Monday, February 04, 2013

FREE-RIDERISM

Alhamdulillah, what a relief. After 4 days concentrating fully on the writing of a paper for a conference in Istanbul, Turkey end of this month, I eventually completed and safely sent it to the organiser today. It was quite a tough task indeed because prior to this, my work schedules were very tight and not much time was available to really concentrate on the writing. I could only fully concentrate on it after coming back from the Islamic Economics Conference in Kuala Lumpur last Thursday.

The writing reminds me of some of the stories told to me at the Islamic Conference in Kuala Lumpur last week. A participant told me how a lecturer at his former university easily put his (the lecturer) name as the first author on works done by his (the lecturer) students, although his (the lecturer) contribution is almost nil. The other told me that he puts the names of his three supervisors as co-authors of his paper as one of them finances his participation in the conference through a research project, although the field of one of them is not economics.

Such a free-riderism too, I believe, happens to many in contemporary academic world elsewhere. Many papers, including in the Kuala Lumpurs' Conference last week, contains more than one author. The possibility of the involvement of free-riderism could not be ruled out. This is what I always remind ISDEV fraternity to avoid of. I know how hard writing a paper is. Putting name without contributing to the writing is unfair and sinful indeed.

One may argue that he puts his name as a supervisor that gives the writer his idea, and edits the writing. But is it not the task of a supervisor to do so? Authorship comes not only with ideas and editing, but also with the writing part itself.

However, such a case sounds a little better than many cases whereby names are put as authors of a writing without having to contribute not even ideas or editing. The name is included just because of power. A participant of a conference in Indonesia about two years ago told me that he was given leave for the conference by his superior with a request that he includes his (the superior) name as one of the authors of the paper. I also know about such a  case after delivering a lecture at a workshop on academic writing at a University in Malaysia last year.

I am worrying indeed, how could a learning-teaching institution produce well-mannered people for the  benefit of the ummah and human beings if the integrity of the members of the community inside it is at stake. Excelling the institution with fake accomplishment such as the publications suffering from free-riderism for the sake of merely fulfilling KPI is actually bamboozling the public.

Oo authorities at all levels, please look into this syndrome of free-riderism prevailing in the circle of yours!

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