The case of Reginald Smith at Queen’s a decade ago

“Queen’s caught up in bitter ‘self-plagiarism debate”
–Margaret Munro, postmedia http://www.canada.com/technology/queen+caught+bitter+self+plagarism+debate/3959947/story.html

Munro: “Four of Smith’s papers have subsequently been retracted by scientific journals at the urging of whistleblowers Mort Shirkhanzadeh and Chris Pickles of Queen’s mining and materials department. The most recent retraction this fall was made by the European and British editors of the Journal of Materials Processing Technology, who pulled one of Smith’s duplicate papers saying it was “a severe abuse of the scientific publishing system.””

Munro: “He [professor steve iscoe] says the Smith case raises several troubling questions, including whether the repeat publications helped him obtain federal grants and whether Queen’s students are being held to a different standard than professors. Queen’s integrity rules say “submitting the same piece of work in more than one course without the permission of the instructor(s)” qualifies as plagiarism.

“Queen’s 2005 internal investigation in the Smith case, which NSERC described as lacking thoroughness and “not sufficiently” arm’s length, concluded there was “no evidence” Smith had engaged in plagiarism.”