The reason given for removal of the paper was as follows:<\/p>\n
\u201cOn looking again at your proposed paper, the Committee was not fully convinced that you met the copyright statement below which you completed on 6 April:
\n\u2018The authors warrant that the article contains no libelous or other unlawful statements and does not infringe the rights of others.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Chairs of the Scientific Committee,
\nProf. C. L\u00e9ger, Director, Polytech Orl\u00e9ans, France
\nProf. K. Hawwash, SEFI President, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom<\/p>\n
The complete correspondence between the authors and the Chairs of the Scientific Committee can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n What can be seen in this chain of correspondence is that no reason is given to justify the alleged violation of the certification, \u2018The authors warrant that the article contains no libelous or other unlawful statements and does not infringe the rights of others.\u2019\u201d Furthermore, there was no attempt to request clarifications (e.g. \u201cthe Committee was not fully convinced\u201d). A copy of the completed copyright statement can be seen her<\/a>e and has no other stipulations.<\/p>\n During an in-person visit to meet with the SEFI Board prior to the start of the conference, Mr. Coste reminded Prof. L\u00e9ger that it was customary for conferences to allow the discussion of a wide range of issues and that conferences always provide a disclaimer (stated or implied \u2013 subject to the above mentioned warranty), \u201cthe materials and statements are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the conference management and their sponsors.\u201d Furthermore, Mr. Coste continued by reminding Prof. L\u00e9ger that, \u201cBy explicitly excluding this paper \u2013 which raises serious questions about the peer review process<\/a> \u2013 SEFI is explicitly censoring this critical discussion and explicitly endorsing the flawed and unsupportable paper at the center of the case study.\u201d Prof. L\u00e9ger\u2019s colleague stated that \u201cIn Europe, we have much greater liabilities regarding conference materials,\u201d to which Prof. L\u00e9ger did not refute. These unstated barriers to technical discussions, as exemplified by the actions of these committee chairs, provides an ominous cloud over the commitment of engineering education in Europe (as represented by SEFI) to academic freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The reason given for removal of the paper was as follows: \u201cOn looking again at your proposed paper, the Committee was not fully convinced that you met the copyright statement below which you completed on 6 April: \u2018The authors warrant that the article contains no libelous or other unlawful statements and does not infringe the … Continue reading Background<\/span>