In 2003, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) lecturers Professor Turiman Suandi and (now Dr.) Zoharah Omar produced a 64-page book entitled “Writing an Effective Resume”, ISBN number 9832871107 and call number 808.06665 ZOH.
It sells for RM16.50 and can be found in various libraries around the country, not just at UPM.
However, someone later someone found and reported that “a substantial part” of the book was actually copied, almost word-for-word off the websites of a few US universities.
The worst part is they actually profited from the sales.
If this was the work of students, nobody would raise an eyebrow. But professors and PhD holders?
As listed in UPM’s website:
- Professor Dr Turiman Suandi is the Deputy Dean (Student Affairs & QA) of School of Graduate Studies, with a PhD in Extension Education and Youth Development from Ohio State University in 1991. He works in the Department of Professional Development and Continuing Education.
- Dr Zoharah Omar is a senior lecturer and holds a PhD in Psychology specializing in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from UKM. She works in the Department of Professional Development and Continuing Education.
Being the principal writer of the book, let’s look more into her background as displayed in UPM’s website:
Before her appointment as a Lecturer… … in 2003, she worked as the Legal and Human Resource Manager in a multinational manufacturing company for 7 years. She was responsible for the strategic human resource planning and development as well as handling industrial relations matters. She was also actively involved in assisting the Ministry of Human Resource to promote in-house sexual harassment policy to industries. She was also the Industrial Court Panel representing employers. Prior to that, she worked as a lawyer in an advocate and solicitors firm in Kuala Lumpur and has also worked as the Market Supervision Division Executive at the Securities Commission. She was the investigating and prosecuting officer handling securities industry cases and was involved in the development of policy and procedure for licensing under the Securities Industry Act 1983.
Since her appointment as a Lecturer, she has been involved in several researches and paper presentation activities at both national as well as international level. Besides that, she is actively involved in community services such as delivering public speech to graduates on resume writing, job interview and preparation for employment. She is also involved in consultancy work, and she is currently a consultant and a resource person to a multinational company.
Dr Zoharah, who had recently received her PhD, was quoted to have justified her action by saying that “since the source was from the Internet, she thought the information was in the public domain and as such did not cite the article.”
Both authors then apologised for their ignorance.
Ignorance? If that came from a lesser mortal I would’ve not blinked an eye, but this is a university lecturer and PhD holder to boot. What kind of excuse is that???
As Sharon Bakar commented:
No academic can ever make the excuse of ignorance or carelessness, since their whole training is in how to access, use and build on the intellectual property of others.
Professor Turiman also got into trouble because he was the co-author and that “the manuscript looked all right to him, not realising that it was taken from another work.”
They were then given a “stern warning” by UPM to be included in their personal file. That might not be as bad as a suspension, but that means their pace in climbing up the ladder would be curtailed or slowed down.
They are also expected to return any royalty received.
Source
The Star, 15 Sept 2009
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