Ohio University's Russ College of Engineering has paid consultant Ellis Hutt more than $30,000 since last July to review student plagiarism allegations, one year after it decided to seek an outside reviewer to remove the perception of bias.
Almost five years ago, then-engineering graduate student Tom Matrka reported numerous cases of plagiarism to OU judiciaries. The allegations became public in May 2005. Matrka continues to find and report alleged cases of plagiarism to legal affairs.
Last May, the college announced it would hire someone outside the college but inside OU to review plagiarism allegations, but when no one inside of OU surfaced, the search turned to external consultants.
Several people (within OU) were asked
said Colleen Carrow, the college's director of external communications, But none fit for any number of reasons.
Jim Rankin, who became chairman of the college's Research Integrity Committee in July, said he located Hutt soon after the search became external.
We looked for someone with an engineering background with editing experience and who had worked with engineering research in the past
Rankin said. We found our reviewer right after we started looking.
Hutt is responsible for preparing a casebook for each suspect thesis and sending it to the Academic Honesty Hearing Committee for review, a job formerly done by the Research Integrity Committee. If the honesty committee concludes a thesis must be rewritten, a professional outside the university must approve the rewritten thesis.
The honesty committee has reviewed 58 cases as of April 30. Of those cases, four were dismissed, 36 theses were rewritten and one degree was revoked. The remaining 17 hearings have yet to be concluded.
Hutt has been paid $31,149.26 through April. According to Rankin, Hutt determines how much he charges per case.
Rankin said the process transitioned seamlessly from internal to external.
The external review has worked well
Rankin said. We could do the review internally
but you have to worry about the perception of bias.
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Wesley Lowery
