plagiarism

Over the last year I have have been told of something disturbing by two students. One was a physiotherapy student that told me that students from her course had to sign over the publication rights of their work to their universities when they submitted their dissertations and the other was an occupational therapy student that told me she had to name her project supervisor as a co-author.

Personally I think this may be unethical. None of my tutors ever helped me get published (I actually found some quite discouraging) and I would not want them riding on my back. Can the Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency discipline universities or the Health Professions Council discipline tutors that take credit for work they have not done (work their students did)? Do you think we should get something written into our professional codes of conduct to prevent such abuse of power from occurring in the future?

Please consider posting your views here: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2242527728&topic=2871 Thank you.

V