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牛津大学教授在着作中“未能适当地认可”中国同事贡献

合作者批评牛津大学对安娜·劳拉·温赖特(Anna Lora-Wainwright)缺乏处罚措施,但牛津大学内部调查发现她无意欺骗

十月 24, 2019
A view of the Radcliffe Camera through a gate at the University of Oxford in England

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根据牛津大学的一项调查称,该校的一名教授在获奖的书籍中没有适当地认可中国合作者的贡献,这是“严重的科研不端行为”。

牛津大学中国人文地理学教授安娜·劳拉·温赖特所着的《逆来顺受的行动主义:在中国农村与污染共存》(Resigned Activism: Living with Pollution in Rural China)一书,获得2018年英国社会学协会(British Sociological Association)和“允许思考”(Thinking Allowed)节目联合发起的“民族志奖”(Ethnography Award)。该书之所以得以完成写作,部分得益于她调查了那些出现与环境污染相关的健康问题的人群。

然而,根据《泰晤士高等教育》了解到的牛津大学内部报告显示,合作者投诉劳拉·温赖特教授“未能阐明书中的很大部分成果是由多人合作完成的”,并且在使用同事的研究成果时,也未向同事咨询。

健康环境与发展论坛的负责人、原告贺珍怡(Jennifer Holdaway)和王五一表示,劳拉·温赖特教授承认,她自己“没有参与研究设计与开展”。

申诉人称,在长达25页的章节中,有14页是河海大学陈阿江2013年发表的一篇论文的摘要,其他部分则借鉴了陈阿江和劳拉·温赖特教授于2016年共同发表的一篇论文。

一个叁人专家小组驳回了劳拉·温赖特教授的说法,即书后面方法论部分的致谢对同事们的贡献给予了足够的认可。专家小组还批评了她“对陈教授和他的团队所做工作的描述,因为它倾向于强调他们所做的现场调查工作,而没有对他们的分析工作给予足够的认可”。

调查得出结论,在很大程度上,其他中国学者的智力贡献也遭到忽视。例如,汕头大学医学院李丽萍教授招募学生前去采访,用大学基金支付他们的差旅费和劳务费,并在与劳拉·温赖特教授合作时,亲自采访了当地的卫生工作者。然而,报告称,让她感到“震惊”的是,《逆来顺受的行动主义》一书中,似乎包括了李教授和她的学生所做的工作,却没有解释这不全是劳拉·温赖特教授一个人的功劳。

根据这份报告,牛津大学劳拉·温赖特教授辩称,她在这一章中只“简要提及”了这些采访,而章节的重点是她对该村的“详细访问记录”和亲自进行的采访。

劳拉·温赖特教授告诉《泰晤士高等教育》,她“认为自己在出版图书时,已经充分咨询了合作者,并在书中对他们的贡献加以致谢。如果说这种致谢还不够充分的话,纯属无心之举。”

专家小组的结论是,虽然劳拉·温赖特教授“无意欺骗或误导读者”,但她的做法“太粗心大意,对他人的智力贡献未能谨慎处理”。专家小组认定,她“在研究中行为不端,在未得到许可的情况下挪用他人的成果,并谎称自己参与了某个研究项目”。

尽管申诉人要求召回麻省理工学院出版社出版的这本书,并撤销本书获得的奖项,但专家小组却建议作者在网络版书籍中修改致谢内容,并为劳拉·温赖特教授指派一名学术导师。

五名中国教授在给牛津大学教务长吉利安·艾特肯(Gillian Aitken)的一封联名信中称,这一处罚决定“完全不可接受”。这五位教授分别是:王五一、陈阿江、李丽萍、方菁和张世秋,他们呼吁劳拉·温赖特教授全面公开道歉,并呼吁牛津大学“取消她因为这本书而获得的奖励和职位”。

他们还质疑牛津大学未采取补救措施的“根本原因”,表示:难道是因为这种学术不端行为的受害者是中国学者吗?”

王五一教授告诉《泰晤士高等教育》:“我们当然认为,牛津大学存在双重标准,如果合作者来自欧洲或美国,情况可能就会不同。”

牛津大学的一名发言人表示,牛津大学非常严肃地对待“对科研不端行为的指控”,但同时指出,专家小组得出结论,劳拉·温赖特教授并非有意欺骗。他补充说:“在任何情况下,牛津大学都有信心全面贯彻学术诚信方面的政策,并采取稳健、切合实际的行动。”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com

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Reader's comments (3)

Plagiarism by failure to acknowledge your very own major influencers, even to completely steal the breakthroughs of others and then to lie and claim them as your own, is fully tolerated by the scientific establishment and has been for a very long time. So don't be surprised. Google the terms "Darwin science fraud" "Knowledge contamination" to read my expert peer reviewed academic articles that provide all the newly unearthed and independently verifiable painful truths. Until we condemn proven glory thieving plagiarists of the past how can we expect to tackle those who continue to commit such obvious academic fraud today?
I agree, this incident is just a tiny scratch in the thin veneer of respectability showing the toxic and ugly underbody of academia. In my field it is common tacit knowledge, for example, that you do not ever present any new ideas, at a conference or seminar for example, before having it published first in a journal or other official publication (it does not have an accepted pre-print structure/practice in place). This is the first “unwritten rule” you learn from good supervisors (who probably were burnt badly and had to learn this the hard way). Learn from what “star academics” do, they only ever go on a road show to promote their publications really. You can observe certain people (usually senior academics) at every conference, pretending to be helpful and interested, but actually circling the na?ve and young ones like predators their prey. Also be wary of the senior academic taking a lot of notes and not saying much, soon to be seen to publish something strikingly similar, not empirically but conceptually obviously, before you have even submitted you first manuscript. Of course, this does not mean that your ideas are not being stolen or appropriated without acknowledgement even after having them published. Ignoring published work is particularly widespread in business and management research, for instance, where work not published in the “top” journals, i.e. American journals, or the specific journals of a subject area simply gets ignored (on purpose). This is particularly true for niche and nascent areas with competing groups of scholars. This is partially fuelled by the “publish or perish” culture and a widespread competitive mindset that suffocates real scholarly debate and collaboration. Finally, junior academics (especially those in precarious employment) and those from a non-Western (and Anglophone) background find themselves often at the mercy of established colleagues or those at more prestigious institutions for access to jobs, research projects and other opportunities. No wonder they get exploited and overlooked. The establishment always take care of their own.
The establishment always take care of their own.