Once upon a time, there were two plagiarizers…
That’s how most stories start. And that’s how our story starts about two of ORCA’s favorite plagiarizers.
In a beautiful spring day, ORCA publicly denounced two professors – Ardian Kastrati and Bujar Dugolli, for plagiarism. In this conference, ORCA showed that a paper by both professors, which was used for academic promotions, was stolen from various sources.
And what happened you may wonder?
…
Absolutely nothing.
ORCA comes out again on October 1st (we’re aware of the irony thank you) in another conference, and files the entire file in the Council of Ethics of the University of Prishtina. Now the ball is truly on UP’s court. And if there’s something we possess as an organization, is patience.
After six months, dear readers, the Council of Ethics – with its incredibly intellectual professors – says “hey we actually aren’t experts on plagiarism, we should find someone”.
Once more – we are a very very patient organization – we write to the journal where the paper was published. A week later – because they are normal people who treat plagiarism with the urgency it demands – the journal replies that “having this paper in our journal is completely unacceptable, oh god what has happened”, and they withdraw the paper. This happens in March 2022.
After two-and-a-bit months, dear readers, the Council of Ethics decides. For the first time – while we’re in this game – the Council of Ethics proves that a paper is plagiarism, and that the professors have committed serious offenses, violating the standards of academic conduct. Heavy words right? Which are supposed to be followed by heavy sanctions, right?
No.
The Council of Ethics said that this plagiarized paper cannot be used any more for academic promotions. Too bad, right? But don’t worry, it’s already been used once.
Also, dear readers, if you had dreamt of being mentored by these professors in your theses, you will have to wait two or three years. Because they are not allowed to mentor in the meantime.
When we received this decision we wanted to go through the roof…and we did. As a sign of protest, the heroes of this story dropped a huuuuuuuge banner from the roof of the Faculty of Philosophy, to show the students that their professors are confirmed plagiarizers.
ORCA was asking to expel these professors from the university – as it happens in any normal country. Or at minimum, to revoke their academic ranks that they gained through plagiarism. The professors wanted to cancel the decision for procedural violations.
And to make it better with both of us, the University of Prishtina Senate said “you know what, it’d be amazing if we did a regulation that would prevent this in the future”.
Great! And in the meantime?
Plagiarizers continue to teach, we continue to denounce, and the story never ends.
Once upon a time there were two plagiarizers in the university, and we hope they won’t be soon.
