Should the tutor be responsible for the academic misconduct of graduate students?

In fact, it is difficult for a tutor to have a clear judgment, whether it is unintentional or intentional, and how much responsibility he should bear.

? A considerable number of graduate students' academic misconduct stems from the unreasonable system itself. Therefore, it is imperative to make some changes to the assessment criteria of graduate students. ? In the traditional culture of China, there is an old saying that mentoring is like father and son. In other words, the relationship between students and tutors is somewhat similar to that between children and parents. Then, in the current scientific research environment, should parents be punished when there are problems with their children? ? Not long ago, the Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Postgraduate Education jointly issued by the Ministry of Education, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance seemed to answer this question. The opinion clearly stipulates that the tutor is the first responsible person for postgraduate training ... If the postgraduate has academic misconduct, the tutor should bear the corresponding responsibility. ? But it is this provision that "students make mistakes and tutors' sit together'" that has attracted a lot of discussion. ? Question 1: Is it reasonable? ? It is understood that the policy of how tutors "punish" students after making mistakes has a long history in China. ? For example, as early as 20 10, the Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of Academic Morality and Academic Norms in Degree Awarding published by the State Council Academic Degrees Committee clearly stipulated that instructors who are responsible for students' academic misconduct can suspend enrollment and cancel their tutor qualifications; In August, 20 12, the Ministry of Education promulgated the Interim Measures for Handling the Falsification of Dissertation (Draft for Comment), which also clearly stated that the instructor of student thesis fraud should bear joint and several liability. ? At the school level, at the beginning of 20 10, Huazhong University of Science and Technology revised the Regulations on Graduate Tutors of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, stipulating that graduate students who give guidance should be given corresponding academic punishment; In the same year, China Agricultural University also announced that if the graduate thesis is plagiarized, the tutor will also be punished jointly ... In fact, there are far more than two universities that have made similar regulations. It seems that students make mistakes, and it is natural for instructors to "sit together". ? Are natural things necessarily reasonable? ? Gu Ying is a doctoral supervisor in the School of Foreign Languages of a key university in Beijing. After learning about the opinions of the three ministries, he poured some "bitter water" on the reporter. ? Gu Ying said that the original intention of the opinions of the three ministries and commissions is undoubtedly to increase the integrity education of graduate students in scientific research, but there are some deviations in guiding ideology. "The essence of this practice is to attach the graduate students' questions to the tutor and emphasize the influence of the tutor on the graduate students' ability. "He said. However, when the Ministry of Education sets the training objectives for graduate students, it requires that graduate students should have relatively independent research ability, while doctoral students should have independent research ability. From this perspective. What graduate students need is independence. Why did the tutor become the "first person in charge"? ? In fact, as early as 20 12, when the Ministry of Education issued the Interim Measures for Handling Fake Dissertations (draft for comments), some people questioned that students plagiarized their papers, and tutors did have the responsibility of oversight, but they should emphasize the students' own responsibilities, otherwise the schools and teachers would be responsible for everything, resulting in students' complete lack of sense of responsibility. Therefore, it is better to emphasize the heavy punishment for the first author of the paper. ? "China's traditional thinking is that graduate students plagiarize without noticing it, indicating that the tutor is not up to standard. In the west, students' plagiarism has nothing to do with tutors. Because a prerequisite for a tutor to review a student's paper is that the paper is original, it is never the tutor's responsibility to check whether the paper is plagiarized. "Gu Ying said, if the tutor found that students plagiarized, of course, they should report and stop it, but if they didn't find it, they shouldn't be held accountable for any fault of the tutor. ? Question 2: Is it feasible? ? Although there is some controversy on the system and rationality, it is not uncommon for tutors to implicate students in academic misconduct in recent years. For example, at the end of 2007, official website of Fudan University reported an incident of suspected plagiarism of students' papers in the School of Information. As a result of the incident, the fake student tutor was exempted from enrolling graduate students within two years because of "dereliction of duty". ? Looking at the regulations of academic misconduct in various proofreaders, most of the ways to deal with relevant tutors are to suspend enrollment or cancel the qualification of tutors. However, in the actual implementation of this system, there is a problem that responsibility is difficult to define. ? "Graduate students plagiarize, and the tutor can't be completely excused. After all, students finish their papers under the guidance of the tutor. However, it is hard to say how much responsibility the tutor should bear. " In an interview with China Science News, Xue Suduo, a professor at Beijing University of Technology, admitted frankly that it is impossible for a tutor to read all the relevant articles involved in a student's thesis, and that "theoretical things are relatively easy to read, but some written contents are relatively more difficult to grasp". In this case, it is difficult for the tutor to clearly judge whether it is unintentional or intentional in the students' academic misconduct and how much responsibility they should bear. ? Gu Ying is a tutor in humanities, and is currently engaged in postgraduate teaching. For his students, he asked them to strictly abide by academic norms from the beginning, and he constantly instilled relevant ideas into students at ordinary times. "This is a problem," he said. "I think I have done my duty as an academic integrity education tutor. Moreover, in the humanities, students' research topics are probably not familiar areas for instructors. For example, some writers studied by students are not necessarily my concern. So at this time, if one of my students is still going his own way, what kind of responsibility should I take after problems arise? " ? Another noteworthy phenomenon is that in recent years, the "tutorial group" system, which has been implemented in foreign universities for many years, is being adopted by more and more domestic universities. Under this system, if a paper is directed by a tutor group, once the paper has problems, the so-called "division of responsibilities" between tutors will become more complicated and more difficult to operate. "Gu Ying said. ? Question 3: Is it important? ? Li Liang is a graduate student in a university in Beijing. During this time, he was busy doing research for his thesis. During this period, Li Liang's tutor also talked with him about the integrity of scientific research, but Li Liang didn't pay much attention to these words. ? "In fact, everyone knows the truth of academic integrity. Of course, we won't cheat if we can cheat, but sometimes some systems will force you to know that it is wrong and have to "take some risks". This can not be solved by the tutor's nagging, nor can it be changed by the tutor's "tossing". Li Liang said. ? Li Liang's views are actually representative. ? In an interview with reporters, the dean of a key university admitted that the academic misconduct of some graduate students was not their original intention. The reason for their plagiarism was that they didn't understand the rules or were forced by the current system. "For example, a typical example is to ask doctoral students to publish several papers in key journals, which is obviously unreasonable and violates the laws of education." ? The dean said that many older educators in China do not advocate that students publish papers in a short time. For example, Fu Sinian, acting president of Peking University and president of Taiwan Province Provincial University, once set a rule for young scholars that "articles are not allowed to be published within three years" and persisted for a long time. "According to the law of scholarship, a doctoral student who has only been in school for three years is far from reaching the corresponding academic level. Ask him to publish an article, otherwise he can't graduate. This system is actually "forcing" students to make mistakes. " ? In fact, at a meeting two years ago, Zheng Shiling, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tongji University, pointed out that some colleges and universities set unreasonable hard targets for graduate students to publish papers. "Taking architecture as an example, there are not many professional journals in China, only two of which are listed as first-class publications, but some universities stipulate that doctoral students must publish at least three papers during their studies. Even if these magazines are used to publish doctoral theses, they will not be published. " ? "In this case, graduate students want to make" achievements "within the specified time, even if they understand that plagiarism is immoral, they have to take some measures. In other words, quite a few graduate students' academic misconduct actually stems from the irrationality of the system itself. Therefore, it is imperative to make some changes to the assessment criteria of graduate students. The object of accountability should be the system maker. As for the accountability of the tutor, it is not so important. " The dean said.