Pakistani students caught plagiarizing(Students of High Energy Physics)

From TFT: 12-May Plagiarism could affect Pak-Swiss research ties
Ali Waqar The scandal has shaken PU and put a dampener on HEC's PhD programme in natural sciences

LAHORE: At a time when Pakistan is seeking increased educational and technical exchanges with Switzerland, plagiarism by four PhD students at the Punjab University (PU), all faculty members, of an article written by the former Director-General of the Geneva-based Centre Européen pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN), has put the ongoing Islamabad-CERN collaboration in doldrums.

Sources at the Higher Education Commission (HEC) say CERN has written a letter (dated May 3, 2006) to concerned officials in Islamabad and Lahore and warned that the unacceptable behaviour of PU faculty members would mar relations between Pakistan and CERN.

Ironically, during a recent visit to Islamabad of Swiss foreign minister, Pakistan and Switzerland agreed to work together for greater economic and development cooperation and increase educational and technological exchanges.

Also, President Pervez Musharraf, during his January 2006 visit to Switzerland, paid a special visit to CERN Headquarters. He was accompanied by five government ministers as well as the current and former presidents of Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). Incidentally, Pakistan’s cooperation with CERN was started by former PAEC President, Dr Ishfaq Ahmad.

During that visit, chairman PAEC and CERN DG, Robert Aymar, signed an addendum to the 2003 Protocol Agreement covering the supply of additional equipment for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). They also signed a letter of intent aimed at strengthening scientific and technical co-operation between CERN and Pakistan. The document envisaged an extension of the existing partnership not only in new accelerators, detectors and information technologies, but also in educating and training scientists and technical experts.

The report of these documents is available in the national and international press and also on the CRN Courier-International Journal of High Energy Physics-Volume 46, Number 2. According to the reports, CERN and Pakistan relations developed in 1994. There are currently 75 Pakistani physicists and engineers taking part in three major CERN projects: CMS, ATLAS and the development of the Computing Grid for the LHC (LCG).

“This incident of Pakistani students plagiarising a paper from a Switzerland-based research institute will definitely affect relations between Pakistani and Swiss research organisations,” an observer told TFT.

Senior PU teachers declare recent cases of plagiarism a matter of shame for the well-reputed university. Expressing deep concern over the incident, they told TFT that the scandal could hamper Pakistan’s ties with reputed research organisations all over the world. They have urged the PU and HEC administrations and the government of Pakistan to take strict action against the plagiarists.

John Ellis, advisor to the CERN Director General for relations with Non-Member States, in a special letter to the HEC Chairman, Prof Dr Attaur Rehman, and the PU Vice- Chancellor, Lt-Gen (Retd) Arshad Mahmood, has confirmed plagiarism by PU students of an article written five years ago by Professor CH Llewellyn Smith of Oxford University.

Sources say some responsible PU authorities drew CERN’s attention to the fact that the four PhD students – Rashid Ahmad, M Saeed Alam, Sohail Afzal Tahir and Maqsood Ahmad – from PU’s Centre for High Energy Physics (CHEP) had copied parts of Professor Llewellyn’s publication word for word and submitted it as a new paper titled ‘The Benefits of Basic Sciences’. This paper was published in the names of the abovementioned teachers in the September 2002 edition of the online magazine ‘Science in Africa’.

John Ellis’ letter reads: “According to my personal reading of both articles, about 90 percent of the article by PU faculty members is identical, word for word, with large segments of the earlier article by our former DG. I see no original idea or synthesis in the later article by your [PU] faculty members…Prof Smith’s article contains 19 references to pervious academic literature, whereas the article by your members refers to no other articles, whether authored by Prof Smith or anybody else.”

The letter also recalls that under the leadership of Prof Smith when he was DG-CERN, a successful collaboration was established with Pakistan. This cooperation is channelled through the National Centre for Physics and supported by PAEC, HEC, and other Pakistan government agencies. “We were pleased recently to host a visit by your President Musharraf. It would be most regrettable if this incident were to mar relations between Pakistan and CERN,” the letter concluded.

The editor of “Science in Africa”, Dr Janice Limson, on the reports of the publication of the plagiarised article in the magazine, has maintained that “Science in Africa” does not condone or support plagiarism. “We are in touch with authorities at Punjab University, Pakistan, where an investigation of the plagiarism allegation against the authors is being conducted. The article will remain on this site for the time being to facilitate the investigation, following which, it shall be removed,” the editor said.

More importantly, it has been discovered that the director of CHEP, Prof Dr Fazal-e-Aleem and three of the teachers accused of plagiarising Dr Smith’s article are also being accused of plagiarising a 1999 coursework paper of the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. They allegedly turned the thesis into a research paper and presented it in an international conference in Italy in 2003.

Dr Aleem, who is also working as Director-General of the School of Physical Sciences and has been heading the Doctorial (PhD) Programme at PU for the last four years, not only reproduced the coursework but also wrote to the university vice-chancellor to thank him for presenting Dr Aleem with an “Incentive Award” for producing such a “significant research paper”.

An HEC official told TFT that serious action would be taken against these cases soon. He said HEC had already defined plagiarism and circulated a new booklet, which contained detailed policy guidelines. This booklet was sent to all varsities in the country in March 2006. In fact, HEC chairman Dr Attaur Rahman recently issued a directive to the PU regarding plagiarism, asking the vice-chancellor to strictly check the practice. University authorities circulated this directive to all departments.

The directive says: “Plagiarism includes using published work without referencing (the most common), copying course work essays, collaborating with any other person when the work is supposed to be individual, taking another person’s computer file/programme, submitting another person’s work as one’s own, the use of unacknowledged material published on a website, purchase of model assignments from whatever source, copying another students’ results and falsifying results.”

PU Registrar, Prof Dr Muhammad Naeem Khan says authorities are seriously concerned about the menace of plagiarism. “We have zero tolerance for plagiarism in research publications,” he said. “PU has taken strict action against these allegations and an investigation is underway; qualified researchers are on the job.”

Khan says PU has never spared plagiarists, giving the example of a recent case when a research officer of the Centre for South Asian Studies was fired on plagiarism charges. He had reproduced an Indian author’s book by his own name. Similarly, the varsity also rejected the research work of one candidate because it contained excerpts of an article published in a foreign journal.