National Taiwan University (NTU) on Friday night rejected allegations that university president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) plagiarized a student’s master’s thesis on the grounds that Kuan’s conference paper was not a “formal publication.”
A conference paper published last year coauthored by Kuan and National Chi Nan University professor Chen Chien-liang (陳建良) entitled An Empirical Study of the Effect of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement on Exports contains 15 uncited sentences and charts that are highly similar to those in a master’s thesis published in 2016 by one of Chen’s students, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chang Liao Wan-chien (張廖萬堅) told a news conference on Thursday.
The university said in a statement on Friday that Kuan did not violate its code of academic conduct, because the conference paper was not a “completed and formal publication that must conform to the specific academic style of its discipline.”
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
After consulting with the Academia Sinica Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, which co-organized the conference with the NTU Department of Economics, the university’s ethics committee concluded that the conference was an “informal conference [for academics to] share their research and receive feedback,” the university said.
Conference papers were not peer-reviewed and were only published in the conference proceedings, the university said.
The proceedings were designed to facilitate discussion among participants and do not have an international standard book number, NTU said, adding that conference papers are not available in major libraries and have not been formally distributed.
The university also said in the statement that Kuan had obtained its approval to serve as an independent director of Taiwan Mobile Co（台灣大哥大) on May 17 last year.
Wang Li-sheng (王立昇), an NTU professor and ethics committee member, said Academia Sinica had told the university that the conference proceedings were “a collection of working papers.”
However, the conference’s call for papers clearly required participants to submit their “full paper” by April 4 last year, and Kuan’s paper appears to be complete and does not contain any notes stating that it is a work in progress.
Several academics yesterday accused NTU of failing to properly investigate the accusations of plagiarism.
“There is no such a thing as an informal research paper,” NTU Department of Agronomy professor Warren Kuo (郭華仁) said, adding that the ethics committee members are unqualified for their job.
NTU Graduate Institute of National Development professor Liu Ching-yi (劉靜怡) questioned Academia Sinica’s role in supporting the university’s claim that papers presented at the conference were informal.
“Why is Academia Sinica diminishing the value of its own conference?” she asked, adding that maybe the institution should tell famous academics planning to attend Academia Sinica conferences that there is no need to go, because their papers would not be treated as “formal papers.”
Academics should take responsibility for any works they publish and where they publish is irrelevant when determining what constitutes plagiarism, National Taiwan Normal University Department of English professor Huang Han-yu (黃涵榆) said, adding that academics could even be charged with fraud if they received research subsidies for a paper they plagiarized.
Kuan’s supporters at NTU late on Friday set up a Web page demanding that Ministry of Education respect the university’s autonomy.
At press time last night, the page had collected more than 1,000 signatures from supporters, including former NTU presidents Sun Chen (孫震) and Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔).
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
‘BOOMING’: ’ The number of partners we have here is incredible. You can see from their stock prices. They’re doing so well, they’re so happy,’ Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp’s spending in Taiwan has ballooned to about US$150 billion a year, 10 times the US$10 billion to US$15 billion the company spent five years ago, Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, suggesting Taiwan’s strategic importance in the global artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain. “Taiwan is the epicenter of the AI revolution. This is where the chips come, packaging comes. This is where the systems are made. This is where AI supercomputers were created,” Huang said at a meeting for the company’s employees in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei, the planned site of Nvidia’s Taipei headquarters. “Taiwan
GREATER REACH? Auto parts and wood products would face tariffs of up to 15%, matching those targeting the EU, Japan and South Korea, Vice Premier said The US has announced that preferential tariff treatment for Taiwan’s non-semiconductor Section 232 goods would take effect retroactively from May 1, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The US government yesterday posted a notice on the Federal Register’s public inspection Web site previewing tariff concessions for Taiwan under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Taiwan-US investment after two months of negotiations. The MOU signed on Jan. 15 stipulated three major preferential tariff arrangements: a 15 percent “reciprocal” tariff rate for Taiwan without stacking most-favored nation (MFN) rates; preferential Section 232 treatment for semiconductors and related products; and preferential Section 232 treatment for non-semiconductor
RSS