Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Korea University president faces plagiarism allegation
A local daily yesterday reported that Lee, 59, copied a portion of his pupils' work for his three academic papers on business management. Kukmin Ilbo said the conclusion and logic of the first two papers were very similar to the master's thesis of one of Lee's students printed in February 1988. It found that 80 percent and 57 percent of material in the two papers to be similar to the student's essays.

The daily also accused Lee of copying about 81 percent of another student's doctoral dissertation for his paper in the business administration society's journal last year.
By Annie I. Bang, The Korea Herald (December 27, 2006)
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2006/12/27/200612270016.asp

[antoniothegreat]

wow... that's just bad... bad bad bad...

there is a reason so many students are going abroad to study...

[charlieDD]

The times, they are a'changing! Not too long ago, this wouldn't even have been news. Of course he took his students' papers; he be the boss!

To quote JongnoGuru "Like watching babies taking their first steps" (from a posting on this forum a few months ago). Hope we're seeing the beginnings of a positive change in Korean academia and business.

( Then there's the whole "ghost writer" phenomenon. Have an American friend who has written some pretty popular EFL texts that are published in Korea as having been written by some famous Korean English professors / lecturers. His name appears nowhere; no acknowledgements at all. )

[Real Reality]

Korea University President Discounts Plagiarism Claims
Korea University President Lee Pil-sang is under suspicion of plagiarizing studies by students in his past research papers.

Academic circles and education fields are likely to be disturbed with another plagiarism scandal following the case of Kim Byong-joon, a former minister of education and human resources development. Kim resigned in dishonor for alleged plagiarism in his academic research bringing a big turmoil to Koreans in the middle of the year.

Education authorities say that the plagiarism of educators are serious problems and damage the overall education mood in the country. "Professors tell their students that plagiarism is an act of downright theft when they assign them to write papers. However in reality irregularities such as plagiarism, combination of several theses into one have become common practices among many professors," said an official from the education ministry.

By Kang Shin-who, Korea Times (December 26, 2006)
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200612/kt2006122617360611990.htm

[uberscheisse]

i wonder how many aeons it would take to extract a formal apology from the senior directly to his junior.

[hogwonguy1979]

given what I saw from my students this past semester and their plagarisms I'm not suprised by this

they think its OK to do stuff like this

[jinks]

I read a very thoughtful and well written editorial in our university's English language magazine. Cyinical old trout that I have become, I ran a google on it and sure enough, it was directly lifted from a famous treatise on how to develop reading skils. During a fruitless meeting with the student editor of the magazine - I wanted her to publish an article I had written publicising a series of events the English department was hosting to increase fluency in advanced students - I mentioned the editorial, and how well written it was. Who wrote it? I asked, oh, she said, Professor So and so. Ha! No he didn't, check out this! My article got published. Frankly, if you don't want people to copy your work - don't publish! But, if you want to maintain any academic credibility - don't copy stuff without crediting your sources. I don't feel bad for the publishing house losing money through someone else's plundering, but I do feel bad being attached to a university that turns a blind eye to academic dishonesty.

[charlieDD]

I recalled a friend who teaches at a university in New York saying something about how his university president sent a directive to the English Language Program to have the ESL Writing teachers to hold a special class on the university's policy on plagiarism and the resulting punishments. Each student in the class then had to sign a paper saying that they had been so informed.

The directive was sent, he said, because several Korean students who had gone through the English Language Program and had successfully enrolled as fulltime students at the university had been caught plagiarising. When caught they claimed they didn't know that it was wrong. They got off light because the university accepted that there was a cultural gap at play. The special class and the document to sign on the university's plagiarism policy were implemented to close the gap and end that as a defense.

I think it really is a mindset that is deep in traditional Korean culture: the boss takes what the underlings come up with and the underlings give it up willingly. And when they become the bosses, they get to do the same.

I also think it is changing, slowly perhaps, but surely, as the model doesn't fit modern demands.

( Okay now . . . I'm ready to be corrected ! )

[Bingo]

You're absolutely right. Any Korean will tell you that. Workers rarely offer advise or ways to improve the company. They know that if the idea works the boss takes all the the credit. If it doesn't, the blame is passed down to the person who suggested the idea. It's a lose / lose situation. Why bother?

Dynamic Korea.

[Real Reality]

Korea University President in Plagiarism Charge
Korea University president Lee Pil-sang published 12 academic papers that are almost identical to those written by students he supervised between 1983 and 2005, either under his name alone or as co-author with the students.... He said the foreign textbooks are as good as public property, "and I believed it was acceptable to refer to graphs, tables and content."

"Professors and students usually work together to write master's and doctoral theses, and in this case, students wrote papers and the professor contributed them to journals,� said Kim Kwang-woong, a professor at Seoul National University. "You can't say that the professor plagiarized his students' papers in this case." But Prof. Dokko Yoon of Ajou University's School of Business Administration says the papers constitute "downright plagiarism as he made it look as if they were his own even though they had already been published in the name of his students."
Chosun Ilbo (December 27, 2006)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200612/200612270033.html

[leebumlik69]

[leebumlik69]

[charlieDD]

"foreign books . . . public property"

This very idea reveals so much about how many Koreans view foreigners when it comes to rights, benefits, treatment: It's okay to screw 'em, they're not Korean.

Back to my post of a month or so ago: "Can foreigners get the discount too? (When whether I could get a discount at a Shilla bakery that was posted and the Korean customers ahead of me had gotten had to be discussed among the cashiers.) Same attitude; same thinking.

Same thinking and attitude that allows an SNU professor to copy a high-tech laser tool for measuring nano-sized circuits made by an American company (and which sells for over $80,000), then quit his SNU position, go off and set up a company to produce it in Korea, . . . and get "New Technology Invention Award" from the Korean government. (Listen to the story on National Public Radio at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4507052

Not all that different from many Muslim countries where you go unpunished for doing to non-Muslims what would get your head chopped if you did it to a Muslim.

I hope the publishers of the "foreign textbooks" hear about this and sue the "professor". That would serve him right for "professing" such a belief unabashedly.

He's no further along in the development curve than the "slick boys" of the 1950's / 60's ( "slick boys" was a term used by American soldiers of that era to describe the Koreans who would steal from the Army bases, truck, etc. anything that you weren't sitting on! They were quite good at it, and they tended to dress in nice clothes bought with their ill-gotten pocket money. For a man to become a top professor on ill-gotten research papers is no different: an image of respect built on a disrespectful behavior.)

Sorry, but this particular comment (on foreign books) by a supposed academic leader just ticks me off !

[madowlspeaks]

There is a really fine line here between cultural and moral relativism.

There is also, in my opinion, an obvious distinction graduate research headed by a professor, and a professor downloading an article and passing it off as his or her (their) own.

Aside, I was once informed by a director of a university English conversation program that copying is a cultural thing. The implication at the time was that I should not have been upset that 80% of my students had turned in falsified reports for a university mandated program. Further, I was making a big deal out of (apparently what is not considered) plagiarism. This plagiarism obvious from the fact that the students could not put together a coherent sentence in class, yet managed to pass in reports that only Peter Jennings could hope to write.

Why are the students being mandated to produce a written/oral report if they can not manage a sentence you might ask? Ask the Einstein�s at the university where I am no longer teaching this question.

If the problem of plagiarism does not stop at the university levels, then the current students who might one day become professors will continue to carry on this "bad habit" (which they learned as acceptable in school) when they themselves become a professor.

Herein is the problem. Reproduction of �bad habits.�

Perhaps no body wants to deal with issues of plagiarism because of the inherent possibilities of losing face.