It’s not always university students who caught in assignment plagiarism and punished by teachers as this time it’s the Executive Director of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Arshad Ali who has caught in a case of heavy plagiarism in his research papers. And before any action by HEC,he resigned from his post.
According to reports, his dismissal was in progress and the Executive Director resigned to avoid that. According to the spokesperson of HEC, Ayesha Ikram, Dr. Arshad had resigned to maintain the commission’s goodwill against any potential harm.
“Dr. Arshad Ali has resigned on the basis of his own decision in order to prevent further adverse impact upon the organization because of the ongoing controversy over the allegation against him,” she says in a statement.
In this regard a committee was probing the case, and after finding 60 % plagiarism in his research paper, the committee had recommended Dr. Arshad’s termination after.
“A Taxonomy and Survey of Grid Resource Planning and Reservation Systems for Grid-Enabled Analysis Environment,” published in 2014.
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Turnitin, which is the commission’s official plagiarism-checking software,found that the said research paper of Dr. Arshad was heavily plagiarized froma foreign author from the University of Texas. And reportedly, he used that research paper to complete his degree.
It is important to mention here that theplagiarism investigationwas started few months ago by commission’s Plagiarism Standing against ED. But, even after gathering the findings in April 2018, the commission did not take any kind of action.
It’s not about single paper, plagiarism also found in other papers
Well, the saga is not end hereasafter the commission found plagiarism in Dr. Arshad’s research paper, the Quality Assurance Department reviewed eleven other papers authored by him and found heavy plagiarism there as well.
Following the incident, chairman formed a panel team comprising Vice Chancellors of the major universities to make sure that justice is distributed. After this development, the panel also offers a chance to Dr. Arshad to defend his case.
The panel recommended on imposing the penalty. On the other hand, the plagiarism committee also showed concerns over this act by the ED, considering that the ED holds a very important position of principal accounting officer of the organization.
This incident will hit the moral standing of the organization, which itself is supposed to make sure the academic integrity in institutions all over the country.
