A Legal Perspective on Academic Plagiarism of Research Writing in Malaysian Universities

Abstract

Plagiarism is acknowledged as dangerous, especially when academicians are accused of being engaged in malpractice in publishing their research papers. The increased amount of online access to research led to academic dishonesty and plagiarism rising in higher learning institutions. It is challenging to balance the academic and public interest demand with the intervention of globalisation in education, which introduces the hegemonic world ranking universities. Plagiarism has resulted in the unoriginality of research outputs which can affect the knowledge in the future. It also resulted in the academicians abusing their honour while writing research papers in whatever discipline of knowledge. This is a severe problem that needs a quick reform to the legal framework. From the qualitative data, the study believes that by having a proper provision relating to plagiarism in the legal framework, especially for the academicians, plagiarism cases in the educational institution may be reduced. The current existing policies and guidelines should be inserted directly into any relevant Act or rules and regulation to be imposed on the parties involved. The government needs to produce a fair and standard provision on plagiarism in dealing with the weaknesses or loopholes in the educational institution policies and regulations for academic integrity to be upheld.