Li Zongjun may not have thought that his own thoughts six years ago, in just 10 days, quickly led to a huge plagiarism storm.
Li Zongjun, 43, is a professor at Hunan Agricultural University, and currently serves as the dean of the College of Food Science and Technology. Li’s academic career record has been very good. Until 10 days ago, he received an email from an anonymous netizen, pointing out that an article published in Journal of Microbiology in 2005 was suspected of plagiarism.
The anonymous whistleblower also sent the email to the editorial department of Journal of Microbiology and our reporter. On July 12, our reporter found in the investigation that Li Zongjun was also suspected of making two contributions.
All the surveys point to a time, 2005. This year, 37-year-old Li Zongjun was promoted to professor. Is it that a teacher doesn’t cultivate his body, or is the academic evaluation mechanism impetuous? Our reporter launched an investigation on this.
Questioning: Plagiarism or for "exceptional promotion"?
Li Zongjun’s allegedly plagiarized article "The Relationship among Growth Temperature, Membrane Fatty Acid Composition and Stress Resistance of Escherichia coli" (hereinafter referred to as "Li Wen") was published in the third issue of Vol.45 of Journal of Microbiology in June 2005.
The plagiarized article comes from "Role of Membrane Fluidity in Pressure Resistance of Escherichia coli NCTC 8164" in the academic journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology under the American Society for Microbiology (author B.M.Mackey et al., hereinafter referred to as "article A"), which was published in December 2002.
On the morning of July 11th, the editor of Journal of Microbiology quickly replied after receiving the verification email from our reporter: he had received several emails from the whistleblower before, and received a report phone call when he went to work early in the morning, which will be reported to the editorial board and handled as soon as possible.
Comparing Li Zongjun’s article with A, the reporter found that the two articles are basically the same in structure, including five parts: abstract, research materials and methods, research results, analysis and discussion, and references.
In the abstract part, the views and data in Li Wen and A are exactly the same; In the material part, E.coli NCTC8164 from Britain is used in article A, E.coli ATCC80739 from Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences is purchased by Li Wen, and the high-pressure equipment used in article A is American equipment, and Li Wen uses the equipment produced by Baotou 52 Institute, Inner Mongolia, China, but the research methods and conditions used are exactly the same as those in article A; In the part of research results, Li Wenzhong’s chart is only slightly different from the original text in temperature range and scale interval, while the data table is exactly the same as the English article in format and content; In the part of analysis and discussion, Li Wen is less than one of the five discussion contents in article A, and the rest are exactly the same; In the reference section, A cited 46 documents, and 14 of the 15 documents cited by Li Zongjun were the same as A.
During the investigation, the reporter found that Li Zongjun’s other two articles had multiple contributions.
On the 11th, the Journal of Microbiology sent an e-mail, which preliminarily confirmed that Li Wen had plagiarized article A..
On July 12th, Journal of Microbiology sent an inquiry email to Li Zongjun, asking him to verify the plagiarism.
Coincidentally, Li Zongjun’s alleged three academic misconduct broke out in 2005. This year, Li Zongjun was promoted to professor.
According to the reporter’s inquiry, Hunan Agricultural University stipulates that professor applicants need to publish 10 papers and one monograph in the name of the first author in national academic journals and national core journals recognized by the school as one of the conditions for exceptional promotion.
Did Li Zongjun plagiarize because of his exceptional promotion? Our correspondent in Hunan contacted Li himself and Hunan Agricultural University for verification.
Reduction: 2005 of the scholars of the poor family
Li Zongjun was born in an ordinary peasant family. In 1990, he graduated from Hunan Agricultural University with the first undergraduate degree in food science and technology, and stayed in school. Nine years later, he obtained a doctorate from Nanjing Agricultural University with a bachelor’s degree. After graduating from Ph.D. in 2002, he entered the State Key Laboratory of Biomacromolecules of Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences for postdoctoral research.
In 2004, Li Zongjun, who was still an associate professor at that time, returned to Hunan after completing postdoctoral research. In this regard, the College of Food Science and Technology published an article on its website, saying that Li Zongjun "has profound academic attainments in the field of food science" and that "Li Zongjun’s return to work will certainly play an important role in strengthening the discipline construction of the college and improving the level of teachers. So far, Associate Professor Li Zongjun is the first person in the College of Food Science and Technology to complete postdoctoral research in food science.
In 2005, Li Zongjun was promoted to professor, and in 2010, he became the dean of the College of Food Science and Technology of Hunan Agricultural University. In the meantime, he won many honors, including excellent teachers in Hunan Province and the training targets of leaders of food science disciplines in Hunan Province.
In 2005, Li Zongjun systematically evaluated the safety of Dong traditional sour meat for the first time, and obtained a meat starter microorganism with independent intellectual property rights. Its research results have been appraised by Hunan province, which fills the gap in domestic research and the overall technology has reached the international advanced level.
In 2005, for Li Zongjun, it was a year of grand slam, if these three academic misconduct were not found six years later.
On July 13th, the reporter interviewed Professor Jianghan Lake from College of Science, Technology and Food of Nanjing Agricultural University, and he still remembered the doctoral student he had supervised. "Li Zongjun worked hard during his Ph.D., and his thesis was about the isolation and identification of Dong sour meat fermentation bacteria, which was done well."
Li Zongjun studied the separation of starter cultures in Hunan Agricultural University before he studied PhD. He was the first researcher on sour meat of Dong people in China. According to Professor Jiang, Li Zongjun’s doctoral thesis is very detailed and distinctive, and some of it won the first prize in the academic conference of the Food Processing Research Association.
After learning that Li Zongjun was suspected of plagiarism, Jiang said with regret: "According to the truth, this phenomenon is obviously not right. Many problems have contributed to the frequent occurrence of academic misconduct and have a great impact on the development of disciplines. Such things should be dealt with. "
Explanation: Plagiarism happens for a reason.
In the early morning of July 14th, Journal of Microbiology received a response from Li Zongjun. Li claimed that the alleged plagiarism had nothing to do with Hunan Agricultural University, and he himself was a victim, without knowing it beforehand.
Li Zongjun explained that it happened from 2002 to 2004, when he was doing research at the postdoctoral mobile station of Xingfa Enterprise in Inner Mongolia Grassland, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, during which he temporarily hired an assistant, and his personal profile said that he obtained a master’s degree in the UK. The alleged plagiarism stems from a Chinese research report provided by an assistant. After that, the assistant left and Li Zongjun lost contact with him.
After the postdoctoral doctor left the station in 2004, Li Zongjun reread the assistant’s research report, thinking that its content was innovative and its writing was relatively standardized, and after finishing it, he voted for the Journal of Microbiology. However, I couldn’t contact the research assistant all the time, so I published an article without authorization in the form of a separate signature.
In response to a question from the Journal of Microbiology, Li Zongjun admitted that he had the problem of poor supervision and publishing assistant articles without authorization in this incident, and apologized to the journal and readers for his bad behavior.
However, when communicating with our reporter, the editor of Journal of Microbiology thought that plagiarism had actually been established. If it was done by an assistant, Li was suspected of plagiarism.
July 15th, Changsha. Our correspondent in Hunan asked Li Zongjun for proof on the alleged plagiarism.
"Considering the network ‘ Virtuality ’ I ignored the email of the netizen, but verified the matter, and then took the initiative to submit a written "Description of the Situation" to the academic Committee of the school, acknowledging that there was something wrong with the article and I was willing to accept the decision made by the school. " Li Zongjun said, "When I provided a written explanation to the school on the 12th, I had not received the inquiry email from Journal of Microbiology."
When the reporter asked about the research assistant, Li Zongjun explained: "The assistant’s surname is Hu, and his colleagues call him Xiao Hu. I can’t remember the specific name, but I remember that he said that he obtained his master’s degree in the UK. He worked for about 9 to 10 months and left in 2004. When he left, he gave me some Chinese information reports. "
Li Zongjun believes that he has the responsibility of oversight. He also said that the research provided by Xiao Hu belongs to the category of theoretical research, and his main scientific research work during his postdoctoral period was entrusted by enterprises to carry out applied horizontal research. In addition, the Institute of Biophysics of Chinese Academy of Sciences has no rigid requirement on the number of papers published by post-doctoral students, and he himself has no motivation to take the initiative to plagiarize.
"At that time, I was young (37 years old) and didn’t consider the consequences. I thought that this work was done by my assistant and should be regarded as a team achievement, so I thought I was qualified to handle it like this." Li Zongjun said regretfully, "There are also academic publications that require information about the author’s unit. After Xiao Hu left, I lost contact with him, so I couldn’t ask for his advice and it was not good to sign his name. I admit that I am wrong, and I have made a plagiarism. "
However, as of press time, the true identity of Xiao Hu has not been further confirmed from relevant witnesses. On the afternoon of the 19th, the relevant leaders of the Institute of Biophysics of Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed to reporters that the Institute had specially convened a meeting on this matter, and started to retrieve Li Zongjun’s files during his post-doctoral workstation research, and will find out the facts as soon as possible.
In addition, Li Zongjun claimed that plagiarism was accidental, not out of promotion pressure. In 2005, he was promoted to professor, mainly because he was the first doctor in food science and a postdoctoral fellow in related fields, and it was also a choice made by the school considering the needs of discipline development. However, the preparation of the evaluation materials for school titles is generally carried out in April-May. When he provided the application materials for professor titles to the school, the catalogue of papers did not include the plagiarized papers published in the Journal of Microbiology in June of that year.
Regarding the other two papers involving multiple submissions, Li Zongjun said that the former was originally submitted to Meat Research magazine, but because it was too late to get the employment notice, it was thought that it could not be published, so it was submitted to another periodical agency, Food and Fermentation Industry. The other one was transferred to Food and Machinery after receiving the rejection notice from Food and Fermentation Industry.
Warning: the paper is revoked and will never be hired again.
On the afternoon of 14th, Fu Shaohui, vice president in charge of scientific research of Hunan Agricultural University, rushed back to Changsha from Beijing on the same day after receiving an interview request from our reporter, and supported our newspaper to conduct an independent investigation.
On the 15th and 17th, the academic committee of the school took the lead, and the personnel department and the discipline inspection and supervision department held two emergency meetings to investigate and verify Li Zongjun’s academic misconduct and study how to deal with the incident. In the results of the discussion reported to this newspaper on the 17th, the school stated that it would never tolerate any academic misconduct, and once it was discovered, it would be dealt with severely.
The relevant person in charge said: "Although the paper suspected of plagiarism was Li Zongjun’s personal behavior during his off-campus work, and it was not intentional, the school should learn a profound lesson from this incident, strengthen the academic ethics education for the school staff, and try to prevent such incidents from happening again."
The editor of Journal of Microbiology sent a Statement to this newspaper before the deadline, confirming that Li Zongjun’s plagiarism from B.M.Mackey and others was conclusive, and decided to cancel his research paper published in Journal of Microbiology in 2005, volume 45, issue 3, pages 426-430, and at the same time, issued a statement to cancel the paper in Journal of Microbiology and its website, and will not accept any contributions from the author in the future.
In the statement, Journal of Microbiology once again warned that it is strictly forbidden for anyone to copy and plagiarize the research results of others. Once found, this magazine will hold the author accountable and severely punish him.
At the time of writing, Hunan Agricultural University was summarizing the survey results and discussing the final decision.
Science Times (Highlights of July 20, 2011)