Editorial: confidentiality and plagiarism

This issue has three interesting papers. The first, Integrating testing with reliability, by Schneidewind, explores issues at the intersection of testing and reliability, with the goal of discovering which test techniques have the strongest impact on reliability. The second paper, Inclusion, subsumption, JJ-paths, and structured path testing: a redress, by Yates and Malevris, explores the JJ-path (LCSAJ) test coverage criterion, correcting errors in previously published theoretical statements about JJ-paths inclusion relationships with other test coverage criteria. The third paper, Testing with model checkers: a survey, by Fraser, Wotawa, and Ammann, provides a comprehensive survey of how model checkers have been applied to software testing problems. A few years ago I attended a lecture by Professor Robert B. Laughlin, physics Nobel Laureate. He said that ‘globalization imposes a tax on young people—they have to learn English.’ We all know that English is the primary international language, but viewing the process of learning English as a tax to join the global culture is thought provoking. Interestingly, I noticed an ‘inverse tax’ on native English speakers on a recent trip to Shanghai. Buying food at a restaurant where the workers speak English costs quite a bit more. Along with the ‘language tax,’ globalization requires adopting a world view that is compatible with the rest of the global culture. This world view has many different aspects. As scientists and educators, we often see this in terms of plagiarism. A recent submission to STVR had entire sections copied verbatim from previous papers. During investigation, we also found that the same paper had been simultaneously submitted to another journal. Naturally, the paper was rejected, the authors’ supervisor notified, and the authors are prohibited from submitting to STVR again. Oddly enough, the authors did not seem to understand they’d done anything wrong! Although I’m not a philosopher, this mismatch of world views seems to be at the heart of morals and ethics. We could define level 1 thinking on plagiarism to be ‘I think plagiarism is okay’ and level 2 to be ‘I will be careful when I plagiarize because I might get in trouble.’ Level 3 could be ‘I think plagiarism is wrong, but will do it when the perceived benefits outweigh the tangible risks of getting caught and the intangible risks of upsetting my own conscience.’ Then level 4 could be ‘I think plagiarism is wrong and will not do it.’ Level 1 thinking is clearly not the common world view of the global society, but levels 3 and 4 are. Plagiarism is more important to us than most groups. Science and research cannot thrive without openness and honesty. By accident or intent, our reputation is essential to our success as scientists, and a serious tangible risk of plagiarism is having our reputations destroyed forever. This would be a career-ending event for most scientists.