The quality of scholarly publishing in Macedonia

One change implemented in the new law on higher education in Macedonia is the requirement that Ph.D. candidates and professors going for promotion should publish some number of research articles in respectable foreign journals. I'll discuss the details of this law in another post, but for now I want to focus on the state of scholarly publishing in Macedonia. It seems obvious to me that the the reason why the Minister of Education decided to implement these changes into law was because he believed that foreign journals are much more rigorous and selective in what they publish compared to Macedonian journals, and that Macedonian journals will publish anything that's handed to them regardless of quality. Is the Minister right, and is his approach to the problem appropriate.

I am approaching this issue from my own experience teaching and conducting research in Macedonia in the humanities and in the social sciences.

First, we need to keep in mind that the reading public for scholarly articles in Macedonia is really quite, quite small. For example, if you are conducting research on the ethnography of a particular region in Macedonia, most likely there are no more than about 2-3 other scholars in the entire country who might be interested enough to read the article. Second, the concept of "double-blind" reading of articles submitted for publication does not work in a small country where everyone in a specific field knows each other. My point is, in the current situation quality control in what gets published in Macedonia is practically impossible. This is not to say that there is no high quality research in Macedonia. There is, but it's extremely, extremely rare.

While in most western countries there are professional organizations that take the responsibility for controlling the quality of research by their members, there is nothing equivalent in Macedonia. So, what gets published in scholarly journals in Macedonia? Basically, anything and everything that is written by scholars. Let me give you three specific examples.

In 2005 two authors, Tome Bosevski, an electrical engineer and member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and the Arts, and Aristotel Tentov, Professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies in Skopje published an article in one of the proceeding of the Academy, where they claimed to have deciphered the middle text of the Rosetta Stone and concluded that the text was written in ancient Macedonian, which seems to resemble one of the contemporary dialects of Macedonian. Keep in mind that neither of these gentlemen has any background in linguistics, historical or any other sort. The article is about 90 pages long with only seven references (http://makedonika.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/bosheski-tentov-angl.pdf). Two of the references are dictionaries, two of them refer to a Slovenian high school textbooks, one refers to a text on Protoslavic, and one on a Macedonian dialects. That's it! There is not a single reference to any research on the Rosetta Stone. For almost a decade these two "scholars" have been promoting their research around the country and have received accolades by many of their colleagues. After all, this is not research by some freshman student. The Academy organized an elaborate promotion of their research findings that was attended by many scholars and political figures.

As you may guess, their research is nothing more than pure gibberish. If their research findings were truly valid one would expect there to have been organized an international conference on the subject. As it happens, no one outside of Macedonia has taken their claims seriously. So, here we have two electrical engineers conducting linguistic research on an ancient text, they come up with some truly nonsense conclusions, and all of that is quite acceptable to the Macedonian academic community. What does all this say about the ability of the Macedonian academic community to control the quality of research and publication of its members?

The next example is a gentleman named Alexander Donski, whose research focuses on tracing the history and links between Macedonians living in the Republic of Macedonia and the Macedonians of Alexander the Great. He is a member of the Institute of History and Archeology at the University in Shtip. His current "research" is on establishing a Macedonian link with the Romanovs of Russia! One of his books is titled "Jesus Christ and the Macedonians". He is also a member of the "Organization of Ancient Macedonians". There are many, many such examples of absurd links in his publications. Again, we are speaking of a member of research team at a government funded research institute that is part of a major state university. My hunch is that he has managed to place himself in the current position and is able to publish anything that he writes because his views fit quite well with the views of the current political party in power. In one of the Institute's web pages he is pictured together with the country's president (http://inisa.ugd.edu.mk/).

I pose the same question again. Why does the academic community in Macedonia give voice to individuals who obviously have absolutely no respect for academic scholarship? It's obviously clear that the government, and the Ministry of Education, have no interest in controlling the quality of research. But why do Macedonian academics tolerate them? Fine, this person was most likely hired based not on his academic qualifications but on his contributions to the politics of the government, and academics have no hiring or firing power. But why are they not shunned by their more sensible colleagues?

I had personal experience with the third example. In 2009/2010 I had an opportunity to teach at a newly established university in Macedonia, the University for Information Science and Technology in Ohrid. During that same year the Macedonian Parliament added "St. Paul the Apostle" to the name of the university. There are many institutions in Ohrid, including the airport, that have recently changed their name to "St. Paul the Apostle", and by doing so establishing a link with Paul's travels to Macedonia. By tradition Macedonian universities have "patron holiday" that is connected with the name of the university. The university in Ohrid needed to have one as well. But what date top pick? The obvious choice should have been August 13th, St. Paul's day in the Orthodox calendar. That date was not acceptable because the patron day celebration takes place when school is in session. The selection of the date was entrusted to Jane Bakreski, one of the humanities instructors. Bakreski has a Master's degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts, National Academy of Art in Sofia, Bulgaria, with a major in painting. For the university's patron holiday Mr. Bakreski selected October 22. I was curious to know how he came up with that date. His reply was that he consulted with a Macedonian monk, who informed him that the Apostle Paul was actually in Ohrid on that date! I wanted to know if he knew of any specific references to this claim. There are obviously no such references, but he did ask me to please not spread my "erroneous conclusions" among others. In addition to being an instructor at the university, Mr. Bakreski is also an icon and a fresco painter. His contribution to the university is an icon of St. Paul standing somewhere in the middle of Ohrid (http://www.uist.edu.mk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=133&lang=en).

There are many maps of Paul's travels in Macedonia produced by biblical scholars, but none of them show him being anywhere close to Ohrid. So, here is a university that has entrusted the selection of a patron holiday, the most important holiday for the university, to someone who produces it from his imagination. This same individual is also entrusted to hold academic lectures to students at the university. How credible can his research and his teaching be, and why does the academic community at the university permit this type of "scholarship"?

These three examples are not atypical. The question is, is there anything the academic community, NOT the Ministry of Education, can do to prevent the publishing and spreading of such fake scholarship even when legitimate scholars are at odds with the wishes of the Ministry of Education and with the university's administration?

I think the main reason why legitimate scholarly research in Macedonia is impossible is the lack of resources. The current Minister of Education, Nikola Todorov, seems to think that there is very little research and publishing in Macedonia because professors are simply lazy. Recently he has said that the ministry will equip numerous research laboratories at all state universities, and he is also willing to pay 250 euros any professor who publishes an article in a foreign journal with an "impact factor". The Minister thinks of a laboratory in terms of a "classroom". That is, a set of equipment that any researchers can just walk in and do any sort of research. What if the government spends a million euros to equip a fancy laboratory, but the equipment can't be used for researching a specific problem? Let's not forget that the government financed the translation of first class scholarly literature that professors in the classroom don't find useful.

A modern library with current literature is essential for conducting even the most essential research in the humanities and social sciences, and none of the libraries in Macedonia fit into this category.

It is good that professors have finally decided to voice their frustration at the government's attempt to control how they teach and how they conduct their research. However, they also have to recognize their own inefficiencies and come up with their own solutions. An objection against the government's approach is not any good if it's not met with a better proposal from the academic community. The status quo is obviously not working. As I follow this conflict in the media I have yet to hear academics propose a different way to deal with the problems.

Cheating and plagiarism at Macedonian universities

The first time I encountered mass cheating at a Macedonian university was in a course I taught on technical writing. Sometime in the third week of classes I decided to give a short quiz. There were about 35 students in the class in a room with about 45 seats. I was warned by colleagues that cheating in the Macedonian educational system from the first grade through the university is endemic, so I decided to give the students a long lecture on cheating and warned them that anyone caught cheating will fail the quiz. At that time the university had no general policy on punishment for cheating.

Cheating has become a culturally acceptable practice in Macedonian schools. If you walk into a very large university classroom with small number of students you will notice that all the students sit grouped tightly together. The purpose, of course, is so that they can help each other. There were several empty seats in my classroom, so I tried to encourage students to spread out a little bit. However, it was still not possible to leave an empty seat between students. As soon as the quiz was distributed students began to whisper with their neighbors. No matter how often I warned them, the whispering would not stop. Eventually I realized that I was going to have to invalidate the quiz, but I decided to let the students complete it anyway just so that I could continue observing how students go about cheating during exams. I noticed in the very first row one female student requesting help from her neighbor. I warned her twice to stop it, but to no avail. As soon as I would turn my head away from them, the cheating would continue. Finally, I decided to stand right in front of her and observe her from no more than two feet away. That did not seem to bother her at all, and she continued cheating through the remainder of the quiz. The practice of cheating was so widespread that I finally decided to reduce the number of quizzes during the semester, and I also requested a proctor to help me monitor the process.

In the same group of students I caught one student during a midterm exam using a cell phone to consult someone from outside of the class. When I reported the infraction to the administration I was informed that my only option was to simply give the student another chance.

Another flagrant instance of cheating took place in a class on English for information technology. There were only about ten students in a classroom with about forty seats, so it was much easier for me to monitor the class. After I collected the completed quizzes we decided to take a short 15-minute break. I went out to get a cup of coffee, and the students stayed in the classroom. As I was returning to the classroom I noticed one student standing by the door, and as soon as he noticed me he yelled something to the students inside the classroom. As I went to my desk I had noticed that during my absence the students had taken out the quizzes from my folder and tried to correct their mistakes. I was in such a shock, I was speechless, I couldn't find the words to express my anger. I dismissed the class and went to discuss the incident with one of my Macedonian colleagues. He was not surprised, but he gave me some advice on how to secure testing materials next time. I was quite surprised by my colleague's replies, because he didn't seem to think there was any need to deal with the students and their misbehavior.

Plagiarism at Macedonian universities is just as endemic as cheating. It takes place in undergraduate as well as in graduate courses. My first exposure to it was in 1997 when I was teaching in Macedonia as a Fulbright scholar. As we were discussing my teaching duties in the department my colleagues suggested that I teach a course on essay writing. Apparently, in final exams students had to write an essay, and that section of the exam had been most difficult for them. When I inquired why it was a problem, I was told that student had very little practice in writing essays. And the reason was because they were rarely assigned to write essays. And the reason why, it was because professors new quite well that most students would probably either plagiarize, or pay someone to write the essay for them. So, why would a professor want to spend hours reading, correcting and grading essays that were most likely not legitimate? Needless to say, the class did not go well for me. After we spent several classes discussing the art of essay writing, I assigned my first essay. Students were required to read the essay in class before they were to turn it in, and that's when it became obvious that most of the students did not author their essays. Some of them could not tell me the meaning of some of the words in the essays, others had not even bothered to read their essay before the class to at least be familiar with the content. My only other option was to require students to write their essays in class. This did not work either because students could not write more than about 3-4 sentences in one hour.

My other exposure to plagiarism took place in a graduate seminar on English literature. A final paper was the only requirement in the course. In discussing the length of the paper, I told them that I was not sure what the standard length of a final paper was at Macedonian universities, so they as a group suggested that 15-20 pages would be appropriate. Initially I was surprised by their suggestion because the paper was supposed to be a research paper, written in a foreign language, and it had to be completed in two weeks. I advised students to send me drafts before they turn in a final version, but none of them did. I received all papers by the deadline. The first thing I noticed was that all the papers were either single spaced, or one and a half space. I simply took it for granted that double spacing is a standard for student papers everywhere. This immediately made me suspicious, because I found it difficult to believe that students could complete long papers in such a short period of time. As soon as started reading each paper I noticed that there weren't any errors in English, which is difficult to believe knowing that the papers were written in a non-native language. A cursory search on Google revealed that every one of them had simply copied entire texts from the internet.

I sent everyone an email telling them that their papers were not acceptable because they had been plagiarized. Some of them refused to admit it until I showed them the locations from where they had copied. What was most surprising was that two of them got into an argument with me, trying to convince me that during their college education they had written many, many papers in the same way and they had never been accused of plagiarism. Apparently, this has become an acceptable practice. I doubt very much that many professors actually spend the time to guide and advise students during the writing process, nor do they bother to read carefully the papers that get turned in.

Writing a good, high quality research paper whether by undergraduate, or graduate students, or by scholars in Macedonia is a real daunting endeavor. University libraries simply don't have the literature necessary to conduct even elementary research. In recent years the internet has provided access to some resources, but students still lack the skills to use these resources in academic research.

Are there practical solutions to the problem of cheating and plagiarism at Macedonian universities? Of course there are, but only if educators start making an effort to eliminate them beginning with the first grade. My personal feeling is that at the moment primary and secondary school teachers, as well as professors at universities don't really want to be bothered with it. Although I'm sure there are policies against cheating and plagiarism at all levels, neither educators nor administrators make much of an effort to enforce them. I'm speaking here from my own personal experience having taught at three different universities in Macedonia over the past 15 years.

An American colleague who had taught at a university in Macedonia related a story to me how he tried to help a Macedonian professor get one of his books translated and published in the USA. The American professor found a US publisher willing to publish the translated text. Before the contract with the publisher was supposed to be signed, the Macedonian professor changed his mind without giving the American professor an explanation. The American professor later found out second hand that the reason the Macedonian professor had changed his mind was because apparently the book had been plagiarized, and he did not want that to become known.

An item in the daily Dnevnik confirms my observation on plagiarism by professors in Macedonia.
Професори крадат докторати (Professors steal dissertations).
Магистерски се купуваат за 20.000 денари