Decoo's painstaking study of the doctoral dissertation case makes an excellent contribution to thinking about academic misconduct. This case study provides not only a detailed test bed for hard questions raised later in the book, but a rich tool for pedagogy.
Helen Nissenbaum, Department of Culture and Communication, New York University
This bold and timely contribution to research and scholarship will assist the research community, especially doctoral students, in avoiding the pitfalls of unethical research designed to expedite results. The book appears in a context in which the commercial sector pressures a few scholars to release to medical journals papers with dubious research methodology and reported outcomes. The creation of a software tool capable of analyzing such abuses is particularly welcome, and Colpaert and Decoo should be commended for this.
Philippe Delcloque, Senior Enterprise Academic, Manchester Science Enterprise Centre, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST)
Decoo charges right into academic misconduct of all kinds, not just FFP (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism). His criticisms rattle the very foundations of the academic reward system.
Frank L. Borchardt, Professor, Duke University
Decoo presents a problem that many colleagues involved in academic assessment aren't yet aware of. The generalized use of the Internet and the increasing efficiency of search engines have considerably increased the possibility that students will copy and paste Web publications and present the results as their own original work. Decoo demonstrates that the borderline between acceptable and unacceptable use of other people's work is not always clear and that there is a growing need for an academic code of conduct on this issue. This book is particularly interesting because it discusses not only possible solutions for the detection of plagiarism but also measures that can help prevent this kind of academic misconduct.
Jos Dumortier, Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and Information Technology, University of Leuven
