Inadvertent plagiarism moves to New Zealand

Auckland University vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon writes of the Witi Ihimaera plagiarism problem:

"The university does not condone plagiarism, but recognises the need to take into account a range of factors such as intention, seriousness and extent."

Text in the New Zealand Herald quotes the Listener as quoting Margaret Soltan, a professor of English at George Washington University, in Washington DC, as blogging that the University of Auckland was too quick accepting Ihimaera's word that the plagiarism was inadvertent.

"Pretending it didn't happen is the sort of thing a very provincial university will do."

See also 'University needs to acknowledge plagiarism issue'

This is another legacy of the excuse of "inadvertent plagiarism" used in the Poshard matter at SIU.

**An article on SafeAssign (through BlackBoard) mentions both unintentional plagiarism and turnitin:

Katie Shay, a senior at Rock Bridge, said turnitin.com has helped her avoid unintentional plagiarism.

See MU improves conversation about plagiarism through software

**UPDATE. Plagiarism in crossword puzzles?

see It Themes Somehow Familiar