Activists of the Anti-Plagiarism Committee hold a rally on May 27, 2015 at the Religious Affairs Ministry in Jakarta. They demanded that the government resolve cases of plagiarism at a number of universities that involved students, lecturers and professors.
We have once again been shocked by the recent news on a rector of state university that committed plagiarism. What saddens us is that the core business of a state university is education, a field that is closely related to a high level of academic ethics, culture and morals.
However, this haram case has been handled sluggishly. Before, the Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister had a clear track record of handling cases of academic integrity violations at Manado State University (2016) and Jakarta State University (2017). However, in the latest plagiarism case, he showed unusual signs.
The alleged plagiarism we are talking about occurred in 2002-2004 and was only disclosed to the public in mid-2017. During the initial disclosure to the media, several of the Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister’s statements surprised the Academic Performance Evaluation (EKA) team. In a premature and hurried manner, he said that there were no violations in the alleged case; but the data collected by the EKA team showed otherwise.
Among the disputed works was an article published by a leading scientific journal in Yogyakarta that was being reviewed for indexing on Scopus. The editorial decision dated July 12 was the same as the results of the EKA team’s assessment: the disputed article was declared inauthentic! The editorial division also issued a firm decision that the author of the article had violated the journal’s provisions (code of ethics) that appeared in every edition.
Regarding the same case, the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry formed in mid-July 2018 an independent team with members from various universities and the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI). Because this independent team used the same data as did the EKA team and the journal’s editorial division, it was expected that the independent team would arrive at a similar conclusion with the EKA team and the journal’s editorial division.
The regulation referred to with regard to the case was Education Minister National Decree (Permendiknas) No. 17/2010 on the Prevention and Control of Plagiarism in Higher Education, which was enacted on Aug. 16, 2010. Because the plagiarism case being reviewed occurred before this date, it was concluded that the plagiarism regulation could not be applied retroactively, like other regulations.
This was certainly very strange, abstruse and absurd. That incidence of plagiarism was a very old case. It terms of moral ethics, it was an extraordinary violation in the context of the development of academic culture. The perpetrator clearly lacked the legitimacy and moral standing to lead an institution and administer higher education. Permendiknas No. 17/2010 exists essentially to uphold the agenda to prevent plagiarism in higher education, not to nullify or whitewash plagiarism cases that had occurred previously.
Nearly a century ago, Bung Karno said that people could not teach what they knew or what they wanted, but they could teach the way they were. How can a lecturer or higher education leader proven to have committed plagiarism teach honesty to students, who will then become potential educators for the children of the next generation?
Jurisprudence
The Indonesian scientific community has been a healthy one since independence and decided long ago not to practice plagiarism. Many plagiarism cases have occurred before the issuance of Permendiknas No. 17/2010 and have been addressed according to academic ethics, culture and morals. The first plagiarism case involved a doctoral graduate of ITB called MZ. He committed plagiarism in 2008. However, on April 23, 2010, ITB revoked MZ’s dissertation and doctorate.
The second case of plagiarism was committed by a professor at Parahyangan University (Unpar) identified as ABP. The plagiarism appeared in an article published in The Jakarta Post on Nov. 12, 2009. Although the case merely concerned a popular article in a newspaper, in the end, the university senate dismissed ABP as a lecturer and proposed that his professorship be revoked.
The third was the plagiarism committed by SSA, a doctoral student of Gadjah Mada University’s School of Social and Political Sciences. The plagiarism was committed in 1998 and was widely discussed among the public in 2000. This case involved SSA’s dissertation that was later published as a book titled Radicalism of Farmers During the New Order: The Case of the Jenggawah Land Dispute (1999). It turned out that its contents copied the 1996 thesis of MN, an undergraduate student at Airlangga University’s School of Social and Political Sciences, titled “Land Conflict in Jenggawah: A Case Study of the Process and Obstacles for Resolving Land Conflict in Jenggawah, Jember Regency, East Java”. UGM revoked SSA’s doctorate degree.
Fourth was the plagiarism of MN, a lecturer of the Literary Studies School’s history department at Andalas University (Unand). The plagiarism occurred in 2000 and the news became public in 2004. The Unand history department stated that its investigation had concluded that the research report titled “Local History of West Sumatra: People\'s Struggle and the TNI in Cupak, Solok Regency 1945-1950” by MN et al. was a duplicate of a 1994 student thesis by BH titled “Nagari Cupak [Cupak village] in the Revolution Era (1945-1950)”. The investigative team recommended sanctions for MN in that regular promotions and raises be postponed for two academic ranks, deny MN’s promotion to a professorship, revoke his membership on the Literary Studies School’s senate and deny administrative positions.
Last year, the Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister fired a rector proven to have protected plagiarists. The minister should thus be more assertive toward the rector who was proven to have committed plagiarism and all those who protected him. If the minister chooses to protect the plagiarist rector, Indonesia’s academic ethics, culture and morals will of course collapse, and it would be appropriate for all us Indonesians to shed tears over this. (Supriadi Rustad, Member, Academic Performance Evaluation Team, Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education)
