Alabama punts in Meehan matter

More discussion of the Meehan plagiarism matter in Alabama, from the Crimson White:

“The University is aware of and has looked into the situation,” said Cathy Andreen, director of media relations. “Under the circumstances, we are not inclined to go behind the decision the dissertation committee made 10 years ago to approve the dissertation.”


She added that the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act limits what the University can say about current or former students.

(...)

Charles Lipson, author of the book, “Doing Honest Work in College” and professor of political science at the University of Chicago said there is no difference in the type of plagiarism done in a dissertation than in a first year freshman English class.

Of the first text, one notes that SIU administrators should have adopted the Alabama approach in handling the Poshard plagiarism matter, thereby avoiding the later silliness of plagiarizing text on plagiarism from Indiana University.

Of the second text, Lipson SHOULD have said:


there should be no difference in the handling of plagiarism done in a dissertation compared to plagiarism done in undergrad courses, but empirically one notes that college students are more likely to be punished than are Ph.D. students, or their professors. Refer to Harvard.

**See also

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2009/06/visualizing-plagiarism-meehan-case.html