There have been some interesting news stories this week about plagiarism in American colleges and universities. The stories of Kent State University in Ohio and New York University both indicate that schools are seeking to help students who may not realize they are plagiarizing (unintentional plagiarism) and who need to learn the correct ways to cite their work.
This month continues to bring us more news of plagiarism in academic settings. Three university professors in India have been accused of plagiarizing the same work in two separate incidents. The article on mining, originally published in 1997, was that of Dr. ML Jhanwar, the former director of the Geological Survey of India.
Annette Schavan has officially resigned from her government position as Germany’s education minister after she was found to have plagiarized on her doctoral dissertation. The announcement of this high profile and politically charged case was announced today by German chancellor Angela Merkel who accepted Mrs. Schavan’s resignation.
We begin this month’s plagiarism stories with an interesting and rather high profile case from Germany. Annette Schavan, the German education minister, is accused of plagiarizing on her doctoral dissertation which was published back in 1980 under the (ironic title) “Character and Conscience”. While the investigation is still pending, all the signs suggest that the German minister did commit intentional plagiarism, according the chairman of the investigating committee.