PhDs going to poor scholars nowadays?

The recent case of UPM lecturers being caught plagiarising articles they found on the Internet for their book on effective resume writing.

This is one of those cases where i was hoping that the act of stealing was intentional for the purpose of self-reward. But it seems that the excuse given shows that they didn't even know it was theft.

"The junior author, who recently completed her PhD, said that since the source was from the Internet, she thought the information was in the public domain and as such did not cite the article," he said (Prof Dr Nik Mustapha).

This is the sort of scholarly rules that they teach 1st year matriculation students, and is continuously drummed into university students throughout their career as students. Most universities even have courses dedicated to the method and style of academic writing.

And, still, the mistake was made, apparently with the belief that it wasn't wrong? And the university awarded this person a doctorate? If she thought that this was ok, imagine all the papers she has written so far as part of her studies -- who is to say she did not apply the same ignorance there. Shameful.