The way allegations of plagiarism against National Chung Hsing University president Peng Tso-kwei (彭作奎) were handled has set a precedent. The debate reminded me of a case in which I was involved a few years ago.
An associate research fellow was accused of plagiarizing the works of a mainland Chinese scholar in the hope of being promoted to research fellow. The accused believed that if his work amounted to plagiarism, then another colleague who had been promoted to research fellow years previously was also guilty of plagiarizing the work that had secured his promotion and therefore should have his promotion revoked.
The institution set up a five-member task force to handle the two accusations. The team decided that the associate research fellow's dissertation had not entered the stage of academic review and therefore he should not be promoted if the charges of plagiarism were confirmed.
However, as for the man who had been promoted earlier, the team decided that they had to respect the fact that different standards were used at different times in reviewing academic work. Using today's standards to reverse a past review would not only be unfair but might also create chaos in academia. The early work of those already promoted should therefore only be reviewed to find out whether they committed plagiarism in the legal sense. If the legal criteria were not met, then the results of previous reviews should be respected. In other words, no further reviews would be conducted for dissertations already reviewed.
The associate research fellow was not promoted because of plagiarism, while the research fellow kept his status because he was not implicated in plagiarism in the legal sense.
What is plagiarism in the academic sense? What is plagiarism in the legal sense? Where does the difference lie?
According to copyright regulations, copyrights protect only the "original expression" of each work, but not the underlying ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods, concepts, principles and discoveries. The so-called "expression" includes the language, elucidation, handling, arrangement and order, etc, of the ideas and facts. Using other people's theories and ideas without attribution, therefore, only constitutes plagiarism in the academic sense, but not in the legal sense. The two categories have different standards.
Plagiarism is certainly not advisable. Whether at the National Science Council or in the review of any dissertation, certain academic rules should be followed and reviews should be strictly conducted. But most of the works written and reviewed 10 or 20 years ago would perhaps fail if we applied today's strict standards to them. Also, whether we should encourage a trend of using these standards as a tool in the competition for academic positions, or a trend of writing anonymous letters to attack others, is a question worthy of deep reflection.
Hsiao Hsiung-lin is a lawyer.
Translated by Francis Huang
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