For academic misconducts, the college not only adopts the method of zero tolerance but also issues the specific methods. Yesterday, the scientific moral and academic rule class for postgraduate freshmen was held in the auditorium of International Academic Exchange Communication Center. The speaker is professor Zhang Qifa, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor of college of life science and technology. He instructed more than 300 postgraduates from three aspects namely academic norms, scientific research norms and writing norms. The vice-president Yao Jianglin presided the opening of the course. Professor Zhang Qifa introduced that HZAU made the first temporary methods and penalty rules of dealing with academic misdeeds to create an upright academic atmosphere.
Professor Zhang Qifa directly pointed out that the principle of academic rules is to insist to be practical and realistic. He stressed the example of plagiarism, falsifying or forging papers and writing by others and said that any behaviors that are not practical or realistic violate the academic activity. He introduced that the academic misdeeds consist of 10 categories such as plagiarism, falsifying or forging data and documentation, publishing repeatedly, forging things such as academic experiences, expert verification, certification and signature; inappropriate name, writing by others, buying or selling academic achievements, violating confidential agreements, violating scientific experiment ethnic. Other behaviors violate the common academic morale rules or influence school’s reputation causing baneful influence.
Zhang Qifa said that the issued HZAU Academic Rules tell what we should do and what should not. The thesis statement is to let we to be practical and realistic and possess the spirit of pursuing excellence. He introduced that many professors including some experts on law gathered to research and write these rules namely tentative methods of punishing academic misdeeds and penalty specifications of punishing misdeeds. He believed that regulations are needed for academic misdeeds just like traffic rules for illegal activities. As for a sort of things, what kind of punishments does the teacher or the student should bear? We should know it clearly. Professor Zhang Qifa said that these three documentations are still rare national wide and consist of a management system in dealing with academic norms and academic misdeeds.
On the class, Professor Zhang Qifa discussed that making a good experiments record can avoid the academic misdeed from the beginning. He also took the example of plagiarizing other experiments results in a college in China to stress the importance of making a good scientific record. It is learned that HZAU implemented scientific record check mechanism of postgraduates by combining checking by the college with spot checking by the university to carry out the work in a scientific and strict way. He also took pros and cons cases for exhibition to let students to know the fact. He believed that all colleges and departments should pay a very high attitude of checking the experiment record. Otherwise, if you are occurred to be plagiarized or copied from others, you will be punished seriously if you do not have any experiment record to prove yourself.
On the thesis writing, Professor Zhang hoped that freshmen of postgraduate will take the thesis writing as the important milestone in their lives. The students should set a standard for themselves and insist on independent writing and will not be influenced by the issued papers. Do not forget the writing guidelines. Students should put readers in their heart and invite other students for mutual reviewing. What’s more, during the work, you should insist on high standards and strict requirements to do a better job and write a good thesis. He stressed that the topic should be novel and original. The research work should be concise and should not be repeated the existing work. As for the relationship between quality and quantity of papers, he hoped that students should pursue the actual academic that is science and technology, and should have the taste. The personal development is the balance between quality and quantity. We should not sacrifice the quality for quantity. Do research with craftsmanship. Professor Zhang hoped new postgraduates can insist academic rules and send words that pursue dream and commit to excellence.
Professor Han Heyou, executive vice-president of the postgraduate college indicated that we should combine education and punishment together to manage academic misdeeds. HZAU will continue to do better in Education to improve students and researchers’ awareness of academic misdeeds, insist the moral bottom line to create a honesty academic atmosphere. Meanwhile, we should improve and perfect related rules and mechanism. For those academic misdeeds, we should take the attitude of zero tolerance, and punish the violator according to law.
It is said that HZAU is listed as one of trial-units (11 in total) of national scientific moral and academic discipline building's education case presentations by China Association for Science and Technology. HZAU is the unique key university in Hubei province,. The college has made and published a series of policies such as HZAU Academic Rules, Academic Moral Management Regulations of Post-graduates Students in HZAU, Tentative Method of Dealing with Academic Misconduct in HZAU, Specifications of Academic Misconduct in HZAU, and made clear academic rules of object research, academic title evaluation, project evaluation, project achievement assessment, paper publishing, paper dissertation appraisal and dissertation defense. These laws define the corresponding punishment of academic misdeeds and list various academic misdeeds. The Tentative Method of Dealing with Academic Misconduct in HZAU is classified into various objects such as postgraduates, tutors and staffs. He advocated that we should pursue the fact, be piratical and respect scientific spirit and ensure academic democracy; we should guarantee academic rules and encourage to improve the quality of cultivating talents to carry out the academic activities in a healthy and sustainable way. These scientific values and norms will be the guidance documents for teachers and students to learn academic rules.
