By Muttukrishna Sarvananthan –

Dr. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan

Introduction

A research study on the leaders (Vice-Chancellors) of Russian universities between 2010 and 2020 reveals that there has been an increase in publications in potential predatory journals by academic staff when the Vice-Chancellors of those universities themselves have published in potential predatory journal/s. That is, the academic/intellectual/scientific integrity of the leader of a university is positively correlated to the academic/intellectual/scientific integrity of all other academic staff (Gerashchenko, 2022).

This is a whistle-blower’s account of the intellectual fraud of the incumbent Vice-Chancellor (VC), “Professor” Sivakolundu Srisatkunarajah of the University of Jaffna in Sri Lanka.

Sivakolundu Srisatkunarajah

Plagiarism

In June 2021, the Council of the University of Jaffna approved the “By-Laws for Scholarly Publications”, outlawing publications in predatory journals and by predatory publishers. Towards the preparation of the foregoing By-Law the VC submitted a Memorandum (Memo) to the Senate of the University of Jaffna on March 23, 2021, signed by him (Senate Memo: S/453/04/ACA/(i)).  

The bulk of the aforementioned Senate Memo signed by the Vice-Chancellor, Sivakolundu Srisatkunarajah, has been plagiarised word-to-word, sentence-to-sentence, and paragraph-to-paragraph from a note submitted to the Vice-Chancellor by Muttukrishna Sarvananthan titled “Publication Ethics for the Academic Staff, written by Muttukrishna Sarvananthan on a request by the Vice-Chancellor, UoJ, DRAFT as of October 23, 2020” (see annexure marked as Z2).

Specifically, the sub-sections of the aforesaid Senate Memo: S/453/04/ACA/(i) dated March 23, 2021, titled “Memo” (pages 1-2), “What is a Predatory Journal” (page 2), and “How to Detect a Predatory Journal or Publisher?” (page 2) are completely (99%) plagiarised from the aforesaid note written by Muttukrishna Sarvananthan (see attached marked as Z2), barring the following 3 minor changes: (i) “I” in the first line of the last paragraph on page 1 of the Senate Memo: S/453/04/ACA/(i) dated March 23, 2021, has been inserted in lieu of “we” in the second line of the first paragraph on page 2 of my note to the VC dated October 23, 2020. (ii) Further, “persistently” (sic) in the second line of the same paragraph of the said Senate Memo is a replacement for “positively” in the second line of the first paragraph on page 2 of my note to the VC dated October 23, 2020, (iii) Moreover, “retrieved on October 20, 2020” in the footnotes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7 in my note to the VC dated October 23, 2020, have been replaced by “retrieved on March 16, 2021.” in the footnotes 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8 in the  Senate Memo.   

Moreover, whilst the incumbent Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jaffna, Sivakolundu Srisatkunarajah, had the courtesy to acknowledge a “Communication from Prof. L. P. Jayatissa, University of Ruhuna dated 03.01.2019 addressed to the Vice Chancellor, University of Jaffna” (see footnote 1 in the Senate Memo: S/453/04/ACA/(i), he did not have the ethical norm, literary integrity, or professional decorum to acknowledge Muttukrishna Sarvananthan’s contribution to the said Senate Memo: S/453/04/ACA/(i) dated March 23, 2021.

Publication in Predatory Journal

Furthermore, the Google Scholar page of Sivakolundu Srisatkunarajah catalogues an article co-authored by him (being the last author of 3 co-authors) along with two other former University of Jaffna colleagues/students in a journal named axioms (see annexure marked as Z3) published by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI – formerly known as Molecular Diversity Preservation International founded by a Chinese named Shu-Kun Lin as a chemical sample archive in 1996). MDPI is claimed to be the largest open-access publisher in the world, and fifth-largest overall, in terms of the total number of articles published in all its 200+ journals

MDPI is suspected to be a predatory publisher for at least 8 years now by more than one person. However, at least one person has cast doubt on the suspicion of MDPI in the last couple of years. It is noteworthy that VC Srisatkunarajah’s publication in 2017 was after questions have been raised publicly about the publisher for the first time in 2014. Even the Chinese Academy of Sciences had warned against publishing in 22 MDPI journals in December 2020 and 7 in December 2021.

The publisher of the journal axioms, namely MDPI, is a long suspected predatory publisher from China but headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, with branches in many western countries (including in the UK). The suspicion of this particular article co-authored by S. Srisatkunarajah is obvious for at least the following three reasons: 

Firstly, this is published in a Special Issue edited by a Guest Editor. In recent years Special Issues edited by Guest Editors have come under critical scrutiny because numerous articles in journals edited by Guest Editors have been retracted in recent years due to manipulation of data and images, and impersonation of peer-reviewers, lack of stringent peer review, and various other malpractices.   

Secondly, all the three co-authors have given their personal/private email addresses (domain names – gmail.com / yahoo.com) and not their institutional email addresses. All legitimate journals ask their prospective authors to mention their institutional email addresses unless one is an independent researcher not affiliated with any institution. Here, while all three co-authors were academics from a Canadian (corresponding & second author at the Concordia University, Montreal) and a Sri Lankan university (first and third co-authors from UoJ), they are using their private emails. What was there to hide, if it was a genuine/real scholarly article? 

Thirdly, this particular article has been submitted for consideration for publication on December 08, 2016, accepted (after revision) for publication on February 17, 2017, and published online on February 21, 2017. Any experienced scholar would know that such a quick peer-review and decision-making in Mathematics (or in any other subject for that matter) is near impossible with a genuine/legitimate peer-reviewed journal.

Besides, all the scholarly publications by the current VC of UoJ (less than 20 in over 30 years of academic career after obtaining his doctoral degree at a Scottish university in the late-1980s), Sivakolundu Srisatkunarajah, are co-authored and in none of them is he the first author and/or the corresponding author. In other words, he is not eligible to be a “Professor” in terms of South Asian and global standards.   

The aforesaid case of plagiarism and publication in a suspected predatory journal by the VC of UoJ is not an isolated case. This is a very common peril in all Sri Lankan universities (public, quasi-public, and private) among the majority of academic staff for a very long time, especially because the majority of books, textbooks, and journal articles by university academic staff are published in vernacular languages (i.e. in Sinhala and Tamil) wherein plagiarism is very difficult to detect because of lack of detection software/s. At the University of Jaffna, for example, there are much worse offenders than the VC. One such case is ongoing at the University Services Appeals Board (USAB), an independent quasi-judicial body operating under the University Grants Commission (UGC) of Sri Lanka, wherein 17 of the 22 journal articles claimed by a “Professor” in Economics are in positively identified predatory journals. 

In the foregoing scenario, highlighting this case of Vice-Chancellor “Professor” Sivakolundu Srisatkunarajah is meant to deter other Professors and Senior Professors because when the head of the flock commits fraud it is natural that other members of the flock could do the same with impunity as the aforementioned study of Russian academics reveals. As the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Legal Information said “…….it is particularly so when the wrongdoing comes from such a high-profile member of the academy – one who should be setting a positive example of scholarship rather than the reverse” in the case of a former VC of Pondicherry University (India) noted below.   

Although plagiarism and publications in predatory journals are explicitly outlawed by the UGC of Sri Lanka by way of Circular No.11 of November 27, 2019, these fraudulent practices stubbornly persist (including at the University of Jaffna very recently in early 2022) because many UGC regulations are routinely ignored by the public universities (not to mention quasi-public and private universities) in Sri Lanka in the name of “autonomy” of universities and “academic freedom”. 

Conclusion

In an advanced/developed country like the United States of America (USA), for example, an accusation of plagiarism has prompted the Vice-Chancellor for Research in Chapel Hill’s Medical School at the University of North Carolina to resign from his post on March 11, 2022, on his own. Mind you, this Vice-Chancellor resigned for plagiarising in a research grant proposal (and not in a final research output). 

Even in a country with relatively lower public morality/ethics and research integrity than the USA, viz. Romania in Eastern Europe, on December 15, 2021, the Minister for Innovation and Digitalisation resigned from his post because of an allegation of plagiarism in his Master’s dissertation by an investigative journalist. 

In Sri Lanka’s neighbouring country, India, a Professor at the Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, was sent on compulsory leave on January 05, 2022, by the university authorities based on an internal investigation until an infringement of copyright and plagiarism case filed by the police is concluded.

A former Vice-Chancellor of Pondicherry University in India was facing dismissal from her post in 2015 by the Union Ministry of Human Resources after an international journal retracted her article that was 72% plagiarised from others’ work.

Amidst the aforementioned voluntary resignations (in USA and Romania) and forcible expulsion (in India), I wonder what would happen to the current Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jaffna, Sivakolundu Srisatkunarajah.

*Muttukrishna Sarvananthan is the Founder and Principal Researcher of the Point Pedro Institute of Development, Point Pedro, Northern Province, Sri Lanka. The author is a Development Economist by profession and has studied in and earned degrees from four universities (Ph.D. Wales, M.Sc. Bristol, M.Sc. Salford & B.A. (Hons) Delhi) in two different countries (UK & India), and has undertaken postdoctoral research work in two universities (Monash University & George Washington University) in two different countries (Australia & USA). Moreover, to date, he has authored or co-authored over 55 peer-reviewed publications (of which, over 30 were in international scholarly journals), and has been a peer-reviewer of over 35 articles submitted to international scholarly journals published by leading global academic publishers during 23 years of his post-doctorate scholarly career. Furthermore, he has been an external examiner of a Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia, and Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. The author can be contacted at sarvi@pointpedro.org