Plagiarism in Lithuanian academia: formal definition and informal attitude

• ENAI: leidinio tekstas

ENThe paper presents some research results derived from a national project “Scientific research ethics in Lithuania: analysis of the situation” (MIP-37/2010, 2010–2011). It aims to identify gaps between the formal definition of plagiarism and actual understanding of the phenomenon in Lithuanian academic community. Therefore, content analysis of the definitions of plagiarism in approved Ethic Codes (N = 21) of Lithuanian science institutions and the academic community’s (ranging from professors and principal researchers to lecturers and technical assistants (n = 424)) attitudes concerning plagiarism expressed in a questionnaire survey was carried out. Ethic Codes were analysed using a semantic form of “plagiarism” as a coding unit. Results of this analysis demonstrate that discursive presentation of the phenomenon is more frequently related to students’ academic activities rather than academics’ research. Moreover, the Codes do not give clear-set directions how to avoid plagiarism and, thus, imply very little about plagiarism management at both the level of students and academics, although the consequences of identified plagiarism are much more clearly defined to the former than the latter. The results of content analysis of the answers to an open-ended question about the main research ethics problems observed in Lithuanian academia suggest that plagiarism can be regarded as an issue with a broad understanding, including copyright, forced authorship inclusion etc. However, the data are not sufficient to make a conclusion to what extent it is problematic and whether and to what extent consequences of the phenomenon are perceived. This calls for further research into the issue and a need for open discussion on it in the academic society. [From the publication]