Emperor's New Clothes

Dear colleagues,
It has been a couple of months since we signed the letter to the Minister expressing our concern regarding the prevalence of academic misconduct in Iranian Higher Education. Then I met the minister in a state function. I was just one of the faceless multitudes in the crowd who had to sit through his speech outlining the shining beacon that is the Iranian science and technology and then the same old story of shell games, the Citation counts and how we are catching up with the Turks. Although I have been accused as a highly motivated individual, I believe that we shall see no response from the Ministry. Yes send the letter to the newspapers and our colleagues around Iran. But I would be definitely surprised if there would be any tangible outcome.

A colleague of mine, Dr. E. Hejazi had recently supervised a thesis dealing with factors influencing a students propensity towards cheating. while her research was confined to highschool, during her brief talk with me, it seemed that that the pattern is alarmingly similar to the one we discovered at ISL. The culture of cheating is becoming all but institutionalized. ISL recently entered an agreement with a number of European watchdogs on academic conduct to adopt and promote some of their protocols here. For this I need to thank all the colleagues who have graciously supplied me with their opinions. To me it seems that the problem stems from a crisis in National Scientific Identity that relies more heavily on appearances than substance.
However, I believe that the best approach is to work at grass roots. Why not stage a day seminar on the subject? How many of us are willing to chip in?

With best regards

Nader Naghshineh
Information Studies Lab
University of Tehran