88.PhD degree for Sale and a case of Plagiarism

Efforts of some persons to manage to get PhD degree were indicated in the previous episode. For those who are in teaching, higher degree became essential to get promotion to higher positions, especially professor. Those who are in allied engineering services in the state like some state government departments for whom retiring age was 55 or 56 years could manage to add these 2 ½ letters to their name, it was certain that they could join as a professor in a self-financing college and work for another 10 years with a reasonable salary. So, there were quite a few persons trying their best to get a PhD degree using any possible short cut.

When someone is doing research, it is a common practice to publish the results obtained during research as a paper in journals or conferences. Many reputed research institutions like I.I.Ts have made it mandatory that at least two journal publications should be accepted before the PhD thesis is submitted. This is being followed in NITC also. This cannot be done by copy pasting what other researchers have published or done. Further PhD theses itself cannot be cooked up by copying from others’ work. This type of cheating by copying of others’ work is called plagiarism and nowadays strict vigil against such practices is being done by institutions. Software for checking plagiarism is available now.

When I was officiating as Dean ( PG & Research) in N.I.T. Calicut, I had to deal with two such cases. One was just a ‘storm in a tea cup’ but the other was a very serious offence of cheating, both by part time research students in NITC. First one was a reported case of plagiarism by a research student who submitted a paper to a conference copying part of the material from another paper. As soon as the organisers of the conference reported the matter to our Director, we asked the student and supervisor to with draw the paper first and then we formed a committee of three professors other than the guide to study the reported malpractice in detail and give a report within a week. This committee examined the case in detail and found that (1) the major results published in the paper were original and (2) the student has copied contents of another published paper while reviewing the earlier work related to the one discussed (called literature survey). Moreover, the paper from which the material is stolen was not included as a pointed reference in the paper. Any case, it was proved beyond doubt that copying was done and appropriate punishment was given to the candidate, who unfortunately was a teacher in a self-financing college.

The second case was that of two heads of departments in a self-financing college near the Southern border between Kerala and Tamil Nadu ( which became a Deemed to be University later). They had purchased a PhD degree paying a certain amount. This information was passed on to me by another professor from the same college. He had stated that these two teachers who were part time research students of our institution had purchased PhD from an agency in Coimbatore paying Rs.60,000/ each. The degree was awarded by a virtual university with a website in UK (www.xxxx.uk) from their offshore campus in New Zealand (xxx.nz).Both the candidates were shown as distinguished alumni of their university in the website. Interestingly, the courses they had taken in NITC was shown as the course work they had undergone for PhD from this imaginary university. The teacher also wrote to me that the Principal of the college who was a former professor in a reputed I.I.T. had convened a meeting of staff and students to felicitate the two ‘distinguished’ professors on their ‘achievement’.
As two of our part time students were involved in this dirty affair, immediately I started studying their history. I could recognise that these two as research scholars who were reprimanded in their latest doctoral committee because of the very little progress they have made in research. All the research scholars are to register within two weeks from the beginning of the semester. I had instructed my confidential assistant to give me a list of research scholars who have not registered within the stipulated time as early as possible . The practice was to issue a show cause notice to those who have not registered why their registration is not to be cancelled with immediate effect. Fortunately, both these gentlemen had not registered and we had already issued a show cause notice. As the last date for submitting the explanation was also over, it was only a formality to issue a letter cancelling their registration. Therefore, they were no longer our students. Accordingly we closed the chapter with a formal memo cancelling their registration for PhD at N.I.T. Calicut. I also personally thanked the teacher who informed about this crime.

It was interesting to note that after a few weeks, we received a letter from Director (Research) Anna University stating that two of our research scholars have obtained a PhD degree from a virtual university by paying money. We informed him that they are no longer our students as their registration was cancelled at the beginning of the previous semester. Later I came to know that the culprits could not continue with the fake degree as it was known to all. Both these candidates joined Anna university as full-time research scholars and completed their research in three years to get a valid degree.

I understand from several press reports that such cases of buying degree from virtual universities are still prevalent. Plagiarism in research publications has taken a serious turn and most of the reputed universities are enforcing strict measures to avoid plagiarism of any sort. Most of the theses are checked for plagiarism using standard software. Professional societies like IEEE have also enforced very strict measures in the papers published in their journals or even conferences technically sponsored by them.