Legal Responses to Plagiarist Academics: The Practicality of Regulations in Turkish Higher Education

Abstract

This study follows a case study pattern of qualitative research while examining the practical manageability of Turkish regulations against plagiarism in academic platforms. The dataset comprises the Law of Intellectual and Artistic Works and four higher education regulations. This study analyses these documents according to descriptive content analysis technique. The analysis shows that the variety of legal regulations have led to a sophistication of procedures following during the investigation and decision-making of plagiarism cases in academic platforms. Therefore, higher education authorities should make an effort to constitute one unified, comprehensive and detailed law against unethical behaviours, mainly plagiarism, in academia.