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.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Dr. Mehta's Defamation Suit Is Resurrected
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
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Ohio Univ. not role model despite claims
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?
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?
Monday, March 7, 2011
Ohio University settles with Dr. Gunasekera
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.
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.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Is Proquest Guilty of Copyright Infringement?
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?
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?
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Who Pays for Ohio University's Stupidity?
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.
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.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Student Plagiarist Ordered to Pay $15,000 for Copyright Infringement
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.
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