The handling of this case is mentioned and discussed in Stefan
Heßbrüggen-Walter:
Whistle blowing in the German University: A Regulatory Scandal in the Making (2013-07-01) : i.a. :
Quote:In Leuven, a student newspaper made the matter public, pressuring the dean of the faculty into a statement in which the general attitude of the university was summarized in two sentences: "The whole case was handled discreetly but with due decisiveness. We do not organize any witch hunts here and we do not use public shaming as a punishment." So KU Leuven acknowledged the problem publicly only after the press had been informed. Under the new rules in Germany, this form of whistle blowing, if done by an academic, would be a sanctionable offense. Keeping an investigation of academic misconduct off the public radar -- or simply covering it up -- wouldn't be.
At KCL in 2010, “a spokeswoman said the college had established a panel of senior staff to investigate allegations of plagiarism against a former member of staff from the department of theology. 'This investigation is ongoing and we cannot say more until it is completed,' she added.” (Times Higher Education, 2010). This is exactly how German universities would process accusations of academic misconduct in the future. In the UK, the investigation is apparently still ongoing three years later: to this day, I am not aware that KCL has released any statement acknowledging Stone's plagiarism or taking any final position on his employment. Neither did the KCL philosophy department. But they should have. In 2010, the anonymous KCL spokeswoman characterised Stone as a 'staff member of the theology department'. This was at best misleading: Stone must have been in some way affiliated with the KCL department of philosophy, too. Before the scandal broke, KCL philosophers did not hesitate to include Stone's contributions in their report for the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) ([PDF], [Website URL]). If Google is right, this is the only remaining reference to Stone on the KCL website. All other links to Stone have been purged, even though the department website contains a rubric for 'former
faculty'. Apparently, KCL has succeeded in what Leuven had set out to achieve: to handle Stone's plagiarism 'discreetly, but with due decisiveness' and, we should add, without any lasting damage to its reputation.
2013-07-12 edit to this 2013-07-01 post: if case you should miss a link: do use
http://www.newappsblog.com/2013/07/whistle-blowing-in-the-german-university-a-re
gulatory-scandal-in-the-making.html