We had many hearings for plagiarism this year. Maybe we have more cases of cheating, maybe we, the lecturers, have become more sensitive to copy-pasting. I would like to believe that it is the latter. Not all students we called in had, in the very sense of the word plagiarised. Some had simply “paraphrased very closely”, so closely that it is actually not very different from verbatim plagiarism. When questioning the students about their essays all students showed exactly the same reaction whether they had deliberately plagiarised or not: astonishment as to the fact that this is an academic offence and that it will be punished; incomprehension of the reasons why we take this so serious; and a complete lack of knowledge of what they had been writing.

It is actually this last point that makes us take plagiarism so seriously. By copy-pasting – and by paraphrasing – sentence by sentence, students do not learn. It is a blind, mechanical click-click job they are doing and students do not read, do not think about the topic of the essay and they certainly do not understand what they are glueing together. Whether the copy-paste is verbatim or paraphrased does not matter. The point is that they actually do not read the texts they are pretending to have read. As one student said: “I just google the title, then I look at the yellow underlined words in the google books that come up and then I paraphrase the sentence I think is useful. I don’t read it or the other sentences.” In short, students use google to happily mix and match some sentences that look like they had some bearing with the essay question. Some have a more lucky hand at this than others but none really READ and consequently none understand and learn anything from writing essays. And this explains why all the arguments, examples, cases, authors etc. which have been so nicely lined up in the essay do not appear at all in the exam answers and students might have a gap of up to 20% between their essay and exam mark.

Of course, this is completely bunkers! If there is a purpose in writing essays than it is that students read into depth about a topic and acquire specialist knowledge about a particular study area. Yet, by creating joly google book patchwork quilts they learn absolutely nothing. This is not only against the whole idea of university studies but it is also extremely unefficient. If a student really works through her/his essay question during the semester there is no need to frantically sit in the library until 10pm the last two weeks before the exam. If students would really think about their essay questions and what they read, they would be able to write well-formulated, well-supported arguments in their exams instead of those deadly boring, superficial and utterly useless descriptive bullet point lists we usually get. And if students would really start reading, they would get interested in the topic! But no….many of our students prefer to pretend…

And if the pretending becomes cheating we do punish this. It is already disappointing to see that so many students will waste their energy and intelligence to find ever more ingenious ways of avoiding to do their coursework (instead of spending their energy and intelligence at learning from their coursework) but it is really annoying when they do this additionally in the simplest and crudest way of stealing from others. Frequently, students burst into tears during the hearings: “I didn’t know…; I didn’t do it on purpose…” and so on…But uttering such meager excuses again only shows that they have not understood why we are grumpy about these practices. We do not punish plagiarism and mixing-and-matching because of the regulations….Refusing to read, to think and to learn are simply insulting our work and a disgrace to our university, and that is why plagiarism receives the mark of “0” and too closely paraphrasing, and mindless mixing-and-matching lead to sensibly minored marks. We want students to learn, not to click-click.

Post university stress; how to find a job in the current job market? by Charlotte Teyler

Post university blues have struck; reality has kicked in and I have realised that the familiar comforting structure and sense of purpose provided by university life will soon be gone. This thought tends to creep up on me out of nowhere. One morning I awoke to find myself reflecting on my life and what the next step will be after I graduate from university. What comes now? What are my options? How will I get there? And the biggest question of all what do I want to do with my life? The stress factor grows as I realise that after 5 years of higher education and considerable student debt, there are a distinct lack of jobs on the market. Oh dear, it cannot be that bad, or is it? As I started browsing through the newspapers and job portals on the internet for something that seems interesting I realise that I need a degree just to understand what lies behind some of the job titles I come across. While browsing for jobs, television and media provide the latest updates regarding protests around the globe, focusing on how difficult it is to enter the job market. I get the feeling that we are all placed within two categories within society; winners or losers, and the gap between the two is getting bigger and deeper everyday.In some countries the situation is worse than in others, like Spain which has as much as 44% long term unemployment amongst its youth. The young seems to be the group that has become the victim of this financial crisis, as the older generation desperately hold on to their jobs and refuse to retire. They are no longer fooled by the early retirement packages offered by private and state run companies, which in previous downturns used to take advantage of. The difference between long term unemployment among the younger and older workforce in 2011 is 19.7 % against 7.3 %, which totals a 3.1 % increase from 2007 according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). That might not sound so bad until we find that there are about 1.3 billion people participating in todays workforce and that the job market has decreased by 205 million jobs. With statistics like this, the future can feel very depressing, but do not despair the elderly population will retire (eventually). Meanwhile I can always get a second degree (If I can afford it). Apparently, there is a high demand for cashiers and waitresses out there.

To address this problem, Dan, Sams & Associates, a Ningbo-based trademark and patent firm, and the Division of International Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) organised a symposium on Intellectual Property protection and enforcement in Europe. The symposium took place on 18 November 2011 at UNNC
and featured presentations by a panel of legal experts from Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK – four countries that collectively account for the lion’s share of Chinese exports to the EU. The speakers outlined the principles of EU and national law governing intellectual property and brought their considerable experience to bear on the latest developments in the field of IP protection in Europe.

The presentations provided an overview of IP rights, covering patents, trademarks, utility type models, copyrights, and trade secrets. They introduced the institutions that regulate IP protection in Europe, e.g. the European Patent Office, and offered practical advice on how to proceed with product registration. Because of inconsistencies in the
development of EU law in this area, the speakers focused extensively on the difference between national and European routes to IP protection. They discussed at length the pros and cons of each route in relation to considerations of time and cost. The presenters dwelled on differences in intellectual property enforcement across Europe, citing numerous cases of IP infringement and how they were handled by the authorities in different EU member states.

The proceedings ended with an interactive session in which members of the audience queried the panel about specific EU directives and customs regulations pertaining to intellectual property. There were discussions of individual cases of alleged IP infringement at trade fairs in Europe and of possible litigation involving Ningbo companies. The symposium thus filled a gap in the knowledge of European regulations and practices that has dogged local producers exporting to the EU market. The event drew scores of participants, among who were entrepreneurs, professionals, and interested members of the public, as well as university staff and students. Its content was suitable for academics and practitioners alike, appealing to anyone with an interest in the application of EU law and its impact on Europe’s commercial ties with China.

For a brief coverage of the event on Ningbo television please visit

www.nbtv.com.cn/video/index.asp?channelid=1&contentid=120111119064700

(fast forward to 15.21) or read next week’s issue of the Ningbo Guide.

The UNNC Main Conference Room was the venue for the UN Simulation, the event of the year for any self respecting diplomacy student. This time round the resolution concerned Palestine’s recent application for full United Nations Membership. As the session began, the (mostly) immaculately turned out delegations, the glamorous setting, the flags on the round table, and United Nations Flag beaming from the OHP created a tangible sense of occasion that masked the shambolic hour before, when the post-grads had been frantically trying to make sure the simulation ran perfectly; well, at least trying to make sure it wasn’t a complete disaster.

As it turns out, the afternoon was a success. All of the major powers at the centre of the debate came armed with interesting and provocative ideas, and once everyone had got to grips with the etiquette of the simulation, the debate began in earnest. The delegation from Palestine delivered a clear and convincing opening speech, fielding the points of information well. But the Israeli and American delegations were always going to put up a fight, and both delegations represented themselves superbly in a committee that was largely hostile to their standpoint. The most active delegations on the side of Palestine were China and Egypt, the fiery exchanges between these two countries and the USA being a highlight of the debate, proceedings becoming particularly heated when China accused the USA of being ‘morally bankrupt’ in their approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Credit must go to the Jordanian delegation for their passionate appeal to dramatically increase humanitarian assistance to Palestine, and to the French delegation for their attempts to find a compromise via the limited membership route, a conciliatory approach that had its merits, but was harshly discredited by the Egyptian delegation.

The villain of the afternoon was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Iran. After supporting Palestine in the early exchanges (as everyone had expected) they then made a dramatic U-turn in the final vote, voting against the resolution alongside Israel and the USA! However, this was no shrewd attempt at reconciliation with the West, for the Iranian delegation had proclaimed that such half measures as the Palestinian claim to statehood, was delaying progress towards a more comprehensive solution to the conflict, namely the wholesale destruction of the ‘Zionist menace’. So it doesn’t look like the USA will be lifting the sanctions on Iran any time soon.

As expected, the USA vetoed the resolution, so despite an overwhelming majority within the Security Council the resolution was not passed. It was a slightly anti-climatic end to what had been a rigorous and well-fought debate. Every delegation can be proud of the way they conducted themselves, but special thanks must go to the post-grad students who organized the entire simulation. Thanks must also go to Sebastian Naranjo, who not only did a brilliant job of chairing the debate, but also regularly gave up his time in the preceding weeks to help us however he could.

Arvin Mahanta

10/11/2011

Societal inequality can change for a number of reasons. A states government may decide to implement redistribution policies such as a tax reform and public education program. On an individual level, a persons social can change because that person won in a lottery or has become financially bankrupt because of high medical bills s/he is not able to pay for. Developments or sudden changes on an international level can have the same effect.

One such radical change that altered the socio-economic context of ordinary people and that has altered positions of inequality was the end of the Cold War. Countries of the former Eastern block radically transformed their economic and political systems or were integrated into Western economic-political systems as it was the case with the German Democratic Republic (a.k.a. East Germany, short: GDR). The associated changes in peoples societal status seem natural as the word change implies that things could not stay the same as they used to be before the USSRs collapse. But what did it actually mean for people who used to live for example in the GDR and how has systemic change affected their status of inequality?

In stark contrast to its leaders much cherished belief, the GDR was a state that actively sponsored socio-political inequality between ordinary citizens and those who worked in the higher echelons of state institutions. My grandparents belonged to the latter privileged class. Because my grandfather was employed in the higher ranks of the GDR foreign news agency, they enjoyed an above average life-style. That is, unlike the great majority of East Germans, they lived in a relatively luxurious apartment, could easily afford luxury products like coffee, had unhindered access to Western products and media and they could travel to any Western country they wanted to. A ordinary factory worker in Karl-Marx-Stadt could only dream of having a way of like of that. Moreover, ordinary citizens were twice as likely subjugated to direct political suppression.

That constellation changed more than most people outside of Germany are aware of when the GDR became part of West-Germany. On the one hand it had an equalising effect as all East German citizens had got the chance to live a Western life and enjoy political freedom. That equalising effect did also entail people who previously belonged to the GDRs privileged class lost their social status over night and felt also socially and economically downgraded by West-Germanys laws. Moreover, unified Germany enacted policy measures which maintains social inequality between the former East and West German states. One prominent example is the fact that the German state maintains two wage levels for public officials. One person how works in East Berlin is getting paid less for the same work his/her colleague is doing in West Berlin.

For my grandparents, the new West German policy of inequality was felt in their pension program, albeit for different if not justified reasons. Their pension fund was cut 50 percent because they were active members in the higher ranks of the GDR. This measure caused them to feel being treated as third class citizens who suffer unjust inequality.  They felt they could not afford a retiree lifestyle they were preparing for and had to suffer under financial strains instead purposeful created by unified Germany.

Even though a German court ruled this pension cut as unjust and order the federal government to pay the missing sum, my grandfather never recovered from his shock and he became a very bitter and cynical person. Not only did he feel that by the GDRs integration to the FDR his life‘s work had been destroyed, he also felt that West Germans were punishing him for what he believed to be a genuine attempt to build an alternative to the capitalism based social system purposely degrading him to a third class citizen. He kept rejecting everything positive the new German state until the very end when he passed away this year.

I could understand his grudge to a certain degree. During my lively discussions with him, it seemed that he missed or even ignored the fact that the GDRs government followed it own inequality enhancing program which threatened peoples lives on a more existentialist basis than what he had to endure.

How difficult it can be to find an appropriate date can be seen in Germany’s debate about its national day 20 years ago. Shouldn’t it be today, 9^th November, the day when the Berlin Wall fell? Certainly, for Germans East and West the fall of the Wall was the single event where all would agree that it was worth a party. Those restrictions on travel and exchange with the other Germany, which the Wall represented, were a burden for all of us, whether one supported the GDR or not. That summer of 1989 I had spent two days in Berlin mourning our childhood friendship with friend from Potsdam because he was off to study Physics in Jena and thus forbidden to have friends in the West. We were prepared to never see each other again.  Obviously, he was the first person I phoned the morning of the 10^th November (well, actually I called his mum because they didn’t have a phone at home, only at work). It is also the date where all options still seemed open, where we were not yet talking of “re-unification”, where a third way seem possible, where there was hope, joy, relief and fun, fun, fun (to get a grasp of this time you can watch the film “Good-Bye Lenin” or “Sonnenallee”). Much of this hope vanished quickly after and much of the enthusiasm turned very quickly sour, leaving more than one East German and also some West Germans bitter and disappointed.

So, why then did the German government choose the faceless date of the 3^rd October, the day that German unification in 1990 was completed, rather than the much more symbolic 9^th of November? The 9^th of November is known in Germany as the “destiny date”. Actually, the only happy event of the 9^th November is the fall of the Berlin Wall. In fact, three more times Germany  saw events unfolding  on the 9^th of November which significantly marked the history of the country. On the 9^th of November 1918, Philip Scheidemann proclaimed the German republic. The German Reich had lost the war, the German Kaiser had abdicated and Germany was about to unconditionally surrender. The First World War was declared over on the 11^th November 1918.

Five years later, the first fascist uprising took place on the 9^th of November. Hitler tried to take power by force but failed in Munich, leaving 19 dead. He succeeded in taking power nine years later through elections. And it was also a 9^th November when the brutal physical persecution of Germans of Jewish origin was carried out in the public eye. The night of the 9^th is remembered officially nowadays as “The night of the pogrom” yet the Nazi name “Crystall Night” is more telling about the horrors of that night. Hordes of SS and Hitler youth smashed and looted Jewish shops and businesses, set fire on synagogues and destroyed cemeteries. Hundreds of Jews were killed and more deported. The machine of destruction which would have killed over 6 Million Europeans of Jewish origin by the time Germany capitulated in May 1945, had been set in motion that night of the 9^th November 1938.

It is mainly out of respect for these dead that the German parliament and the large parts of the German population were wary to celebrate the “cycle” of the German Republic from the proclamation of 1918 to the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. As good as the Champagne tasted that evening of the 9^th November 1989 when masses of East Berliners strolled over the border to West Berlin, it would be a disastrous invitation to forget the dark chapters of German history and the enormity of the Nazi horror if the 9^th November had been made the day of such a joyful remembrance.

I believe that the cornerstone of life is education through experience. A journey to Nepal that I participated as a volunteer for a nongovernmental organization, has given me and the other three participants a whole new way of life to discover; I would never come across the reason for nor understand the nation-wide load shedding (12 hours scheduled electricity cut) in a country that has abundant water resource had I not spent life there. Four of us, each with different views and skills, have volunteered as a group to conduct a research for the organization Volunteer Aid Nepal in Kathmandu city.

Before our arrival, we were not sure what to expect of Nepal, a country we know too little about. Four weeks earlier, the organization did send us an electronic copy of a booklet containing the country profile, information on flight schedules, addresses and numbers of embassies etc. However, it was not enough for us to start drawing a picture of the lives we would be experiencing for the next three weeks.

Our arrival at the airport, I thought, was worth noting. Kathmandu airport was as simple as a purpose of an airport can be. There were neither fancy duty free shops nor countless choice of restaurants to pick from. The Korean Boeing 777 aircraft seemed like an out of place object when situated at Tribhuvan International Airport of orange coloured bricks. There was a sign welcoming passengers to the 2011 Year of Tourism in Nepal.

We mostly lived in hostels and buy fruits from street vendors and water bottles from an imported-goods supermarket. Living with candles has become something we were accustomed to by the end of first week. Not once did we forget to look at the load-shedding schedule (electricity cuts) to know when to lit candles and when to charged our electronic appliances in advance (sometimes if the electricity generates late at night, we would have our laptops and mobiles plugged in before we went to sleep). Load-shedding schedule was an excitement for me. Literally not once in my life have I truly enjoyed passing the hours (without complaints) with just candle lights and was thankful that it was a continuous routine. I believed we have all paid more attention of what was surrounding us   because we were no longer distracted. We appreciate more and we observe better.

Do not be surprised to see a familiar dish of dumplings as a local delicacy in Nepal – after all, Nepal is situated between two giant nations! The dumplings are called Momo and they are stuffed with a choice of chicken or buffalo meat. One of us had decided to strictly order only local dishes like Dal Bhat, a simple, tasty Nepali meal of rice and lentils. In case you were wondering, there is only one branch of KFC and Pizza Hut in all of Nepal.

Our research focused on the topic of sanitation in regards to socio-economic factors in the Sangla Village Development Community (VDC) in the Kathmandu Valley. There was a continuous collaboration between us and the organization. Language was no longer a barrier towards our research because we were assisted with a local Nepali throughout the project. Sangla was divided into eight areas where some districts require walking uphill to a very high altitude. The challenges were if we truly grasped the meaning that the answer regardless of the translation. This is because we were conducting our survey in a rural area where most households are self-sustain through agricultural means. It was a different lifestyle from those living in the capital Kathmandu as well our way of life. One of the interesting encounters we had was with a young man who recently earned a master degree but has returned home to live and work in the fields with his family due to the lack of jobs.

The entire research project could not have been successful without the welcoming attitude of one hundred Nepali households, from the moment they served tea to answering our survey with honesty and patience. The interviewees were curious about our arrival and attempted to make conversation. For my part, I admit that I have no complaints or disappointments towards Nepali people as a whole.

Nadia Husam Al-jasem
2011/11/8

What was expected to happen? Some 200,000 people from over the country were supposed to gather in Piazza S. Giovanni in Rome, denounce the responsibility of bankers and politicians in their mismanagement of the economic and financial crisis, and especially the poor performance of the Italian government whose major worry is not people’s well-being but simply to stay in power for purely personal interests. The key aim was, thus, to denounce current politics and to discuss concrete alternatives. For this event, political parties flags were not going to be displaced, but simply two banners were going to be used: ‘People of Europe Rise Up’ and ‘Cambiamo l’Europa, cambiamo l’Italia’ (Let’s change Europe, let’s change Italy).

What did indeed happen? Although the demonstration began peacefully through the roads of Rome, S. Giovanni square was soon transformed into a quasi city guerrilla: some 400 hundreds of hooded radicals, known as ‘black blocs’, infiltrated the peaceful protesters, set cars and garbage bins on fire, smashed banks’ and shops’ windows, destroyed traffic lights and signposts. The police made use of tear gas and water cannon to try to disperse the violent protesters, while the peaceful ones tried to escape and find safe haven in closeby churches and hotels. After five long hours of guerrilla fights, some 135 people were ingured and only 12 people arrested. Although, the special police unit, Digos (The General Investigations and Special Operations Division), was informed that violence was likely to happen, very little has been done to prevent the distruction of an important part of the city – with an existimated damage up to one million euros – severed injured people and the lost occasion of peacefully celebrating the 15^th October as done in all other part of the globe. The day after, the media could not certainly talk of what has not happened – a public debate on the needed alternative politics that the vast majority is now hoping, but about the violence. Once again, Italian mass media could not engage into a public serious debate that tries to evaluate how the country might possibly transit out of the crisis, a crisis which the government refuses to tackle, and a crisis in which those most affected by it are not allowed to have a voice. Some 400 black blocs have ‘occupied’ and destroyed the hart of Rome and some 2,000 security forces have not been able to prevent this to happen. The doubt that the Berlusconi government is complicit in this tragic event – in the sense that it has been unable to prevent and to stop such violent acts – is quite strong. Once again the voice of those affected by the mismanagement of the economic crisis has remained unheard.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/smashed-windows-and-torched-cars-occupy-protests-turn-violent-in-rome/