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The Indiana Daily Student

campus administration

Is copied language in Whitten’s dissertation plagiarism? Experts weigh in

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Editor’s note: The IDS received a tip about potential plagiarism in President Whitten’s 1996 dissertation and 2006 article in September. IDS staff verified examples and interviewed experts but decided it did not have enough evidence to break a story with allegations of this nature. Following publication of The Chronicle of Higher Education’s article, the IDS has decided to publish the expert interviews to add to the public discourse about what does or does not constitute plagiarism. 

Does copied language in IU President Pamela Whitten’s doctoral dissertation constitute plagiarism? 

The Chronicle of Higher Education first reported Jan. 22 it received documents including examples of writing from Whitten’s 1996 doctoral dissertation about telemedicine and a 2006 article alongside the source text. 

In September, the Indiana Daily Student received the same examples and more in multiple spreadsheets, which it was able to verify with both the original text source and the dissertation. The sources of the documents requested anonymity due to fear of repercussion for sharing them. 

It also received tips about seven examples of potential plagiarism unique from the Chronicle’s, including a 52-word example of language taken from an article Whitten co-wrote in Telemedicine Journal. That example was attributed to herself and her co-author but was not in quotations. 

In a statement to the Chronicle, an IU spokesperson claimed an independent law firm investigated and found the “assertions” to be meritless in August last year. In the statement to the Chronicle, the spokesperson did not identify the law firm employed or detail why the university asked for the investigation.   

An IU spokesperson did not respond to the IDS’ request for clarification. 

Further, some of the original works’ authors had conflicting opinions on the examples. Telemedicine researchers Douglas Perednia and Ace Allen are the authors of a paper who Whitten cited from extensively. Whitten and Allen also co-wrote a 1995 article in “Telemedicine Today” and a 2001 book, “E-Health, Telehealth & Telemedicine,” according to her curriculum vitae. 

Perednia told the Chronicle that Whitten’s use of his paper did not constitute plagiarism; Allen, though, told the publication that the language appeared to be copied. 

Indiana Public Media reported Monday that the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, which published Whitten’s 2006 paper, is investigating it for plagiarism. 

Since the publication of the Chronicle’s story, a change.org petition calling for the University of Kansas to rescind Whitten’s 1996 doctoral degree has received over 120 signatures. 

Students get reprimanded harshly for plagiarism,” one comment on the petition read. “It's a part of the syllabus of every single class. It's been ingrained since I started school that cheating, copying, and plagiarism is never okay. Yet, we're going to let our university president walk away scott free? I don't think so.” 

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Universities' definitions of plagiarism can vary.  

Kansas’ 1996 university senate rules and regulations considered plagiarism as both academic and scientific/scholarly misconduct. It doesn’t define what’s considered plagiarism. The university did not respond to the Chronicle’s request for comment, but its current rules state research misconduct claims older than six years old won’t be investigated, with some exceptions: 

  • If circumstances indicate the misconduct couldn’t be identified earlier 
  • If the original author continues to republish, cite or otherwise use the work in question 
  • If the work would have an adverse effect on public health 

An IU website says seven or more words in a row lifted from a source without quotation marks, a full in-text citation with a locator or reference would be classed “word-for-word plagiarism.” One plagiarism expert told the IDS that seven words is “really a short amount.” But another said the chances of two people repeating the same seven-word sequence multiple times are small. 

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The IDS sorted the more than 50 instances of potential plagiarism between the dissertation and paper — from 25 individual sources — into six informal categories:  

  • Seven or more words, word for word, in line with IU’s policy 
  • An attributed quote immediately followed by a quote without quotations or attribution 
  • Misattribution, which is attributing to a primary source but using language from the secondary source 
  • Self-plagiarism, which is taking text from the author’s past work and not attributing it properly 
  • Attribution to a secondary source instead of primary source 
  • Unattributed 

The IDS provided examples from these categories to three plagiarism experts over the course of several months.  

This is what they had to say: 

A ‘gray area’ 

Jonathan Bailey is a plagiarism expert who runs the website Plagiarism Today and has provided commentary on multiple high profile plagiarism allegations in academia. 

In a September interview with the IDS, Bailey said two instances were not particularly compelling examples of plagiarism. In one, Whitten pulled seven or more words, word for word, from a book by Charles Goodwin and Alessandro Duranti.  

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In another, she quoted a section from Robert Yin’s “Case study research: design and methods,” attributed the quote to him, then followed that with more text from Yin but without quotes or attribution. Bailey said the latter example appeared “sloppy,” rather than like a deliberate shortcut.

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In two examples the IDS categorized as “misattribution,” Whitten attributed to sources that Perednia and Allen used but copied the two authors’ language. One section repeats over 90 words from Perednia and Allen, attributing to them for part of the paragraph near the end but not all of it. The IU plagiarism website says more than seven words word for word without quotation marks, even with an attribution, is word-for-word plagiarism. 

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Bailey said these were a “fairly serious issue” he’d expect to be corrected at the very least, though someone would have to determine if it had an impact on the dissertation research before making a decision. In Kansas’ most recent university senate rules and regulations, it outlines a process for adjudicating both academic and research misconduct. 

The citation attributed to a secondary source rather than a primary source seemed accidental rather than intentional or reckless, Bailey said. He said the era Whitten wrote the dissertation in, prior to digital research being common, added to the challenge of writing academic work. 

“That said, the author of a dissertation still has a responsibility to make sure their citations are correct and in line,” Bailey said. 

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He said what is considered plagiarism or not is dependent on the space it’s written in — journalistic attribution, for example, has a different standard than academic writing. 

“So many cases exist in a gray area where two reasonable people can look at the same facts and draw different conclusions, including experts in the same field,” Bailey said. 

Expert warns of ‘weaponization’ of plagiarism 

Susan Blum is a cultural, linguistic and psychological anthropologist and professor at the University of Notre Dame. She wrote the 2009 book, “My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture.”  

In October, Blum told the IDS she was concerned with “weaponizing plagiarism accusations for political reasons,” regardless of the political affiliation of the target or accuser.  

Many plagiarism accusations in academia have been levied at Black faculty and administrators, including former Harvard University President Claudine Gay. A conservative media organization, the Daily Wire, alleged in September that Maryland President Darryll Pines plagiarized two papers he co-authored. Both Gay and Pines are their universities’ first Black presidents. 

“I think that academic leaders should be exemplary in every way, but they are also human,” Blum said. “Unless we are subjecting everybody to the same scrutiny, I don’t think it’s good practice to raise this selectively.”  

She said she questioned why people would be looking at the author, Whitten, in this particular moment. If it’s for a political reason, it would be an easy way to “score points” against a figure they don’t like. These people, Blum said, don’t actually care about academic integrity. 

Whitten has garnered criticism in the past year for the university’s cancellation of a Palestinian painter’s art exhibit, its decision to call Indiana State Police to arrest pro-Palestinian protesters in April and its enforcement of the new Expressive Activity Policy, among other reasons. A faculty vote of no-confidence passed with 93.1% of the vote and multiple rallies have since called for Whitten’s resignation or termination. 

Blum said she’s a “stickler for precision and honesty.” But that, she said, involves addressing the circumstances in which the accusations are raised. 

Whitten’s dissertation ‘hard on the borderline’ 

Debora Weber-Wulff is a retired media and computing professor at the HTW Berlin, a German university. She said she’s been researching plagiarism since 2002 when her students submitted papers in English — too good of English. About a third of those papers were plagiarized, she said. 

Weber-Wulff wrote an e-learning unit on detecting plagiarism in journalism and published her book, “False Feathers: A Perspective on Academic Plagiarism,” in 2014. She documents plagiarism online with the German group, “VroniPlag Wiki.” 

Weber-Wulff favors a plagiarism definition from Teddi Fishman, former director of the International Center for Academic Integrity. Fishman defines plagiarism as when someone “uses words, ideas, or work products” without attributing to its source when there is a legitimate expectation of original work. This is done so the authors of the new work can gain some benefit that’s not necessarily monetary. 

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In November, Weber-Wulff compared identifying plagiarism to identifying if a man is bald.  

“It’s very clear when he is, and it’s very clear when he’s not, but there’s not a question of ‘one more hair and now he’s bald,’” Weber-Wulff said. 

Unlike Blum, Weber-Wulff does not care where the plagiarism accusation originates from or why. 

“If it’s plagiarism, it’s plagiarism,” she said. 

She said misattributed quotes happen all the time and are wrong. In the case of a doctoral dissertation, more than two examples may warrant an investigation. A doctoral dissertation as opposed to a master’s thesis, Weber-Wulff said, should be original research. 

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She said the unattributed examples of plagiarism were “beginning to be problematic” but no university would withdraw a doctorate for them alone. 

Based on the examples provided by the IDS, Weber-Wulff said “they’re hard on the borderline.” But she said if there were similar examples found across Whitten’s work, then it would be more difficult to call them honest errors. 

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