Ohio University Plagiarism

Ohio University Academic Standards Still Lowest

2011-07-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

This is an update on the Purdue plagiarism investigation that I wrote about last month. A journalist for The Journal Gazette reported yesterday that the doctoral graduate whose dissertation is at issue has resigned from the state Board of Education. The report does not include any information to confirm causal connection between the resignation and the plagiarism investigation.

It doesn't look like Purdue is going play around; thus, OU continues to hold the world record for the lowest academic standards.

Dr. Mehta's Defamation Suit Is Resurrected

2011-07-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the 10th District Court of Appeals rendered its decision on Dr. Mehta's appeal from the Ohio Court of Claims judgement for Ohio University. Dr. Mehta claimed that the trial court made the following four errors:

Certain statements in the Meyer / Bloemer report are protected opinion.

Since Ohio law forced OU to distribute the Meyer / Bloemer report, OU can't be held accountable for defamatory statements in the report.

Another statement in the Meyer / Bloemer report was found to be opinion.

John Burns did not tell Kathy Lynn Gray that plagiarism was considered when OU decided not to renew Dr. Mehta's contract.

The panel of 3 judges partially agreed with Dr. Mehta and ruled that #1 and #2 are indeed errors; thus, two of the trial court's findings in 2009 have been reversed in 2011. So, I guess both sides will go back to court and proceedings will resume. It looks like it might be a slam dunk for Dr. Mehta, but I do not really know.

I do know Hugh Bloemer and Gary Meyer were absolutely right. Professors did "ignore their responsibilities" and they did "contribute to an atmosphere of negligence towards academic misconduct." The proof is Alden Library.

Stability of corrosion layers at high pressure and temperature multiphase flow conditions / Sathish
Rajappa, Sathish
2010
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Environmental effects on Portland cement concrete pavement / by Jason T. Wise
Wise, Jason T
2010
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Color face recognition by auto-regressive moving averaging / by Inad Aljarrah
Aljarrah, Inad A
2010
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Higher order spectra for the discrimination of malignant lymphomas and leukemia / Prashanth Bejai
Bejai, Prashanth
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Refined rule induction for job shop scheduling / Aarti B. Mehta
Mehta, Aarti B
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Multiple extrusion of superconducting wires / Sekhar Samy
Samy, Sekhar
2011
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Development of an analytical model for electrochemical machining (ECM) of an axisymmetric disk / L.
Fernando, L. Greshan
2010
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Wet membrane-based electrostatic precipitation / Joseph M. Cochran
Cochran, Joseph M
2009
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Membrane based electrostatic precipitation / Brian Haynes
Haynes, Brian
2009
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

A simple tool for the design of tube drawing processes / Prashanth Nekkalapudi
Nekkalapudi, Prashanth
2009
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Finite element analysis of flow in shape extrusion dies and design of graphical user interface for P
Gosavi, Prashant
2008
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Analytical modeling of axisymmetric disk forging / Padmasiri Vipul Ranatunga
Ranatunga, Padmasiri Vipul
2008
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collection

Design optimization of a fuel pipe inlet using computational fluid dynamics / Sonram Sangvilai
Sangvilai, Sonram
2008
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Rule based expert system for manufacturing process selection / V. Sankarasubramanian
Sankarasubramanian, Venkatasubramanian
2008
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens

FEM analysis on the fuel pump support / Narendra Ashok Talele
Talele, Narendra Ashok
2008
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Solid modeling and geometric parameterization of the human vocal tract using magnetic resonance imag
Tameem, Hussain Z
2008
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Development of computer based cost model / by O. Chaminda Kithsiri Perera
Perera, O. Chaminda Kithsiri
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Design optimization of a fuel tank pipe with convolutes and bends using computational fluid dynamics
Adlakha, Amit
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections
Note: this rewrite has pages of plagiarism.

Analytical and physical modeling of the buckling behavior of high aspect ratio billets / Eymard J. C
Chitty, Eymard J
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Design optimization of the location of convolutes in fuel pipe with convolutes and bends using compu
Ghanta, Ram Kumar Reddy
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections
Note: this rewrite is missing Chapter 2 and Chapter 3

Virtual material processing using adaptive modeling language : extrusion process / Amit Jain
Jain, Amit
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Simple software tool for profile ring rolling / Nagapadman Nagarajan
Nagarajan, Nagapadman
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Computer modeling of ring rolling process / Gengusamy Srinivas
Srinivas, Gengusamy
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Design and analysis of a handle block forging die sets / Mahmoud Mahrous Shaltout
Shaltout, Mahmoud Mahrous
2006
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

Experimental study of cooling curves in quenching / Ekachai Puttitwong
Puttitwong, Ekachai
2006
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

"Ohio University. OUD Theses. Integrated Engineering" » Numerical analysis of thermal processes in manufacturing / by Linthotage Christopher Greshan Fernand
Fernando, Linthotage Christopher Greshan
2010
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

"Ohio University. OUD Theses. Mechanical Engineering" » Development and validation of upper bound element technique (UBET) for forward and backward simulati
Alfozan, Adel
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

"Ohio University. OUD Theses. Mechanical Engineering" » Elasto-plastic analysis of thermal stresses in vacuum arc remelting / Ka Kin Wong
Wong, Ka Kin
2010
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

"Ohio University. OUD Theses. Mechanical Engineering" » An integrated analysis and design method for metal forming processes / Zhengjie Jia
Jia, Zhengjie
2007
Rewrite
Alden 5th Floor Archives & Special Collections , Athens General Collections

All of the documentation (including the appeal decision) for both defamation cases is available for download. Here are links to the case information pages.

Dr. Mehta Defamation Case

Dr. Jay Defamation Case

Ohio Univ. not role model despite claims

2011-06-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I learned about a blog called “Plagiaristas.” The blog provides evidence of plagiarism in a 2004 doctoral dissertation by a Purdue graduate. Out of curiosity, I obtained the dissertation from Proquest, and I started doing some checking of my own. I now consider this plagiarism case to be one of the worst abuses of the U.S higher education system I have seen. Extensive copying (including some research results) indicates that the graduate only sought a title, and she made no effort to become a scholar like a true PhD student. Additionally, publication of the fraudulent dissertation without bothering to correct basic problems such as cited sources not in the bibliography or an incoherent sentence due to careless copying raises concerns that Purdue professors might frequently overlook academic misconduct.

I compared the 2004 Purdue dissertation to two Virginia Tech dissertations published in 1998 and 1999. I highlighted duplicate text in blue and orange corresponding to the source documents. The highlighted pages can be downloaded here.

There have been a couple news articles indicating that Purdue is reviewing the evidence, but more important to me, the doctoral graduate denies wrongdoing. I would be very interested in hearing her explanation proving no wrongdoing. Until then, I only see a selfish liar who is so arrogant she thinks she deserves a doctoral degree without the education. She lies about her qualifications to keep an advanced position and she does not care about others with honest qualifications whom she causes to be excluded from an earned job opportunity. By maintaining that she did not plagiarize, she is essentially saying Lynn Amedy and Jude Isaacson plagiarized from her.

Purdue and their graduate are facing very serious problems, and I hope both realize candid honesty is the only option to gain control of their futures.

I am very interested in thoughts from anyone familiar with Purdue’s situation or affected by it. I am curious to see how comments and recommendations for both Purdue and the graduate compare to Ohio University’s choices which caused their ongoing floundering. Does anyone besides me suspect this is the tip of the iceberg, or did Plagiaristas just happen to find the single Purdue dissertation with falsified data?

Ohio University settles with Dr. Gunasekera

2011-03-07T20:15:00.001-08:00

It looks like OU decided to cut their losses by settling with Dr. Jay before the start of the upcoming jury trial to determine damages caused by Dean Irwin and Provost Krendl. In the Agreed Judgement Entry that was posted today, the judge orders dismissal of Jay's case upon payment of $150,739.00 by OU to Dr. Jay. See: Agreed Judgement Entry.

After subtracting the attorney's fees and costs, there is $32,500 left for Dr. Jay.

That's not too bad, but I suspect that victory itself is more important to Dr. Jay than the award. Dr. Jay has exposed Dean Irwin for what he really is: an arrogant bully. I experienced it myself when he threatened me with court action back in September 2004 for offering information about plagiarism. His ploy worked for awhile (over a year later he told Doug Lederman of InsideHigherEd.com that "[Matrka] has not offered to provide other examples" ), but his shady character has caught up with him and he has cost OU dearly.

Is Proquest Guilty of Copyright Infringement?

2011-02-18T12:46:00.000-08:00

The record shows that many Ohio University professors are willing to approve theses and dissertations containing plagiarism. However, we also know that authors who had their work stolen may choose to hold cheating students accountable. For example, plagiarizing cost Elisabeth Nixon at least $10,000.

But what about the organizations that publish and sell works containing plagiarism? For example, Proquest offers for sale an OU dissertation for up to $75.00 even though the dissertation contains pages of plagiarized material. You can see some of the plagiarism here. You can see one of the original sources here and the other source here. I even have an email from one of the true authors confirming that his work was stolen. He wrote to me in July 2009: "I went over the section 1.6 Vascular aging part of the dissertation ( page 36-37), and found that the entire section was copied verbatim right out of our paper." He also wrote: "I strongly feel that plagiarism in any form should not be allowed in academia, and that appropriate actions should be taken by the school as well as the faculty as a whole."

It's been well over a year since evidence of plagiarism in the OU dissertation has been exposed; yet, it is still offered for sale. Can Proquest be sued for copyright infringement?

Who Pays for Ohio University's Stupidity?

2011-02-05T22:27:00.000-08:00

Who will pay damages and legal fees to Dr. Gunasekera now that he has won his federal case against OU, Dean Irwin and Provost Krendl?

I was reading through some of the court documents for Dr. Gunasekera's federal lawsuit against Ohio University, Dean Irwin, and Provost Krendl. Last fall Dr. Gunasekera asked for OU to pay his attorney fees since he successfully proved that OU should have given him a name clearing hearing.

I don't know the exact amount OU will ultimately have to pay but Dr. Gunasekera told the court since June 2006 he has "spent over $130,000 in legal fees and costs in litigating my cases against Ohio University, Dean Irwin, and former Provost Krendl." And it's not over yet; the jury trial to determine damages starts on April 25, 2011. Also, we don't know how much OU and the Attorney General has spent in unsuccessfully defending themselves.

So I ask, who pays for OU's costly blunders? I doubt if it comes out of Dean Irwin's or Provost Krendl's pockets. Do students pay? Does the money come out of donations? Do taxpayers pay? I think it is important for everyone to know especially when OU is having so many financial difficulties.

I can't help but notice the irony in the fact that Dean Irwin wound up in court on the losing end; when back at the very beginning of this whole thing (summer 2004) he was so arrogant that he threatened me with court action when I offered information about plagiarism. I should also point out how quick he snapped me with his threat; it was almost as though it was a regular occurrence for him.

John Burns, OU's former Director of Legal Affairs, was right when he wrote in reference to my ordeal: "Ohio University's academic administration and those then serving as media relations personnel did not handle these "accusations" well, mostly by issuing denials and criticizing the graduate student, which of course caused further problems later." You can read John Burns' report here:

http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/teaching-and-learning-center/academic-technology/upload/Academic-Misconduct-Policy.pdf

Unfortunately, John Burns left out that I was threatened and retaliated against (when Jerrel Mitchell failed to process my application for the PhD program). Also, please note that John Burns was wrong when he wrote that I contacted "former graduate students accusing them of plagiarism in their master's theses and dissertations." That is 100% untrue and I have no idea why he thinks that I contacted and accused students. He is right about the others I contacted, and I will add that I contacted authors who had their work stolen; but, I challenge anyone to show me evidence that I accused former students directly.

Student Plagiarist Ordered to Pay $15,000 for Copyright Infringement

2011-02-04T01:57:00.000-08:00

Last summer I wrote a couple blog posts about a graduate of The Ohio State University whose PhD was revoked after the discovery of plagiarism in her dissertation. (Click here to read the first blog and click here to go to second one). In addition to being asked to give her diploma back, she was sued for copyright infringement by the author whose work she stole. The lawsuit was settled, and last December, a judge ordered the plagiarist to pay $15,000 to the plaintiff.

The case is Montana C. Miller v. Elisabeth Nixon, Case No. : 2:10-cv-0759 In the United States District Court Southern District of Ohio Eastern Division.

It will be interesting to see if any copyright infringement lawsuits are filed against OU graduates. I wonder if OU personnel could be named as defendants since many professors have pronounced their belief that copying in the introduction or literature review is no big deal.

The following was added on Feb 6, 2011:

Yesterday, the Columbus Dispatch published an article about the lawsuit.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/02/05/degree-revoked-plagiarist-will-pay-to-settle-lawsuit.html?sid=101

Rewrite Plagiarism

2010-09-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Columbus Dispatch ran an article today about the case of plagiarism at Ohio State University where they revoked a doctoral degree. The article mentions my efforts to convince Ohio University leaders to act on evidence of plagiarism in a rewritten thesis. The purpose of this blog post is to summarize in one place the evidence of plagiarism as well as the letters I have written to OU officials about it.

In September 2007, Ohio University republished a supposedly rewritten thesis by Amit Adlakha. When I read the rewrite, I immediately noticed that in spite of deleting almost all of chapter 3, the student still submitted pages of plagiarized material. I know it is plagiarized because the same text was published over 15 years earlier in another Ohio University thesis.

I strongly suspect that both students copied from a software user's manual, but I have not been able to find it. Regardless, there can be absolutely no doubt that Amit Adlakha's rewrite contains plagiarism.

When I first noticed the plagiarism, I immediately emailed OU's former director of legal affairs, John Burns. A few months later, Kathy Lynn Gray from The Columbus Dispatch questioned Dean Irwin about plagiarism in a rewrite. He told her that the thesis would be "re-examined." In April 2009, I wrote to President McDavis asking him to hold accountable the professors who approved the rewrite with plagiarism. In spite of the concrete evidence of plagiarism, my allegations were dismissed without explanation. In January 2010, I wrote to Ohio University Executive Vice President and Provost Dr. Pam Benoit, and I provided again the concrete evidence of plagiarism in the rewrite. Once again, they dismissed the evidence. Then, I emailed Ohio University General Counsel, John Biancamano, asking for an explanation of why they accept plagiarism in Amit Adlakha's rewrite. He refused to answer my simple question.

Dean Dennis Irwin has publicly announced numerous times that thesis submissions must be accompanied by a signed statement of originality and they must be scanned for plagiarism. The Russ College website also states, "The Russ College does not tolerate plagiarism in any form." However, to this day, a rewrite containing plagiarism remains cataloged and available to the public.

Dennis Irwin and the other Ohio University leaders are liars.

Ohio State University Revokes PhD

2010-08-31T13:16:00.000-07:00

Last week I came across a very interesting article which states that Ohio State University (OSU)revoked the doctoral degree from a graduate because she plagiarized in her doctoral dissertation. You can read the Courthouse News Service article here. At the bottom of the article, you can click on the icon to see the complaint of copyright infringement filed against the student in U.S. District Court.

We already know that Ohio University's (OU's) record of dealing with plagiarism is riddled with blunders, inconsistencies, and lies; so, I think it is very interesting to note the disparity of how OSU dealt with their plagiarism case compared to OU's actions over the past 6 years.

Basically, OU handled their plagiarism problems by choosing one student and two professors to scapegoat. The rest of OU's cheating students (38 according to the last count provided by OU Counsel, John Biancamano) were allowed to keep their degrees. As I reported in previous posts, OU even allowed at least one student to republish a thesis that still contains pages of blatant verbatim plagiarism; and for almost three years now, they have refused to hold accountable the student and the professors who approved the rewrite that contains plagiarism.

On the other hand, once the OSU Committee on Academic Misconduct found that the student violated the OSU Code of Student Conduct, it appears that they never considered offering the guilty student a chance to rewrite her dissertation. In fact, OSU dealt with their guilty student very harshly. One of the sanctions was to authorize the student's dissertation committee "to retroactively invalidate the approval form approving the written portion of Ms. Nixon's doctoral examination." Another sanction was to "direct Ms. Nixon to promptly return her doctoral diploma to the University Registrar."

Ohio University leaders need to learn from OSU's example, and they need to stop polluting our higher education system with unqualified professors who fraudulently obtained their teaching positions.

Electrical Engineering Plagiarism

2010-06-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago an Ohio University graduate student asked me to provide more details of plagiarism in Ohio University Electrical Engineering theses.

In response to that request, I scanned in a few email plagiarism reports that I sent to Ohio University legal affairs.

You can download my emails here, here, and here. I am not very proficient with Adobe, so I was unable to make the font larger, but you should be able to zoom in to make it easier to read the emails.

I think the reports speak for themselves. There can be no doubt that the members of the thesis committees who approved these theses condone plagiarism, and they are in blatant violation of Ohio University's Professional Ethics requirements. While reading the plagiarized text in my reports, please ask yourself, does this sound like the work of an Ohio University graduate student?

Provost and General Counsel Are Unable To Explain

2010-04-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I emailed Ohio University's General Counsel, Mr. Biancamano, and Excutive Vice President and Provost, Dr. Benoit, to ask for an explanation of why they accept plagiarism in Mr. Adlkaha's rewrite. I also asked why they deny that Mr. Ghanta's rewrite with two missing chapters is a violation of the rewrite policy that John Burns outlined in his letter to cheating students.

My questions are very simple and basic; but, it turns out that they refuse to answer me. You can read my email along with their response here.

I do not know how they can get away with revoking one student's degree for plagiarism, but allow others to simple delete their plagiarism and even republish plagiarism (here is the source that Mr. Adlakha copied in his rewrite.) Eventually, these major inconsistencies are going to catch up with them.

Provost's Response

2010-03-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, Ohio University's General Councel, Mr. Biancamano, wrote to me on behalf of the provost, Dr. Benoit, in response to my January 15, 2010 letter. You can read the response here.

First let me say that it is pathetic that Ohio University's Provost has to defer to a lawyer to address my very simple letter requesting that Ohio University leaders show some respect for the university. I realize that Dr. Benoit inherited this mess, but I am certain that she is a very intelligent woman who is capable of addressing the concerns of an Ohio University alumnus. I guess the concepts of honesty, ethics, consistency, morals, etc. is not something Dr. Benoit wants to handle by herself. Nevertheless, I will assume that Dr. Benoit concurs with Mr. Biancamano's statements which are wrong.

Let's start with the so-called "re-writes" that I claim to be in violation of Ohio University's re-write policy as well as the Statement on Professional Ethics. Mr. Biancamano and Dr. Benoit state that they disagree with me, but they offer no explanation. The only conclusion I can draw is that Dr. Benoit has very low standards, and theses with plagiarism and missing chapters are acceptable to her. Eventually, someone at Ohio University will have to act on the evidence of plagiarism in Mr. Adlakha's re-write which I reported to legal affairs back in 2007. Their failure to act is precisely what convinced the accreditors to get involved back in 2006.

Evidence to support my claim of a violation of the re-write policy includes the following relevant statement made by Ohio University's former director of legal affairs, John Burns, in the letter he sent to cheating students back in 2006. He wrote: "Ohio University's intention/agenda in this matter is to primarily seek a resolution that respects and reflects Ohio University's commitment to both academic standards and academic honesty."

No matter how subjective Mr. Burns statement is, I do not think any reasonable person would argue that a thesis with plagiarism or a thesis with two missing chapters "reflects and respects a commitment to academic standards." In fact, Mr. Adlakha's and Mr. Ghanta's re-writes are in direct contradiction, and they represent a lowering of standards beyond any one's imagination.

Mr. Burns also wrote the following regarding the re-write requirements: "the Advisor would confirm to the Hearing Board that you have fully complied with this [re-write] option." But on the contrary, Mr. Biancamano wrote to me: "the AHHC [Hearing Board] does not approve re-writes." This is just one more instance of multiple sets of rules at Ohio University. I will probably have to write another letter to Mr. Biancamano to find out what the rules really are (i.e. who is accountable for approval of a re-write with plagiarism and a re-write with missing chapters).

Then we have the most outrageous aspect of Mr. Biancamano's and Dr. Benoit's letter. They acknowledge that Dr. Ingram recused himself from one plagiarism case and that another one of his students is currently under investigation for plagiarism, but they conclude: "there is no reason for Dr. Ingram to step down from his position as chair of the AHHC." What is wrong with Ohio University's leaders? Dr. Ingram has approved at least two theses that contain obvious and blatant plagiarism. (You can see them here and here). Dr. Ingram has no business being involved in judging plagiarism; his history proves that he is not capable. Ohio University's leaders do not make any sense at all. How can they take action against Dr. Mehta and Dr. Gunasekera for allowing plagiarism, but then they reward Dr. Ingram with chairmanship of the plagiarism hearing committee? Eventually, the absurdity of their decisions will catch up with them.

Letter to Higher Learning Commission

2010-02-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

I am trying to figure out if The Higher Learning Commission is serious about enforcing its criteria for accreditation, so I sent a letter to K.L. Solinski, the Commission's Vice President for Legal and Governmental Affairs. I asked Ms. Solinski a number of questions so that I can obtain an understanding of just how serious they are when it comes to accrediting a university that awards degrees to cheating students and then lies about its relevant policies.

Here's a little background:

On February 28, 2006 K.L Solinski wrote to Ohio University President McDavis asking him to explain among other things, "how it [Ohio University] handles allegations of plagiarism within its community."

On July 21, 2006 John Burns, former Ohio University Director of Legal Affairs, responded to the Ms. Solinski with a letter and a copy of the letter that was sent to cheating students.

On September 18, 2006 Ms. Soliski wrote to me stating that John Burns "responded with a thorough explanation," and she concluded the inquiry into my complaint.

About a year later, I discovered that, contrary to the procedure outlined by John Burns, Ohio University was not actually requiring students to re-write plagiarized sections. On March 21, 2008 I wrote another complaint letter to The Higher Learning Commission about this. My letter went unanswered.

On April 9, 2009, I wrote to President McDavis asking him to hold accountable the professors who violated his re-write policy. I copied K.L Solinski on the letter.

On May 4, 2009, the Commission acknowledged "potential accreditation issues."

On June 17, 2009 John Biancamano, Ohio University Director of Legal Affairs, wrote to me and stated that there was "no basis for further investigation or disciplinary action against these individuals [the professors who approved the re-written theses with extensive deletions and plagiarism]." In other words, Mr. Biancamano and President McDavis confirmed that professors are allowed to violate the re-write policy they provided to the Higher Learning Commission.

On September 3, 2009 John Biancamano wrote to K.L. Solinski to provide an update on Ohio University's plagiarism situation. The letter states once again that cheating students would re-write plagiarized theses. He does not mention that some are permitted to delete plagiarism instead of re-writing it.

President McDavis and John Biancamano are talking from both sides of their mouths. They have consistently and repeatedly told the public and the accreditors that cheating students are re-writing plagiarism when in fact some are not.

There is a major difference between re-writing and deleting. After all, Ohio University revoked one student's degree for plagiarism. Why didn't they just let him delete his plagiarism like they did for the others?

Ohio University is in blatant violation of the Higher Learning Commission's Accreditation Criterion One which includes: "The organization upholds and protects its integrity." Hopefully, K.L. Solinski will give me straight answers to my questions and start holding Ohio University leaders accountable for deceiving the public and the Commission.

Letter to Provost

2010-01-15T09:12:00.000-08:00

Today, I sent a letter to Dr. Pam Benoit, Ohio University's Executive Vice President and Provost, asking her to reconsider the decision (by her predecessor, Dr. Kathy Krendl) to appoint Dr. Ingram as chairman of the Academic Honesty Hearing Committee. I think Dr. Ingram should be removed from the hearing committee because, as the record shows, he really does not care about academic quality or honesty. I proved this by including four enclosures showing student cheating that took place under Dr. Ingram's watch.

Enclosure #1 shows plagiarism by Dr. Ingram's doctoral student. I highlighted the plagiarism so that it is easy to see the degree to which this student cheated. The extensive copying makes it clear to me that the approving committee did not care that the student submitted the work of others. There are a few giveaways that any competent professor should have noted. For example, on page 21, the student uses British spelling of the words "vaporisation" and "fibres." But on page 26 he uses the word "fiber." The student is from Pakistan, but evidently not one professor on the committee asked why he uses both British and American spellings of the same word. I also think the many misspellings should have raised flags about this student. For example, see the bottom of page 71 where Dr. Kayani wrote the words "illuminate" and "repeal" instead of "eliminate" and "repel." Dr. Kayani did not even bother to copy correctly. Clearly, quality and originality is not a concern of Dr. Ingram's.

Enclosure #2 shows plagiarism by one of Dr. Alam's students who was co-advised by Dr. Ingram. Again, Dr. Ingram should have easily recognized that the student submitted text that is way beyond the capability of an Ohio University graduate student. There is no way that Dr. Ingram could have thought the student wrote what he submitted.

Enclosure #3 shows plagiarism in a rewritten thesis approved by the Dr. Ingram and the Academic Honesty Hearing Committee. Republication of this thesis clearly shows disregard for the rewrite policy touted by Ohio University. Aside from republishing plagiarism, the fact that the student did not even spell his own name correctly raises serious concerns. I question whether or not the student was even involved in the rewrite.

Enclosure #4 shows another shoddy rewrite approved by Dr. Ingram and the Academic Honesty Hearing Committee. Note that the student deleted two entire chapters from his thesis without even bothering to re-paginate.

When Ohio University's Board of Trustees created the Academic Honesty Hearing Committee, I seriously doubt that they thought the provost would appoint a chairman who has direct involvement in the origin of the very cases he is hearing. Dr. Ingram's appointment makes a mockery of everything the university does to deal with their plagiarism problem. We can only hope that the new provost will act appropriately.

Mechanical Engineering Unsure of Degree Requirements

2010-01-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I read the Mechanical Engineering faculty meeting notes available on the chairman's webpage, and I was absolutely appalled at what I read in last week's minutes. One of the "Open Items" discussed during the January 6, 2010 meeting is:

"Develop department-level understanding of an appropriate scope and level of difficulty for a graduate project (vs. a thesis)."

So Ohio University Mechanical Engineering has been awarding graduate degrees for well over 20 years and they are just now trying to reach an understanding of the requirements. This is unbelievable. How can anyone trust the qualifications of Mechanical Engineering graduates when the faculty have not yet reached an "understanding of an appropriate scope and level of difficulty?"

Considering the number of bogus theses and dissertations that have been approved by these professors, I can only imagine what we would find if we could read some the project reports they have approved.

I would think that an accredited university would work out the basic details like what the academic requirements are before they start conferring degrees. I think President McDavis needs to suspend Mechanical Engineering's power to award degrees until they decide on what the requirements should be.

Plagiarism Committees Do Not Read Theses

2009-12-03T09:10:00.000-08:00

An astute reader left a comment to my previous post and I would now like to address the comment here.

Referring to Ohio University's sole use of TurnItIn.com to check past theses for plagiarism, the commenter wrote, "is that all they really use? For such a serious offense, one would hope for a more thorough approach in detecting plagiarism."

I had the same question, and about a year ago (after a few tries), I got an answer. Yes, TurnItIn.com is all they use. To show you, I scanned an email I received from Ohio University legal affairs back in 2008.

Furthermore, as I pointed out in another post, TurnItIn.com was the only tool Dr. Koonce used in his FINAL REPORT: An Investigation into Plagiarism in Theses of the Russ College of
Engineering and Technology 1980-2006. On page 11 of Dr. Koonce's report, he discusses the methods he used to detect plagiarism. He wrote: "Detecting external plagiarism was accomplished by comparing documents against the Turnitin database." There is no mention whatsoever in the report that theses will be read. On page 5 of his report, he wrote: "It will be assumed that any document which contains external plagiarism will have that duplicated text detected by the evaluation software employed in the study (The Turnitin R plagiarism detection tool)."

Obviously, Dr. Koonce made a very poor assumption. In fact, one year after Dr. Koonce concluded his investigation, Dr. Prudich identified 4 additional theses that were missed by Dr. Koonce's investigation. Nevertheless, Ohio University continues to stand behind Dr. Koonce's faulty report from which he conveniently concluded, "I see no need to investigate further."

This was a ploy on Ohio University's part to deceive the public. They really did not want to find plagiarism. That attitude goes back to the beginning of their investigations as evidenced by a statement by Jerrel Mitchell, the leader of the Academic Honesty Oversight Committee. As reported in The Post back in 2006, Jerrel Mitchell told the other members of the committee investigating plagiarism, "It is not our charge to go looking for plagiarism cases. The charging person must be very specific, i.e., he/she must tell us who is charged and specifically where to find the plagiarism." In other words, this group of professors only looked at what I gave them, and they ignored plagiarism that I did not outline for them. This is the very reason that a rewrite that contains plagiarism was republished; the student only deleted plagiarism I had identified in 2005, but he republished plagiarism that I did not know about until later. (Note: the republished plagiarism was also missed by a TurnItIn.com evaluation).

I agree completely with the reader's comment. I too would hope that Ohio University would make an honest effort to clear their library of plagiarism. Unfortunately, Ohio University professors have an aversion to reading.

TurnItIn.com Fails Again

2009-12-01T12:35:00.000-08:00

From what I have seen TurnItIn.com is useless when it comes to detecting plagiarism in engineering theses and dissertations.

Today, I want to show you another case of plagiarism that was missed by TurnItIn.com when Ohio University checked all of the theses and dissertations approved by Drs. Gunasekera and Mehta.

In November 2002, five Ohio University professors collectively approved the doctoral dissertation submitted by Padmasiri Vipul Ranatunga. Later in 2006, after Ohio University finally acknowledged a severe plagiarism problem, they used TurnItIn.com to recheck Dr. Ranatunga's dissertation. After the second check, the dissertation was cleared and recataloged in the university library. However, when I checked the dissertation, I found page after page of verbatim plagiarism. I have highlighted the plagiarism here. As you can see, Dr. Ranatunga copied copiously from at least three different sources. Two of the sources can be seen here and here. The third source is a book that I did not take the time to go scan and post.

Notice that Dr. Ranatunga acknowledges five professors for serving on his dissertation committee. The approving professors are: Dr. Gunasekera, Dr. Pasic, Dr. Mehta, Dr. Sormaz, and Dr. Gulino. Except for Dr. Sormaz, I have seen the other four professors' names numerous times as committee members for cheating students. There is no doubt in my mind that the professors did not care that the doctoral student submitted copied material.

It is worth noting that Dr. Ranatunga also plagiarized in his 1999 master's thesis (also approved by Dr. Gunasekera). When interviewed by Paula Wasley in 2006, Dr. Ranatunga stated that he intended to challenge those plagiarism allegations. Evidently, he changed his mind as his thesis re-write has been re-cataloged in the Ohio University library. He is probably now working on re-writing his doctoral dissertation.

I find it remarkable that Dr. Ranatunga told Pauly Wasley that the copying in his thesis "is not plagiarism," and when interviewed by Robert Tomsho of The Wall Street Journal, he said "we had no idea of what to put on a thesis when we took material from someone else’s work." These comments certainly explain things: Ohio University has been awarding advanced graduate degrees to individuals who have no idea what it means to write and publish a thesis or dissertation. What's even worse is that (like other Ohio University graduates) Dr. Ranatunga is now a tenured professor himself. How nice it is for Ohio University to confer a doctoral degree in 2002 and then allow the student to actually do the work seven years later. What a joke.

Education Doctoral Graduate Continues to Plagiarize

2009-11-11T12:35:00.000-08:00

In a previous post, I showed that a 2007 doctoral graduate of Ohio University's College of Education plagiarized in his doctoral dissertation. Now I want to show you that this graduate has continued to cheat after leaving Ohio University.

In 2007 Ohio University graduate, Dr. Mansour Aldojan, published a paper titled "Regardless of how innovative the faculty may be: Addressing Faculty Concerns and Differences about Adoption of New Technologies" in the Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2007.

The paper contains extensive plagiarism some of which I have highlighted here. Three of the sources he copied can be viewed here, here, and here. There is additional copying in the paper, but I did not take the time to mark every last bit.

Dr. Aldojan obtained a doctoral degree from Ohio University and he does not even know how to write a paper. Will Ohio University revoke his degree? Will his advisor be held accountable? Will his current employer be advised of his lack of qualifications? Will The World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications be notified that they published a paper containing extensive plagiarism? How many more Ohio University Education graduates do not know how to write?

Distinguished Professor and Student Plagiarize Together

2009-11-10T09:10:00.000-08:00

In 2004, Dr. Maliski, Dr. Kalinowski, and Dr. Dobrucki published an article in Circulation magazine. But rather than writing all of their publication they copied from a 2001 article published in Free Radical Biology and Medicine.

To show you I have highlighted the plagiarized text here. The source of the copied text can be viewed here. In comparing the two publications, it is interesting to note that the true authors acted professionally when they properly cited their sources, but when the Malinski et. al. team copied the text they removed all the citations.

It will be interesting to see if Ohio University leaders take any action against Dr. Malinski and Dr. Dobrucki. Will they revoke Dr. Dobrucki's doctoral degree? Will they strip Dr. Malinski of his distinguished professor title? Will they contact Circulation Magazine to inform them that they published copied text? Will an expert be called in to verify the legitimacy of the entire article? Will they check all of the work approved by Dr. Malinski? Will anyone apologize to the scholars whose work was stolen?

Another Distinguished Professor Approves Plagiarism

2009-11-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

In November 2004, about 5 months after Dr. Alam began to unfairly stonewall me on my master's thesis, Distinguished Professor Dr. Tadeusz Malinski approved a chemistry doctoral dissertation that contains pages of blatant plagiarism. To show you, I have highlighted pages of plagiarized text from the dissertation. The text highlighted in blue is copied from this source, and the text highlighted in green is copied from this source.

There are some very important questions that arise from this dissertation.

How will Ohio University's College of Arts and Sciences deal with this cheating student? The student clearly shows an intent to deceive the reader by making the subtle change of switching the word "we" to "I" (see page 22) or failing to include the copied sources in her reference list. It is also important to recognize that the student avoided performing literary research on her subject by copying many of her citations from others. In other words, the multitude of citations and associated references make it appear like she went to the library and read numerous papers on her subject when in reality, she was able to build a lengthy reference list without ever obtaining, reading or analyzing those references. This person clearly does not deserve the title: Doctor of Philosophy.

How will Ohio University deal with the professor who awarded a doctoral degree to a student who cheated to meet her degree requirements? I seriously doubt that Dr. Malinski and the other professors on the doctoral committee believed that their student wrote with such expertise. I believe that either they did not read the dissertation or they did not care that she copied. Either way, the approving professors are in violation of the Ohio University Faculty Handbook Statement on Professional Ethics.

Will President McDavis, and the other distinguished professors strip Dr. Malinski of his distinguished professor title like they did to Dr. Gunasekera?

Extensive Plagiarism Undetected by TurnItIn.com

2009-10-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

Back in March 2007 Ohio University announced the conclusion to their plagiarism investigations with the revocation of one degree and a quote from Dr. Koonce: "I see no need to investigate further." In that same article, Ohio University also claimed to have examined all of the theses and dissertations approved by Drs. Mehta and Gunasekera. What Ohio University did not tell the public however, is that their Research Integrity Committee relied solely on TurnItIn.com plagiarism detection software for that examination.

It took months for Ohio University to return all of the cleared theses and dissertations to the catalog, but when they did, I began to discover numerous cases of plagiarism that were missed by their TurnItIn.com review. To show you how ineffective TurnItIn.com is at detecting plagiarism in engineering theses, I have highlighted page after page of copied text from a thesis that was cleared by TurnItIn.com and the Russ College Research Integrity Committee. You can download the plagiarism examples here. Text highlighted in blue is copied from the paper "Finite Element Simulation of the Electrochemical Machining Process" by H.A. Nied and E.M. Perry. Text highlighted in pink is copied from the book "Principles of Electrochemical Machining" by J.A. McGeough.

This is just one more case that demonstrates Ohio University's inconsistent enforcement of their policies and their willingness to sacrifice the credibility of honest students and alumni. It is incredibly deceptive for Ohio University to lead the public to believe that they checked the theses when they did not even bother to read them. Had they read the theses, they could have easily detected issues that should have warranted additional questions. Any reasonable and/or competent professor would have questioned how the student wrote with the expertise and eloquence of a professional who had years of experience in electrochemical machining.

Ohio University leaders obviously have no respect for their university, their students, their professors, and the public. They are even unfair to the cheaters. They should apologize to the student whose degree was revoked for not holding all cheating students accountable. Likewise, they should apologize to Drs. Mehta and Gunasekera for singling them out when other professors also approved theses with blatant plagiarism.

There are two other facts about this case worth mentioning.

After plagiarizing in his master's thesis, the student went on to earn a doctoral degree from Ohio University. It should not be any surprise that the student also plagiarized in his doctoral dissertation (which was approved by Dr. Alam). To show you, I highlighted some of the copied text from the dissertation in orange. The source of the copied text is the article "Why you should consider object-oriented programming techniques for finite element methods" by J.T. Cross, I. Masters, and R.W. Lewis.

The other fact of interest is that another doctoral student advised by Dr. Gunasekera submitted some of the same copied text in his master's thesis. When I complained about the plagiarism to the Ohio Board of Regents in December 2004, I enclosed excerpts of plagiarism from both theses with my letter. It should not come as a surprise that the Board of Regents did not take any real action. They did not even plan to respond to me, but they were forced to write me when Suzanne Wilder from The Post began asking questions months later. Later in 2005 Dean Irwin claimed that I had "not offered to provide other examples [of plagiarism]" when he was interviewed by Inside Higher Ed. Dean Irwin lied. I did offer to provide examples of plagiarism on September 13, 2004, but he sent me away with a threat of a lawsuit. I also know that he saw my letter to the Regents because he and Ombuds, Elizabeth Graham, reprimanded me during our January 2005 meeting for sending the letter. They both tried to assure me that student plagiarism was not my concern. President McDavis followed suit when he was interviewed by Carrie Ghose of Columbus Business First. Even though I copied President McDavis on my letter and it was distributed from his office, he "said he doesn't recall seeing it."

Ohio University Is Breeding Legacy of Cheaters

2009-10-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

In June 2007, Ohio University professors in the College of Education approved a dissertation that contains plagiarism. The dissertation can be downloaded from the following link:
http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=ohiou1176926973 .

The doctoral graduate copied from the dissertation of another student and he copied from other articles. I marked two pages to show you. The source copied on page 47 of the dissertation is here. The first copied paragraph on page 128 is from this source. The second copied paragraph on page 128 is from this source. It is pretty pathetic when a doctoral graduate has to copy his method of experimental analysis from someone else's article.

The student's dissertation also has pages of text that is the same as another article available online. This article was published 8 years before the dissertation. Compare pages 15 to 17 of the dissertation to pages 3 and 4 of the online article. It is interesting to note that within the duplicate text the student added 5 citations for the World Factbook, but the online article has no citations.

This very recent case of plagiarism by an Ohio University education graduate raises some important questions. Do professors in the College of Education condone plagiarism? Were the approving professors and student aware of all discussions of academic honesty at Ohio University during 2006? Is this doctoral graduate still cheating?

Ohio University and Its Graduates Can't Be Trusted

2009-10-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

Someone who calls him/herself "Caveat Emptor" left a very poignant comment to my earlier post about blatant plagiarism in an Ohio University Physics doctoral dissertation that was approved by the professor appointed as the Chair of the Academic Honesty Hearing Committee. I am hoping that the comment is read by many people, so I am re-posting it here.

"Caveat Emptor said...
This sort of contagion is just what you’d expect with rewrites, which seems to be Ohio University’s blanket approach to dealing with essentially all of its plagiarists (the number of known or suspected plagiarists is now well over fifty and still climbing but only one degree has been revoked since OU’s plagiarism scandal went public in 2005).It will eventually occur to other universities that they can protect themselves from being contaminated with OU plagiarists by simply (and tacitly) not hiring any OU Ph.D.s onto their faculties and not admitting any OU masters degree holders into their doctoral programs. After all, why should any faculty search committee (or graduate admissions committee) needlessly risk the possibility of hiring (or admitting) a plagiarist from OU when there are plenty of reputable candidates available from better schools? And whenever this happens, it will be an unspoken “plagiarism tax” unfairly borne by all honest OU alumni.So eventually the reputation and fortunes of all OU graduate degree holders will suffer as will the reputations of those schools that inadvertently hire/admit OU plagiarists because they aren’t vigilant (because of their well-intended but misplaced trust in the academic integrity of OU). In concert with all this, graduate enrollment at OU will likely fall and/or the quality of its graduate student intake will worsen and this will fuel retrenchment in graduate study there.The most effective and direct way to disrupt this pernicious hiring/admissions spiral is for OU to revoke the degrees it has mistakenly awarded. But so long as OU can keep its plagiarism problem quiet, it can continue to surreptitiously propagate its “repaired” (rewritten) ersatz (inferior) masters and Ph.D. degree graduates into higher education. The longer this weary and disturbing hiring/admissions syndrome continues, the more easily the perception of OU as a diploma mill will come to mind. And as OU’s plagiarists infect other universities, plagiarism will likely expand into a repeating cycle of pollution beyond OU.At the end of the day, as a result of OU’s misguided plagiarism rewrite approach to dealing with its plagiarists, the biggest loser will be OU itself and the rest of higher education will be diminished as well."

Caveat Emptor very nicely explains many of the issues that arise when university leaders start creating exceptions to the most basic rules of academia. Eventually more and more people are going to realize that Ohio University will award advanced graduate degrees to anyone, even blatant cheaters. Consequently, the value and credibility of an honest degree continues to diminish, and no one will know who they can trust. Why would a university do this? Why haven't more alumni and professors expressed outrage? Are they hiding something too? This is a huge issue. I'm going to keep trying to get answers.

Thank you Caveat Emptor for assessing the problems here with eloquence.

Plagiarism by Ohio University Education Graduate

2009-10-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

In August 2002, professors in Ohio University's College of Education approved a doctoral dissertation that contains at least 9 pages of verbatim plagiarism. There is probably much more.

The student copied at least two different sources. Pages 31 to 34 are copied from a 1995 research report for the Saskatchewan School Board Association by Rick Sawa. I have noted the copied parts here. The report can also be downloaded from http://saskschoolboards.ca/research/instruction/95-04.htm.

Pages 34 to 40 are copied from a 1986 ERIC publication written by Joan Barrett. I have noted the copied parts here. The publication can be downloaded from
http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-925/evaluation.htm.

I hope that someone from the College of Education will be good enough to explain what is going on there. We know from the court testimony of Dr. Robert Williams, "that in the mechanical engineering department it is accepted practice for the introductory section of a student’s thesis to contain historical or background material that is not the student’s original work" (see page 6 of the decision in the Mehta v. Ohio University case http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/docs/pdf/13/2009/2009-ohio-4699.pdf ). Does the College of Education share this same view? Do they allow all students to copy their literature review (citations and all)? What is the College of Education going to do about this case? Will they inform the employer of this student that he cheated to meet his degree requirements? Will they revoke the degree or will they play the rewrite game? Who will judge the case? Can we trust this doctoral graduate of education to properly teach his students?

One other item of importance is that this student, in his acknowledgements, claims to have earned three graduate degrees from Ohio University. Is anyone going to verify the legitimacy of those degrees?

Blatant Ethics Violation by Electrical Engineering Professors

2009-10-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned before, most people might think that Ohio University's plagiarism problems are isolated to the Mechanical Engineering Department. Today I want to show you an example of obvious plagiarism from a published Electrical Engineering thesis. The source of the copied text is http://www.minidisc.org/MaskingPaper.html.

This case is very important since there are obvious tell tale signs of plagiarism. The most obvious sign is the change in citation style used by the student. Other signs of plagiarism include: cited sources are not included in the references, vocabulary beyond that of typical foreign student, multiple writing styles, etc.

Several months ago I had planned to ask Ohio University leaders to hold the professors who approved this thesis accountable. However, when I learned that President McDavis and General Council Biancamano refeused to investigate the ethics violations by their Honesty Hearing Chairman (and others), I knew I would be wasting my time. I don't know why Ohio University even bothers to have rules on ethics. Nevertheless, I did make a public records request to learn the names of the approving professors. They are: Jeff Dill, Joseph Essman, Voula Georgopoulos, and outside rep. Jeffery Conner. Either these professors condone plagiarism or they did not read the thesis they approved. Either way, they are guilty of ethics violations.

It is also worth noting that the true author of the copied material is aware of this case.

http://noisebetweenstations.com/personal/weblogs/?p=2213 .

Possible Research Misconduct by Professor to Cover Up Student Plagiarism

2009-10-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Back in March 2007, Ohio University publicized an internal investigation into plagiarism in the Russ College of Engineering. The lead investigator, Dr. Koonce, claimed that he checked a so called random sample of 32 theses that were supposed to be representative of the entire lot of theses published by engineering students since 1980 (about 1500 theses). In the Executive Summary of his final report, he wrote, "The number of documents in the sample found to potentially contain plagiarized material was three." In his conclusion he wrote, "at most, three (3) of the documents from the sample of 32 have apparent plagiarism." Dr. Koonce also told a reporter from The Post, Sean Gaffney, that he "found three instances of alleged plagiarism." In other words, the number 3 was used repeatedly.

Over the next year Ohio University began to slowly return theses to the library and I quickly began to discover more evidence of plagiarism. (Note the theses were all removed from circulation for about a year while Dr. Koonce conducted his investigation). Being suspicious of Dr. Koonce's conclusion, I asked legal affairs for the titles of the 29 theses that were cleared by Dr. Koonce.

It took months for Ohio University to fulfill my request, but when they did finally provide the list, they also provided an internal memo stating that really 7 of the theses might contain plagiarism. The number 3 changed to a 7 one year after Ohio University concluded their investigation. It is also worth noting that one of the theses from the list of 32 was published after Ohio University required all theses to be scanned for plagiarism prior to publication. In other words, Dr. Koonce appears to have stacked the deck with at least one thesis that was guaranteed to pass his Turnitin check.

There should be an investigation into Dr. Koonce's actions. How can he report that he found only 3 cases of plagiarism, but there were really 7? Did he fail to detect them all, or did he manipulate he research results to achieve his desired outcome?

Ohio University Gets Away With Deception

2009-09-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

Last month a judge ruled in favor of Ohio University in the defamation case filed by Dr. Mehta (one of the professors scapegoated for allowing plagiarism). Someone wrote an editorial in response to the judge's decision which implies that Ohio University is now trying to hold all professors accountable for plagiarism.

I have first hand experience that that is not the case. Last March, I wrote a letter to Dean Dennis Irwin requesting that the 4 professors who approved one of the worst cases of plagiarism I have seen be held accountable. I enclosed with the letter over 30 pages from the thesis with the plagiarism highlighted. This is undoubtedly one of the worst cases of plagiarism that I have seen, and it ranks right up there with the worst that Dr. Mehta approved. By the way, it is an Electrical Engineering thesis.

Much to my dismay and inconsistent with public perception, I received a letter from Ohio University's Legal Director, John Biancamano, indicating that the professors will not be held accountable.

Whoever wrote the editorial for the Dispatch was either duped by Ohio University or it is someone who wants to further mislead the public.

More Plagiarism Approved by the Honesty Chairman

2009-09-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

I can't get over how ridiculous Ohio University's leaders were to select a professor who is involved in allowing plagiarism as their Honesty Hearing Chairman.

In 2003, Dr. Ingram served as a thesis committee member for one of Dr. Alam's students. That student worked in Dr. Ingram's lab, but rather than writing all of his own thesis, the student decided to copy parts.

To illustrate my claim, I marked a few pages of the student's thesis. Compare those pages to the source of the student's copying. There are more examples of plagiarism in this thesis.

I think this thesis clearly shows that Dr. Alam and Dr. Ingram condone plagiarism. Did they really believe their student wrote with such expertise?

Ohio University Plagiarism is not Limited to Mechanical Engineering

2009-09-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

Most people who have followed the Ohio University plagiarism scandal probably think that Ohio University's plagiarism problems are isolated to the Mechanical Engineering department. While the ME department does have a number of professors who condone plagiarism, there is a significant amount of published plagiarism in the Ohio University's Electrical Engineering department. I will get to that some other day.

Perhaps even more important than engineering plagiarism, is the plagiarism I discovered in a Physics doctoral dissertation which was approved in 2003 by Dr. David Ingram, the chair of the Academic Honesty Hearing Committee.

Anyone can download the dissertation from the following link:
http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=ohiou1080935389

The link may not work after a few days or weeks because I reported this case to Ohio University legal affairs back on August 28, 2009.

To show how obvious the plagiarism is, I marked a few pages from the dissertation. The source of the copied material is a paper written by A. Grill. Notice that Dr. Ingram's student even copied the citations from the paper; that is a nice way for a doctoral student to do research without ever setting foot in the library.

There are many more examples of plagiarism in the dissertation. Just google search the first sentence of Chapter 2 and you will find that Dr. Ingram's student copied page after page from a website.

Some people have correctly suggested that Ohio University outsource their plagiarism investigations. Unfortunately, Ohio University leaders chose an internal person who has direct involvement in allowing plagiarism as the judge of their cases. Now I understand why Dr. Ingram approved a thesis rewrite that still contains plagiarism.

Ohio University Lied to Us

2009-09-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

On March 28, 2007 Ohio University announced the end of their plagiarism investigations with a quote by Industrial Engineering professor Dr. David Koonce, "I see no need to investigate further."

Based on my previous knowledge of plagiarism cases at Ohio University, I knew that they were attempting to cover-up the real situation. Over the past years I have been collecting information which proves that Ohio University's plagiarism problems are ongoing and the problems are much more serious than most probably know.

Also, over the years I have made numerous efforts to convince Ohio University leaders of their responsibility to their honest students, alumni, professors, and the public in general to hold their cheating students and professors accountable. Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful.

I have now decided to catalog my findings through this blog.

One of my more recent and very important discoveries is that Ohio University leaders chose a professor who is directly involved in allowing plagiarism as their Plagiarism Hearing Committee chairman, Dr. David C. Ingram. Back in 2007, I questioned the selection of Dr. Ingram because I knew that two of Dr. Alam's students who worked in Dr. Ingram's lab published the same experimental procedure in their theses (plagiarism in my opinion). Dr. Angie Bukley eventually tried to tell me that the experimental procedure was attached to the machine and was therefore public domain. She did agree to let Dr. McLaughlin make a final judgement, but President McDavis ordered a stop before it occurred. (I will plan to post all the pertinent emails later).

Since then, I have noted additional ethics violations committed by Dr. Ingram. I tried to get President McDavis to act on those violations in an April 9, 2009 letter I wrote to him. In the letter I clearly show that the Honesty Hearing Committee has blatantly violated the president's thesis rewrite policies. Initially, The Higher Learning Commission (Ohio University's accreditor) acknowledged "potential accreditation issues." However, President McDavis had no problem dismissing my complaint without offering any explanation. A month later, The Higher Learning Commission also dismissed my complaint. Note that Ms. Solinski implies that Ohio University's legal troubles give them license to disregard their own policies.

The bottom line is that Ohio University has repeatedly told the public that cheating students would be rewriting their theses and that all thesis submissions would be scanned for plagiarism. The fact that Honesty Hearing Committee approved theses with deletions (not rewritten) and at least one thesis with pages of plagiarism proves that Ohio University lied to the public.