Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator Ann Kao (高虹安), the party’s Hsinchu mayoral candidate, yesterday defended herself against accusations that her doctoral dissertation plagiarized two studies she coauthored with other researchers.
The Chinese-language Mirror Media earlier yesterday reported that when Kao previously worked at the Institute for Information Industry, she received a subsidy from it to study at the University of Cincinnati, but her doctoral dissertation in 2018 allegedly plagiarized partial content of two previous institute-funded studies that she coauthored and presented at a 2017 conference.
The magazine reported that up to 4,161 words, or 25 percent, of her 16,519-word dissertation were the same as text from the two studies, as well as several pictures and graphs.
Photo: Huang Ching-hsuan, Taipei Times
It asked why she did not gain approval from the institute to cite the material.
Kao yesterday morning shared an e-mail from Jane Strasser, senior associate vice president for research and research integrity at the University of Cincinnati, which said that “the allegations involve self-plagiarism, which is not considered research misconduct.”
The university on Aug. 20 received an anonymous e-mail claiming that her dissertation involved self-plagiarism without citing the original articles and failing to obtain a release agreement from the coauthors, Kao said.
The sender asked the university to investigate the matter, which led to the e-mail from Strasser, which arrived on Aug. 22, Kao said.
Strasser wrote that the allegations “have been made repeatedly and insistently for over a year,” and cited a Graduate School Leadership statement from last year saying that “there is nothing specific to the Graduate School on self-plagiarism, thus this would not be something we would pursue,” Kao said.
“There are no copyright concerns,” and the person in the allegation “has entered the political arena, which may be the motivation for the allegations (or not),” she said, quoting the e-mail.
When she submitted her dissertation in 2018, the university assessed it with SafeAssign, a plagiarism prevention tool, which showed only 6 percent of it matched other sources, Kao said, adding that the magazine’s accusations are malicious.
Moreover, the magazine claimed that the copyright of research reports conducted by civil servants should be owned by the government agency that funded the research, but institute employees are not considered civil servants, she said, adding that an internal investigation the institute conducted last year stated that use of sources in non-profit academic publications is not considered when assessing copyright infringements.
If accusations that her doctoral dissertation was plagiarized continue, she would ask a lawyer to defend her rights, Kao said.
Eight restaurants in Taiwan yesterday secured a one-star rating from the Michelin Guide Taiwan for the first time, while three one-star restaurants from last year’s edition were promoted to two stars. Forty-three restaurants were awarded one star this year, including 34 in Taipei, five in Taichung and four in Kaohsiung. Hosu (好嶼), Chuan Ya (川雅), Sushi Kajin (鮨嘉仁), aMaze (心宴), La Vie by Thomas Buhner, Yuan Yi (元一) and Frassi in Taipei and Front House (方蒔) in Kaohsiung received a one-star rating for the first time. Hosu is known for innovative Taiwanese dishes, while Chuan Ya serves Sichuan cuisine and aMaze specializes
Taitung County is to launch charter flights to Malaysia at the end of this year, after setting up flights to Vietnam and Thailand, the Taitung County Government said yesterday. The new charter flight services, provided by low-cost carrier Batik Air Malaysia, would be part of five-day tour packages for visits to Taitung County or Malaysia. The Batik Air charter flight, with about 200 seats, would take Malaysian tourists to Taitung on Dec. 30 and then at 12:35pm return to Kuala Lumpur with Taiwanese tourists. Another charter flight would bring the Taiwanese home on Jan. 3 next year, arriving at 5:30pm, before taking the
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
An exhibition celebrating Taiwan and Japan’s comic culture opened on Saturday in Taichung, featuring a section that explores Taiwanese reproductions of Japanese comics from when martial law limited Japanese representation. “A Century of Manga Culture: An Encounter of Taiwan and Japan’s Youth” held its Taiwan opening ceremony at Taichung’s National Taiwan Museum of Comics after an initial one-month run in Japan’s Kyoto International Manga Museum between May 24 and June 24. Much like the Kyoto exhibition, the show mainly celebrates the comic connection between Taiwan and Japan through late Taiwanese comic book