Written by Nima, 2021 Cohort
Today I would like to talk about plagiarism in Iran which by the way is one of the hot topics around the country nowadays. An Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi one of the most successful and well-known Iranian directors has released his recent movie “A Hero”. There are some controversies about the movie, but this is a very common phenomenon when it comes to Farhadi. He has a lot of critics and fans not only in Iran but also in the international community, and given the kind of look and nature of his work, which is often socio-political subjects, he has never been safe from political and social criticism around his works and attitude. Immediately the story of the movie was targeted by some people for plagiarism. One of his old students from his film academy stood up to oppose Farhadi’s movie is plagiarism of one of her old works. There are still continuing debates whether she is right or not, but from my perspective and the research I have done and articles I’ve read about it, seems like Farhadi’s work is again original and another valuable piece of art that is a reflection of today’s Iranian society and his old student was trying to surf on the waves of Farhadi’s fame. But what is exactly the definition of Plagiarism? And how do people deal with it in Iran?
When it comes to plagiarism one of the common arguments is “What is actually considered plagiarism? And what is not?”. Of course, there were fewer debates on social media and fewer fights in the courts about Plagiarism if there was a clear united answer to this question. There are different laws in different countries and many people, organizations and industries have different opinions on the topic. Then there is something in common between all which I directly quote from the University of Oxford’s website: “Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement.”1
What about Plagiarism in academic courses? As far as there is not very clear copyright laws in Iran because of the many political and economic situation that Iran has been going through during the past 40 years, this also applies to academic aspects of plagiarism too. Iran has a large network of public and private universities offering degrees in higher education. As far as my knowledge and experience studying higher education in a private university in Iran, I realized there are completely different levels of sensitivity towards plagiarism in these two types of universities in Iran. There is a nationwide exam named “Konkoor” which students should participate in upon their performance and their ranking in the exam they can enter each of these schools. These are completely different types of education and generally, there is more competition for entering public schools. Also, there are more strict rules about verification of originality of paper works and assignments students offer to classes and there are assistants who are responsible for noticing possible plagiarism in the works. There are very firm penalties for people who have done plagiarism in their works. They will get no grades for that particular course which may even lead to their complete dismissal from the university.
Unfortunately, rules about plagiarism are a bit indefinite when it comes to private universities. Although there are zero courses both in high schools and in higher education systems (public and private) in Iran teaching students principles of plagiarism, also in society lack of copyrighting rules is also obvious and that in itself exacerbates the cause. In private schools, most of the students don’t know and also don’t pay enough attention to plagiarism. On the other hand, teachers ask them to bring original works but most of them rarely verify the originality of the work. Only cases that are very obvious or have been previously presented to the same instructor will be identified as plagiarism.
In conclusion, it is safe to say the required attention is not paid to plagiarism in the Iranian academic environment. This can be considered a major socio-cultural problem in Iran and it cannot be ignored that no proper education is provided at any level of education for Iranian students in this regard. The origins of these problems can also be traced to the political and cultural values of the current government. Perhaps a large part of this socio-cultural divide is due to the wrong educational and social system that is running in Iran, but in my personal opinion, every person who commits plagiarism is fully aware of what he is doing, or at least he is a little doubtful of what he is doing. We live in the age of technology and information. In my opinion, no matter how inefficient the educational system is, it is still a person’s duty and he has the resources to increase his knowledge in this field, and anyone can prevent the slightest plagiarism from occurring in his works.