Chiang Mai University academics charged with plagiarism

 | Wed 11 Jan 2023 23:01 ICT
Social media has been sharing screen shots of websites where university lecturers can go to pay for their names to be added as an author of a dissertation or paper, taking credit for research they were in no way involved with.

Many lecturers at Chiang Mai University have been accused of using this web site to add research papers to their portfolios without doing the actual work. Many lecturers have seemingly published up to ten thesis in the past year, allowing them to access more grants and funding, as well as move up the academic ladder, through purchased papers.

According to Associate Professor Pinkaew Leungaramsri, a lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Mai University, who has been posing about this issue online, names of certain lecturers have appeared on research papers crossing multiple fields of studies from engineering to economics, agriculture to sciences. She asks the university management to look into this matter urgently and to announce how they will address it.

Associate Professor Somchai Preechasilpakul, another vocal critic of this activity, has suggested that it is physically impossible for some lecturers to have published so many works on such a wide variety of topics in such a short amount of time. He went on to explain that while this has been an ongoing problem, the sheer scale of the current findings means that the university needs to take a university wide approach to this issue. He added that the university’s reputation was at stake.

While admitting that academic plagiarism is already against the law and that the university already has methods to address this, application of punishments need to be justly applied to all in a transparent manner.

 

Not only is it unacceptable to plagiarise, said Assoc. Prof. Somchai, but it can also be dangerous as researchers from universities around the world may be referencing these papers which are now all trained by plagiarism.

If papers are used to apply for positions then there are normal checks and balances for a committee to investigate, but if it isn’t for a direct position, said Assoc. Prof. Somchai, it is possible for the plagiariser to get away with their crime as there is not enough oversight.       

 
 

Chiang Mai University told CityNews that they are looking into this matter and will give an update soon.