Eid Mubarak

I would like to wish to everybody

"Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin".

That is the normal phrase when Hari Raya comes again. This year we do not have to join the rush to 'balik kampung' since we are already staying near to my kampung (i.e. Alor Star). Normally my first hari raya I will go back to the house where I have been brought up. I lost both my parents when I was in the secondary school, but I have a very close-knit family with 11 surviving siblings (from 15 siblings) and our nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, grand-nephews and great-grand-nieces and great-grand-nephews. I have been keeping a database of all family members and this remind me that I should update it more often.

Normally the third hari raya, we will have a gathering and most family members will try to come back. Last year was very meaningful to me because that is when everbody celebrate my marriage. I got married in the UK while I was doing my Phd. Eventhough I came back in 2005, last year was the first year that my hubby came back from the UK.

This year we have not made any plan for the third hari raya. We'll see how it goes.

Plagiarism Again

It was just about a month ago that I wrote about plagiarism in this blog. Suddenly on Monday morning, a colleague from Shah Alam SMS me to read a news on plagiarism in Sun newspaper. I found the online version (no Sun paper in Kedah/Perlis) and the headline says "UPM duo in plagiarism scandal" This type of news is not normally publicised but hopefully this will be a lesson to all.

Academics should know that plagiarism is a very serious crime. The excuse given in this case by the senior lecturer was "it looked fine to me" uuuhhhh .... does that mean that he did not even write it, then why is he one of the author??? which part is his contribution??? another case of ghost author, another serious crime in academics.

Prof Datuk Dr Nik Mustapha, UPM vice-chancellor, said “The junior author, who recently completed her PhD, said that since the source was from the Internet, she thought the information was in the public domain and as such did not cite the article”. (theStar Sept 15) uuuhhh .... If that is your belief then you have been taught wrong. Don't you know how to do citation and what is meant by copyright? Where did you get your PhD?

I once review a paper submitted to a conference and it was taken 100% from a webpage (different owner). It was actually an insult to a reviewer to get such a paper.

In one of the course I attended on copyrights, one case study shows a website owner was sued for putting up a picture taken from another website. The materials on a website are actually protected under the copyright law. Whatever materials you used on your website which are taken from other website must be acknowledged and with permission granted.

Being a Research University (RU) is a big responsibility. Academics are required to maintain their status by requiring them to publish, publish and publish. "Publish or Perish" - the saying gives the whole picture for some but not all academics. Therefore some people resort to all sort of means to get a certain number of publications a year.