Thursday, July 7, 2011

Next: Minister of Education

Just when you think that the plagiarism scandal in Germany might be calming down, the next one shows up. It seems that people are learning how to spot plagiarism, and are finding far too much in the dissertations of plagiarists.

The weekly newspaper Zeit reported on July 6, 2011 that unnamed researchers (not VroniPlag) had analyzed approximately half of the dissertation that Bernd Althusmann had submitted to the University of Potsdam in 2007. He is the minister of education in the German state of Lower Saxony and as such the current head of the Kultusministerkonferenz (State Conference on Media and Education). This is an organization that tries to coordinate education matters in the 16 federal states, that all have their own ideas of how to go about educating the general populace.

The Zeit has posted an excellent list of plagiarisms and an analysis of the same. Prof. Volker Rieble, author of the book Wissenschaftsplagiat, has called for his immediate resignation.

At least the University of Tübingen rescinded the doctorate of Matthias Pröfrock, state politician in Baden-Württemberg, yesterday.

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