In Albania, senior officials and academics have been accused of plagiarizing scientific research. Student protests in 2018 demanded the revision of academic titles and a digital archive of theses. While the market for academic papers flourishes on the Internet, academic and state institutions give contradictory statements on the state of the problem and the steps taken to fix it.
Author Klerisa Azuni
Taulant Balla, Minister of the Interior, Mimi Kodheli, former Minister of Defense, Ogerta Manastirliu, Minister of Education, Evis Kushi, former Minister of Education, Lindita Nikolla, Speaker of the Parliament, Ulsi Manja, Minister of Justice, are just some of them. to the representatives of the Albanian state, for whom strong accusations were raised a few years ago that they copied their scientific research at the doctorate level. The accusations were made public after a study conducted by Taulant Muka, Alfonc Rakaj, Vladimir Kola and others.
Plagiarism as an academic concept consists in not respecting copyright, presenting someone else's work as an original, personal production.
The problems that plagiarism brings to society are serious. Professor Fatos Tarifa says that plagiarism has already become an integral part of the crisis that the education system is facing these years. Copying, i.e. plagiarism, creates a mentality of taking things easily in a society, it makes it lazy, when it sees that, in the environment it is in, things can be earned without working.
"The biggest risk is the chain effect that this problem brings from generation to generation, considering it normal and acceptable as a method. Plagiarism commits ethical and moral violations, which alienate the development of society", says Tarifa.
Plagiarism is not only an ethical problem, but also a legal one.
According to Article 148 of the Criminal Code, the publication or use in whole or in part under one's own name of a literary, musical, artistic or scientific work belonging to another constitutes a criminal offense and is punishable by a fine or imprisonment of up to two years.
Plagiarism is not a new problem, but it was brought into the spotlight in December 2018 by the student protest.
One of their requests was "Review of academic titles and verification of doctorate plagiarism".
The solution that was offered to this request, with VKM 777, 26.12 2018, was: Creation of the Digital Archive of Doctorates in the Republic of Albania at MASR.
The ministry responsible for education would submit the digital, anti-plagiarism control reports to the universities.
The implementation of this decision started in June 2019.
How is the situation today, more than 5 years later? Act on the university?
The Ministry of Education was asked about the plagiarism software currently in use and the institutions that have access to it.
The ministry did not mention the name of the anti-plagiarism program it has made available, but from this mysterious anti-plagiarism program "12 public universities have benefited for a period of 1 year". ACQJ tried to get a reaction from the media spokesperson of this institution, but until the moment of publication of this article there was no reaction.
To learn more about the access that universities have to this anti-plagiarism program, three representatives of Albanian universities were also interviewed.
Mr. Arben Gjata, rector of the University of Medicine, affirmed the existence of the program, the name of which he did not remember, stressing that there has been no case of plagiarism in the University of Medicine over the years.
"I don't remember the name, but it was the program of those Kosovars that made an agreement", he said.
Asked if the anti-plagiarism program has been made available by the Ministry of Education, the deputy dean of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tirana, Prof. Dr. Fatmir Memaj said: "I don't have this information. It is not my field, because it is the field of the vice-dean of education".
The Vice Dean of the Faculty of Philology, Prof. Nor. Dr. Elsa Skenderi said: "This faculty has no access to any plagiarism program, enabled by the ministry."
In relation to the manner in which the degree thesis is judged Bachelor and Master Degrees , prof. Skenderi clarified that this evaluation is performed only on the basis of the expertise of the lecturer. "If there are strong suspicions of plagiarism, the student is penalized."
Regarding the verification of doctorates through the anti-plagiarism program, the deputy dean of the faculty responds:
"It's a technical aspect that I don't know very well, but I know that there are some companies that are certified that offer the service."
We do degrees and doctorates
The situation in public institutions is unclear, but on the pages online, where the service of doing the subjects of diplomas, doctorates, scientific researches, help in exams, etc. is offered, the structure is very well organized.
In the social network Instagram There are many sites that offer the papers Master Degrees and Doctorate. The level of competition in this market is reflected in the many advertisements. IN Instagram, for example, the sponsorship option is used, which by means of payment distributes the advertisement to many profiles.
Dr. Taulant Muka says that when he published the names of these pages on his personal profiles on social networks to unmask them, these pages thanked him for the advertisement, not worrying or fearing the consequences of their non- ethical.
These businesses offer discounts on the occasion of events, where they invite potential customers to hurry, as the offer is not to be missed. Theses are proudly posted with university logos as indicators of the success of their work. Their profiles indicate that they work with academic staff, and they even publish calls for employees, inviting applicants to send CVs for the job position "Creation of diploma/doctoral theses".
ACQJ contacted 27 sites providing this service and received responses from 23 of them. Prices start from €30 to €610 for works Master Degrees , performed in English. The average price is 20.000 ALL-25.000 ALL. Payment is usually made in installments through bank transfers, Moneygram, Western Union, but also the glove.
Most of the sites offer papers from all branches and the way of operation is the same. The topic is worked on in stages, according to the instructions of the degree leader.
At the moment the leader orients him, the student initiates communication with the pages and they complete the work that is then sent to the lecturer. This process is done several times, until the theme is finalized. The student performs only the role of the carrier between the orientation of the subject leader and the service provider.
Prof. Fatmir Memaj says that such a thing cannot happen.
As a degree leader he often returns the work to the student for improvements, and for these frequent returns the sites would require more money, which would be difficult to secure.
"Can you imagine what costs she can give the student? It gives a very high cost, because it returns once, twice, three times...".
To provide security to the client, these sites also enable him to anti-plagiarism test the work. 10 of them use anti-plagiarism software, Turnitin.
This program cannot be purchased by anyone.
The annual cost to purchase this program is $5000-$10000.
An institution license must be provided to purchase it. Access is then granted to employees with Email with one domain related to the institution.
How can these sites get access to this expensive program? A program which, even if money can be secured, is impossible to buy from individuals.
Fatos Tarifa, Irena Myzeqari and Taulant Muka have the same answer: "Even the academic staff is involved in this business". This is confirmed by the pages themselves. Also, Prof. Fee and Dr. Muka leaves open the possibility of direct involvement by universities.
Can this phenomenon be minimized?
Fatmir Memaj says that it is something elusive and that it will always exist.
"It is the same as corruption. Is there corruption in the public administration? It exists.
What is caught, is caught, what is not caught, is not caught".
Prof. The fee says that we are dealing with a global phenomenon, but underlines that the level of plagiarism in the world is different from that of Albania. There it is not a question of template works, but of much smaller problems, in citations or references.
To minimize this phenomenon, prof. The fee raises the idea of vetting the Professorship, where each professor must appear before a committee and justify how he got the degrees, because "students cannot be held accountable for plagiarism without asking their professors first." .
Dr. Irena Myzeqari says that increasing the role of the Ethical Council in universities would make the works produced be of better quality.
Uljad Berdica, is developing his doctorate in the field of Robotics at the University of Oxfordin the United Kingdom.
He says that students, in order to check their work, have access to the plagiarism program (Turnitin) In the case of professional organizations, Uljadi mentions IEEE cross check, emphasizing that the programs are used more to see the students' work, since in the case of doctoral students it is no longer a question of template plagiarism, which can be detected by the program.
Database, forgotten promise
As part of the package of the new Law on Higher Education, the Ministry of Education included the establishment of the National Agency for Scientific Research. This institution was established on 31.08.2916, with VKM No. 607.
There are two main tasks: the distribution of funds for scientific research programs and the administration of the national database for scientific research in the higher education system.
This database was expected to include and make public the list of defended dissertations and doctorates and the corresponding abstracts; the list of second and third cycle diploma theses, defended, and the corresponding abstracts in one of the five languages of the European Union: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian; and the updated list of the scientific contribution of academic and research personnel of higher education institutions.
One of the expectations of this database was its use to reduce the possibility of plagiarism, as well as to facilitate access to submitted and protected works.
However, this database is not found today.
ACQJ sent the National Agency for Scientific Research a request for comment on how far the expectations that this institution had since its establishment have been met and how the objectives and tasks have been met, such as the administration of the scientific research database; making public the list of defended dissertations and doctorates and the relevant abstracts; as well as the list of protected diploma theses of the second and third cycle and the corresponding abstracts in one of the five languages of the European Union: English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.
Until the moment of publication of this article, AKKS has not given any comment regarding the fulfillment of the above tasks, as well as whether the objectives and expectations, for which this institution was established, have been fulfilled.
This article is part of the Investigative Journalism Laboratory project, which is financially supported by the Public Relations Office of the US Embassy in Tirana. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Department of State.
