Research can generally be seen as any activity that involves deliberately or consciously planned inquiry and examination of facts, or revision of accepted theories or laws.
The scope of work of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) revolves around three major areas. These are teaching and learning, research and community engagement, out of which, research is of primary importance to the mission of HEIs.
Higher education institutions devote serious effort to have in place clear policies and procedures that guide, promote and encourage research and scholarly activities carried out by academic staff and students within their institutions.
HEIs often expand their support to research by providing incentives to academic staff publishing papers, participating in conferences, or working as part of research groups.
Research serves as a standard by which HEIs may be measured or judged for their progress and reputation. The true value of research lies in the ability of HEI academic staff and research centres to produce substantially real and practical results. Innovations and products which are an outcome of research and scholarly activities should clearly and peremptorily contribute to human development and societal advancement. HEIs should focus not only on knowledge confined to theory or speculation, but also on practical applications with tangible results and impact.
HEIs with strong conscious academic and intellectual standing adopt robust and rigorous procedures for academic integrity and ethics that academic staff must follow while applying for research funding/approval. They have to declare that matters falling within research ethics should be disclosed and are subject to ethical approval.
To further enhance research ethics, HEIs extend ethical and academic integrity policies to include academic staff applying for promotion, in which they have to declare that research ethics are adhered to in all research submitted for consideration in their promotion dossier even though the research was published before.
As a result, quality driven HEIs always adopt a zero-tolerance policy to plagiarism or any other acts in infringement with academic integrity, prohibiting any act of stealing and passing off the ideas or words of others as their own. Plagiarism involves any act to use another's production without crediting the source or to commit literary theft by presenting as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
HEIs and academic journals with academic credibility use to a great extent web-based tools to check the originality of written work and ensure academic integrity. Plagiarism detection software are widely used to compare written work against a vast database of sources, including academic papers, websites, books and other student submissions.
Despite all the efforts made by HEIs, there are still shortfalls, with a lot of researchers failing to come up to expectation. While some researchers lack the power of independent thought and constructive imagination, there are some research outputs degraded with unsound principles and moral values. Some researchers still cannot come up with new innovative ideas. What they do is to use others’ ideas, formulated thoughts and opinions again especially in a different way or after reclaiming and reprocessing such ideas. It is a pity to see some researchers introducing thoughts and possibilities that do not in essence differ from preceding ones.
With some researchers, consciousness of guilt is almost dead. While such researchers feel and show pride in the list of scholarly activities they add to their curriculum vitae, the list of publications is somehow need to be carefully read. Some researchers collaborate negatively by adding other names to their publications without actual contribution. This kind of act shows how such researchers in reality meddle, tamper and experiment thoughtlessly and ignorantly.
While it is difficult to generalise such deceptive acts, it is with deep distress, sadness and regret a common practice that HEIs must firmly address. A strong and decisive response to this matter should be taken with determination, authority and no hesitation.
Further, it is sad to see some postgraduate students are subjected to mistreatment by their supervisors who blatantly add their names with zero-contribution to students’ publications.
While a sense of shame and modesty should be the natural regulator of human behaviour, such researchers have unfortunately lost their sense of shame, as they act without regard for moral, ethical, or academic norms or for socially acceptable conduct, customs and manners.
If you feel no shame, then do as you wish!
DR MUSALLAM Al MAANI
The writer is Dean, Al Zahra College for Women
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