On Ferreting Out Fraud
We envy universities who have antifraud squads in the sciences.1 Our university not only slipped badly in past AsiaWeek surveys of Asian universities (mercifully when AsiaWeek folded up, the annual ranking stopped), but has been struggling with shortsighted, stopgap, and ineffective solutions to shore up its merit system in academic appointments, promotions and grant of tenure, and research capabilities. Instead of actively seeking research funding, we make do with smaller and smaller slices of the funding pie.
Research outputs end up as "technical reports" which are woefully inadequately peer reviewed. Undergraduate students working on their theses supplant research assistants, an alarming trend because the overwhelming majority of such students are merely passing through on their way to medical schools; they devote only about five months or less on thesis work, at the same time [they] attend to other undergraduate courses. Thus, the technical reports that...
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