the regulations before submitting and not asking if you were unsure. Maybe they could have asked you to make sure everything was properly cited, but ultimately the responsibility was with you on that one. I don't think, 'I wasn't pulled up on it before' is really an excuse.

All that said, its a bit crappy of them not to get back to you and discuss it. Fair play for the persistence in getting the chance to resubmit, it's a tough way to loose marks.

Mahogany Gaspipe

Neon_Lights wrote: »

That begs the question, how can lecturers feasibly expand on their own papers if they can call out students for self plagiarism. Its a double standard.

You simply reference the previous paper/study; hardly some double standard in this regard.

Maybe the supervisor should of highlighted it; but IMO it has been drilled home, on my own UG at least, that avoiding plagiarism lies squarely on the shoulders of the student.

When you say there hasn't been any contact with your supervisor does that mean you also haven't tried contacted them; or you have, but they haven't responded?

liljellytot

Ficheall wrote: »

Just because the lecturer/examiner doesn't pull you up on something the first time you do it, it doesn't mean they're not fully-entitled to pull you up on repeat offences.
"Your honour, I'd never gotten in trouble for being drunk and disorderly before..." wouldn't really pass as an excuse.

I'm not really saying that as an excuse. I was more saying - the fact that it wasn't highlighted to me as a problem the first time, led me to believe I hadn't done anything wrong, therefore didn't know not to do it the next time.

Ficheall

liljellytot wrote: »

I'm not really saying that as an excuse. I was more saying - the fact that it wasn't highlighted to me as a problem the first time, led me to believe I hadn't done anything wrong, therefore didn't know not to do it the next time.

Sounds like an excuse to me...

Standman

Ficheall wrote: »

Sounds like an excuse to me...

Sometimes excuses are valid..

sammyjo90

Coincidentally theres a big ole write up in the Galway independent today about how gmit spent 350,000 euro on an investigation into a masters students plagiarism and I think they looked into the supervisor too. Colleges do care about these things because it reflects badly on them.. you just need to find the right person to talk to!

I'd throw in a link but apparently it doesn't exist!

Ficheall

Standman wrote: »

Sometimes excuses are valid..

That's true! I don't believe that to be the case in this instance, but that's not the point I was making. If the OP can't be relied upon to describe what they're saying in a two page thread accurately, some people might feel that affects their credibility.

IainML

Hi there. I can't possibly comment on this specific case. I have not been involved and don't know anything about it and if I did it probably wouldn't be a great idea to debate/discuss on a public forum where only some parties are present.

The reason for dropping in a contribution to this thread is just because there might be a bit of a misunderstanding amongst some readers about this thing called 'self-plagiarism'. Its not something that's new. It was always considered wrong. The policy statement was revised recently but only to try and be more explicit to everyone about what the issues are and how they'll be dealt with.

At its simplest, self-plagiarism includes examples such as when a student has produced a piece of work for a particular module, that work is then marked and the student passes the module. Then for another purpose (another module or another qualification) the student, instead of doing a new piece of work for an assignment just pulls out this earlier one and bungs it in. What's wrong with that? Well there are a few aspects. First, academic credit (all that ECTS stuff) is awarded on the basis of work done to meet specified learning outcomes. Typically it would be 1 ECTS is awarded on the basis of 20-25 hours student effort (that includes time in class, time studying and time working on assignments/assessments). If you've submitted a piece of work for the award of credit, then, you've effectively 'cashed it in' and it's 'used up'. When you get another assessment request, you can't just pull out something you've done earlier and already 'cashed'. It has to be new work, with time spent on it.

So that's one form of self-plagiarism. It;s about trying to get multiple credit for one piece of work, submitted to different courses/modules. It is more serious than people might realise at first when they hear the jargon, if you think it through you could imagine a whole set of difficulties that could arise. People submitting work to different modules, to different institutions, trying to rack up academic credit. Qualifications (and their associated 'Diploma supplement) tell employers and other institutions that this person has put in so many hours of study, undertaken so many forms of assessment, etc. All of this is subject to national and international legal frameworks to recognise qualifications from different providers/countries and institutions are obliged to ensure the integrity of their assessment and qualifications procedures.

There's a similar issue with research, where people can't just submit the same paper to different journals hoping to be able to list lots of publications on their CV for just one piece of work. That's considered professional misconduct and when folk are caught doing it, disciplinary action is taken and sometimes they'll end up being banned by those journals.

Anyway, that's not any comment on the current case, but just in case this helps clarify a bit why there's a problem if someone submits the same piece of work for different assessments. The reason why institutions get het up about these things is on this basis and not because of some mad policy or bureaucracy gone mad.

dede12

OP, can I ask how much you were taught about plagiarism and proper referencing in your undergrad (which I'm assuming was also at NUIG) or once you got to your Masters? I would think this might have a bearing on how they can react to this situation. The reason I ask is that I just finished an MA at NUIG this past summer and coming from an American university where I did my undergrad, I was shocked at how little you guys seem to be taught about how to conduct proper research, citing, or plagiarism; none of the Irish students on my course had ever been told anything beyond 'don't plagiarize' yet had not been told what constitutes plagiarism and when/how it is acceptable to use your old work. In contrast, at most American schools plagiarism is taken very seriously so the proper way of doing things is drilled into us since even one instance of it normally results in expulsion!

I say this because based on my own experiences at NUIG I think you could have a case for contesting their decision. Were you given a copy of the new plagiarism guidelines at the beginning of the year and confirmed you had read it? (we were and were asked to sign something stating we had read it) If not, and you were never taught about it in any detail in an earlier course then I think you could maybe make a case that NUIG failed in their responsibility to ensure you were properly prepared for your Masters. Of course if you were given the opportunity to learn these things (say in a tutorial or something) and just failed to attend them, then it is entirely on you.

If this is the case perhaps you could send the department, student union rep, and whoever else seems relevant a formal letter though email outlining that while you admit you made a mistake, you believe NUIG failed in its responsibility to ensure you were properly prepared for this thesis and therefore shares some of the culpability. Also state that if your supervisor was aware of this plagiarism he had a duty to alert you to it before you turned it in. (After all, what is the point of a supervisor if they don't give you guidance on these things?) Then ask to appeal the decision and suggest a new outcome (perhaps a rewrite capped at 65%?). You will likly have to take some punishment, but I would agree they have been too harsh. One could argue that you should have looked this stuff up on your own but if you were never given a reason to think it was necessary why would you have?

Make sure your argument a good one tho, and word it professionally - it is important that you don't seem like you are just acting like a brat because you were caught. It might also be a good idea to email your supervisor beforehand and politely ask him why he failed to point it out to you the first few times. If he responds in a way that proves he knew about it, that strengthens your case.

If they refuse to allow you to appeal after that, maybe lodge a complaint that there is no appeals process using the Complaints procedure? (http://www.nuigalway.ie/vp/sshr/Student_Complaints_Procedure_Pages_and_Files/student_complaints_procedure.html)

And if all that doesn't work, maybe take a gander at that Independent article and if its relevant send it along to them & suggest that maybe the reporter who wrote that would be interested in your story? Or contact the reporter first and see what they have to say. NUIG not properly preparing its students regarding plagiarism might make a good follow up to the first article ya know