HEC initiates probe against executive director for plagiarism

ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) will meet next week to decide the fate of its second most important officer whose research paper was found to be 88 percent plagiarized, The News has learnt.

The Chairman HEC Dr Mukhtar Ahmad had set up a committee to probe the allegations of plagiarism against the commission’s Executive Director (ED) Dr Arshad Ali.

Sources said after the issue came to the light through a news story published in this paper, the committee formed by the HEC Chairman held a meeting this week to review the Executive Director’s research paper which was found plagiarized.

The official software Turnitin, which has been provided by HEC to the universities to check plagiarism shows that Dr Arshad’s paper “A Taxonomy and Survey of Grid Resource Planning and Reservation Systems for Grid Enabled Analysis Environment,” published in July 2004 is almost the exact copy of a similar paper authored by Chaitanya Kandagatla University of Texas, Austin America in February 2004. The Curriculum Vitae (CV) of Dr Arshad Ali proudly mentions the said research paper co-authored by Dr Arshad. The HEC spokesperson Ayesha Ikram said a committee to probe the matter was formed. However she said a few steps have to be taken before the final decision is taken by the chairman.

“Next meeting to be presided over by the Chairman HEC will take up the findings (of the probe committee). A decision will be taken after the meeting,” she said. The meeting, Ms Ikram said will be held next week although a date is yet to be set for the same.

Fighting plagiarism is one of the major functions of the Higher Education Commission (HEC). According to HEC Act and rules, the Executive Director is the second most important officer of the commission being the principal accounting officer of the body that manages about Rs90 billion annually. He acts as head of HEC Secretariat and also as the Secretary of the Commission’s governing body which makes policies on improving quality of education and fighting plagiarism. In an expression of its resolve against academic-theft, the commission has placed about 21 black-listed faculty members and researchers on its website along with its detailed anti-plagiarism policy.

When Dr Arshad’s paper was examined with Turnitin it confirmed overall 88 percent similarity index against 19 per cent limit set by Pakistan’s higher education body. In addition, 47 percent similarity index has been reported from single source “authored by Chaitanya Kandagatla against the 5 percent approved limit. Dr Arshad Ali is main author of the paper along with several others including foreigners.

As per HEC policy, if most of the paper (or key results) have been exactly copied from any published work of other people without giving the reference to the original work, a major penalty of dismissal from service could be imposed.

The policy also mentions that such a plagiarist may be black listed and may not be eligible for employment in any academic, research organisation, and (c) the notification of “Black Listing” of the author(s) may be published in the print media or may be publicised on different websites at the discretion of the Vice-Chancellor/Rector/Head of the organisation.”

Dr Arshad did not respond to The News calls when asked for his version on the HEC’s probe. However in his earlier talk with The News on the issue, HEC ED had promised to look into the matter according to the commission’s policy. He claimed that his co-authors were reputed professionals from institutions like CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. When asked whether he could be dismissed from service if major plagiarism was proved in his reach paper, the HEC Executive Director said he could not speak on the basis of assumptions. Dr Arshad Ali was appointed as HEC Executive Director In January 2016 by the selection board and governing body headed by current HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed. According to the list of 21 blacklisted faculty members posted on HEC website, more than 50 percent offenders were blacklisted on the charges of Plagiarised papers.