Plagiarism needs more attention

Plagiarism needs more attention

By Ignas Keleden

This is the first of two articles exploring academic life in
Indonesia taking a clue from the recent case of alleged
plagiarism by a student of a respected university.

JAKARTA (JP): The recent alleged case of academic plagiarism
at the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University deserves more
attention than it has been given.

Apart from the violation of academic ethics, the case cannot
be attributed only to the accused but to the whole academic
community.

Plagiarism has at least three aspects. First, it can be seen
as a structural problem, second, as a cultural problem, and
third, as an individual problem.

The structural problem refers to the whole structure of
academic relations, which enable or prevent such a case from
occurring. The cultural problem refers to the introduction and
implementation of academic convention in general and the
convention of writing a scientific work in particular. The
individual problem hints at the personal situation of the
suspect.

Press reports say that Drs. Suyono M.S., a graduate student,
wrote a master's degree thesis about political socialization, as
conducted at secondary schools in Indonesia. An undergraduate
student of a private university in Surabaya, Dra. Siswati,
learned of this thesis from a report in a Gadjah Mada University
periodical and noticed that the title of the work looked similar
with that of her own.

After a close examination, both Siswati and her supervisor,
Dr. Ramlan Soerbakti, found more similarities in the research
question chosen, the methodology applied, as well as the main
findings of the study. Many sentences are even quite identical.

Soerbakti then sent a letter to the Gadjah Mada University's
department of political science. The university responded by
setting up a committee to investigate the case.

Another interesting fact is that Suyono, when asked by the
press, said he knew nothing about the undergraduate's thesis in
Surabaya. This implies that, given some major similarities
between the two works, they must be a mere coincidence.

Evidently the case has a structural linkage. Students who want
to write their theses are required to have an overview of
previous works done on the subject.

This review serves two purposes. On the one hand, it is aimed
at providing the state of the art in the study and research of a
particular subject matter. Such a survey usually consists of a
bibliographic review, or overview, which shows that other studies
of the same subject should be known, appreciated, or criticized.
Academic work is based on academic tradition, and one cannot
start writing a thesis on a certain subject as if he is the first
to give attention to such a problem area.

On the other hand, with such a background knowledge of what
has been done before, a student can delineate his research
question in such a way that both the findings he will attain, or
the perspective he is going to use, and the methodology he wants
to apply, might give another contribution to all the works which
have been done before.

The contribution can be seen both in terms of content and
method. Content wise, it might be a positive addition to previous
findings, or it might partly or totally reject the previous
findings, or give a new interpretation to the previous findings.
With regard to method, it can introduce a new method to deal with
the research problem, or show weaknesses of the previous methods
used.

The highest level of achievement is attained if one is able to
lift up a level of discourse, in which the study conducted and
the subject investigated are treated in a totally new way, which
opens a totally new world of investigation and demonstrates a
totally new way of looking at things. In that case, one
contributes to the foundation of a new level of discourse,
resulting in the so-called paradigm shift.

However, the above requirement can be satisfactorily met if
there is a good center of academic information. In the early
1970s the Indonesian Institute of Sciences in Jakarta published a
bulletin entitled Index of Indonesian Learned Periodicals,
containing the most important scientific publications in
Indonesian periodicals and magazines. This index was published
once a year.

If a student is required to have an overview of the related
studies which have been done in their field of study, it follows
that there must be an information center which collects the most
important research conducted within a year.

This sort of information center, or good library, is lacking
in most of the universities. This situation has developed to the
extent that information about the research and studies of other
members of academic communities in Indonesia can be obtained only
through personal relations, not through institutional relations.

In order for such a center of scientific information to exist,
two conditions must be fulfilled. First, the studies conducted by
Indonesian scholars and students should be regularly published.
Second, there should be one or several institutions which
specialize in documenting, classifying, indexing and, if
possible, abstracting such publications.

If this is not done, we have no reasons to blame our students
who happen to have no idea of what has been done by other
scholars. There is also no reason to complain if there happen to
be some studies which are only repetitious in both the theme and
method, because there are no sources to consult with, which
enable a comparison with other related studies conducted before.

If the Indonesian academia wants to push a higher quality of
learning and research, this can only be done if it is supported
by systematic documentation, which, again, is enabled by regular
publications made accessible to the members of the academic
community.

It is common knowledge that Indonesian academia is very poor
in this regard. If we want to build the academia according to
minimum international standards, an information center for
research findings and a related library should be made available
and accessible to university students.

In fact there is nothing new in what has been said above,
since research is one job which is assigned to the academia by
the Indonesian government. In academic terms, research should be
conducted according to the minimum academic criteria, whereby the
prerequisites for such criteria should be fulfilled. Otherwise,
we use the label "research" to signify other sorts of businesses,
that have very little to do with the academic performance and the
progress of knowledge, which become the very reason why research
should be conducted and promoted at all.

Besides the structural aspect, research also has its cultural
aspect, which makes up the so-called academic ethos. When a
graduate student writes a thesis, it is usually done in
cooperation with, and under the guidance of a supervisor.
Therefore, the thesis can be seen as a result which reflects the
individual academic achievement of a student and the quality of
the supervision provided to them by the supervisor.

In the case of Suyono, we can proceed from two possibilities:
either he wrote the thesis by himself, without reading the thesis
from Surabaya beforehand, or he has read it and made use of the
materials of the thesis without attribution, which is required by
academic conventions.

If the former is the case, then we are faced with the
difficulties posed by many striking similarities between the two
works, as reported by the press so far. How can we account for
the fact that the research question, the methodology applied and
the formulation of research findings are so similar. Besides, it
is hard to believe that many identical sentences are merely a
coincidence. However, to do justice to the student, we have to
wait for the findings of the committee.

If the latter is the case, this must have been detected before
the completion of the thesis; during the supervision and
periodical consultations. On such occasions, the supervisor
usually raises critical questions about the reasons for taking a
particular research question, why a particular method is used,
and how the student has come to the findings and conclusion. If
it was plagiarized, we could imagine that the student concerned
must have been in great difficulties when answering the questions
about things he has not produced himself, as well as the
scientific procedure he did not go through. In other words,
dishonesty must have been uncovered and established.

This implies that the quality of a thesis reflects not just
the student's individual performance and personal achievement,
but also the quality of academic guidance and consultation
provided by a certain department and the academia in general.

In such consultations, the supervisor assumes the role of an
agent of "organized skepticism", namely, the obligation to pay
attention to the work of other members of the academic community,
by giving their appreciation, comments and criticisms, which put
the work in comparison with other similar works.

This is a general rule, whose exceptions must not necessarily
be ignored, whereby a very strong and intelligent student can go
his way with self-confidence while persuading their supervisor to
approve it.

The point is, the behavior of students in the learning and
writing of their theses cannot be seen independently from the
question as to whether and to what extent academic conventions,
as a subculture in an academic community, has been encouraged and
promoted, or discouraged and neglected within the Indonesian
academia.