Harvard plagiarism mess

I'm posting a bit late on this; nor do I have any inside information, since it appears the recent accusations have centered on the Harvard law faculty. Anyway, here's the link: Harvard Plagiarism Archive.

Others have noted that a major contributing factor has been the heavy reliance on research assistants, whether out of academic custom or out of necessity to maintain an otherwise unsustainable publication schedule. This raises further questions about credit and responsibility in any group enterprise; and in the case of academic fields where research directed by a professor but carried out largely by grad students is typically published under the professor's name alone (insiders, however, knowing full well what the acknowledgments actually signify), who should shoulder the blame when things go wrong?

I confess to being without any pat answers here. While my inner schoolmaster says it should be like the navy, where the captain is ultimately responsible for his ship, the damage done by sloppy research can generally be undone, unlike the loss of a ship and crew. Yet if the sloppiness persists, and risks becoming endemic, there is a clear need to look at altering the balance of rewards and responsibilities of authorship.

Posted by David on September 28, 2004 10:10 AM