To compare and contrast coverage and outcome of the Jason Arday scandal with that of Cambridge plagiarist William O'Reilly

[OneArtfulUmberSquid]

Partly due to being an academic, the slow news season and the sensationalism, like many people I've been following the Jason Arday story and have been appalled by the scale of the fabulation and the abysmal lack of due diligence by Cambridge when they appointed him - I've also been appalled by how he was presented by the University when he was hired in terms of the emphasis on his back story and what he represented rather than his scholarship.

It's interesting to compare/contrast with the case of William O'Reilly - who was caught plagiarising his own undergrad students' essays and was then found to have plagiarised other scholars' work a number of times before...see https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/27433

He also threatened to sue student journalists for exposing him - not as bad as Arday calling the police, but still pretty risible
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/26105

A further issue relates to his witness for the accused in a rape case despite being involved in the investigation.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/feb/22/cambridge-university-sexual-misconduct-cases
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/18747

I'd be interested to know what anyone else thinks of the two cases in terms of academic misconduct and outcomes, particularly anyone who works in Cambridge. O'Reilly claimed that the scrutinising of his work was due to homophobia.

More here but behind a paywall
https://www.ft.com/content/ae7f16ae-95ab-4aae-a676-0748e3e61b6d?shareType=nongift&syn-25a6b1a6=1

I have a dyslexic DD studying engineering at uni. She’s doing really well. I have worked with dyslexic engineers, who were excellent problem solvers due to original thinking. A lad down the street with autism got an integrated masters in physics and is thriving at a regulator crunching numbers.

None of these people would make good lawyers or English literature professors. Horses for courses, no? I have another child at a fancy American law firm in the city, who dropped out of A level math in week 3.

I think Stock was saying that accommodation is fine for people with relevant talent, but cannot excuse a lack of talent.

@DinnerinfrontoftheTV Some engineers write detailed reports and some do not when they are working so I don't see that as a barrier to doing that job. As you say, for law or English - yes. There’s degrees of how much dc are impacted too. Yes, lack of talent cannot be compensated for but this is now a national industry because everyone must be equal.

Very much agree.

Doesn’t a lot of this stem from the, “You can be anything you want” message that was being pushed not so long ago?

Sorry - and sad fact of life - you can’t. We all have strengths and weakness in many different areas. I’m all for ambition, breaking down barriers and recognition being given to those that overcome obstacles, but young people entering the workplace also need to be realistic about their own particular skill set and adapting to that, rather than an expectation that they can have it all just by being themselves.

The best thing we can, and should be teaching our children is tenacity and resilience, not that they have an automatic right to any career they want.

@WinterGold Yes, I think aspiration for some people is wholly justified but others are unlikely to succeed for a variety of reasons. We are just not honest enough about limitations that should be recognised as preventing a certain career. We are not all equal.

I took Kathleen Stock's observation to be what's happened as a result of telling us that we can be and do anything we wish and that there are no obstacles that can't be overcome with "reasonable adjustments" (which often spill into UNreasonable adjustments). It's kind of a corollary of this cartoon about how we can't expect everyone to be equal, only now it's that we have to provide the means for the fish, penguin, seal, dog and elephant to be able to climb the tree!

Your point is completely reasonable, but if Stock meant that she should have said it.

I think she wrote something deliberately inflammatory because it would encourage more people to talk about it - as we are doing. She’s entitled to say whatever she likes, and we’re entltled to think she’s a bit of a twat.

@SylvanMoon Yes. That’s totally the issue. We should expect academics to be the best in their fields. They should not be “bumped up” with acceptance of poor doctorates, lack of scrutiny or filling a quota or similar. Neither should this be accepted within other professional occupations.

We are all equal, we’re just not all the same.

If we take what JA said at face value no one disadvantaged should have been ‘put off the scent’ by educators etc if they wanted to be an astrophysicist etc. With scaffolding, support, a shadow (if required) these lofty ambitions really could be realised.by all.

Of course it's not just talent and ability that helps people do well - emotional intelligence and adaptability can go a very long way to support people working in a particular field in different roles. Also, despite a lot of the reductive talk about people being promoted 'beyond their ability' due to over zealous application of DEI, other 'unfair' factors are probably more prevalent in success such as nepotism.

I think nepotism and subjective factors come into play a lot more in subjective subjects and roles. Therefore humanities is more contested than STEM and there are a lot of nepo babies in acting. Cambridge is not having these controversies over in the physics lab.

Think of all the growth around Cambridge due to life sciences and how important it is for the whole country. Then consider how much you want to accommodate candidates despite a lack of talent. We think this stuff doesn’t matter do much in the Education department. It does. It filters through to every child in the country.

Stock definitely referred to autism as an intellectual disability which is extraordinary within itself as so many of the brightest minds have been autistic. Having someone with autism whose special interest is some particularly beneficial area of research is considered an asset.

I don't know how 'talent' is assessed in the Education department - it really depends on what someone is hired for. Some of the discussions on here suggest intelligence or talent or ability is almost a tangible, quantifiable thing but of course so much more is involved.
I don't want to rake over his appointment again or get into debates about it, but JA had a pretty good h-score, was a lovely and encouraging presence for his students (going on the positive accounts), was able to have an impact in that he was media-friendly and so his talent was apparent across a few domains.

Right...and there are many autistic people working in universities and pretty doggedly engaged with 'scholarly pursuits' as she puts it. It's why her comments are so dumb

I don’t know what an h-score is but I agree he came across as very nice and caring which is why I assume so many people were drawn to defend him and were so believing of his extraordinary claims. How could someone so nice be a liar?

However I watched a section of a lecture he was giving about the impact of different barriers on classroom learning (so something I’m a prime audience for) and he was using big words and sounding like he knew what he was talking about but as I waited for his point to reveal itself and I was struggling to follow what he was saying, I realised that the problem wasn’t me, but was him. It was just waffle.

The h-score is based on how many publications the academic has and how many citations of his work have been made by others. I can't believe that JA's h-index was all that outstanding compared to other professorial chair candidates.

This article goes through JA's h-index (and other issues such as the plagiarism). I don't necessarily agree with the thrust of it, but have seen similar reports of his h-index. It doesn't seem stellar but I've read elsewhere that is was variously in top 5% and 10% of researchers at a similar stage. So it's defensible as well above average. I think there does need to be some nuance introduced to the prevailing narrative on here that he was plucked out of a PE teaching job, copied everything he ever published and that his appointment to a non-traditional Cambridge chair was absolutely outlandish (this is obviously leaving the back story aside as that's been raked over so many times)

giorgio.gilest.ro/four-lies-arday/

This article explains a rebuttal tweet I saw that criticised the 4.2% plagiarised figure in it. It takes ‘how much of this thesis was copied from a specific piece of work?’ and compares it to plagiarism percentages of other pieces of work based on how similar they are to any piece of work,

What is Arday’s plagiarism score when it is not restricted to be compared with only that earlier thesis?

I haven't seen a plagiarism score - Cofnas said 2/10 articles that were examined via Copyleaks were extensively plagiarised, and the 'procedures' section (not main article) of another one was. Corrections seem to have been issued for the two main ones. Not sure if the 2/10 constitutes extreme plagiarism, obviously it's not good to plagiarise anything, but (to go back to the OG question) it's not half as bad as copying your undergrad students' work and then denying it/threatening to sue (O'Reilly was found to have plagiarised other work in at least two other publications).
It makes Arday's involvement of the police when he'd already dealt with the PhD plagiarism and article plagiarism more puzzling.

That 4.2% score comes from the article you linked to.

I was answering your question What is Arday’s plagiarism score when it is not restricted to be compared with only that earlier thesis?
Obviously I know the 4.2% in relation to the thesis. I meant that I have not seen a plagiarism score that includes his other work.

I think Blair’s policy has caused
much of the problems.

we should hope education produces well rounded individuals with knowledge of a variety of subjects - not just the academic achievement and entrance to uni

@OneArtfulUmberSquid That may be the case but it depends what they are doing and what interaction is required with others, including students. As said below, there are differences in people and surely the role of the academic matters? They should not be beavering away in a vacuum.

Sorry, what might be the case? If it's to do with h-index etc - I was just saying that on paper he was more appointable than many posters seem to be suggesting.

@OneArtfulUmberSquid Sorry, I meant that he was caring.

That’s just one index of suitability though. There’s way more to a job offer than that. Eg teaching history, cv, published peer reviewed work, etc. It seems a narrow profile to justify appointment might well have been used.

@Corianda Why Tony Blair? 5 years before he became PM we had the huge increase in the number of universities via the 1992 act. A Conservative piece of legislation. This made colleges of HE and Polytechnics and Teacher Training colleges into universities. This greatly expanded the sector and was in full flow before Tony Blair ever said anything in 1999! He just wanted bums on seats and a better educated workforce - which we have. In 2013/14 the cap on student numbers was lifted by (trumpet) the Conservatives! Labour was not the true driver of this.