Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Minister Faces Plagiarism Accusations
A dissertation of Kim Byung-joon, Minister of Education and Human Resources Development, was found on Monday to be similar to a doctoral dissertation written by one of his students when he was a professor at Kookmin University. Minister Kim is accused of copying some details of a doctoral dissertation of his student, identified only as Shin.

Kim's thesis used the survey results of Shin's dissertation, which were obtained by interviewing 400 people in the four regions of Seoul in which reconstruction projects had been undergoing in September 1987. In addition, the titles of the two are almost identical except for a few words.

Five out of the 11 statistics tables in Shin's 140 page dissertation are identical or have a minor difference in some figures to those in Minister Kim's 15 page paper.
Donga.com (July 25, 2006)
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2006072584658

[Guri Guy]

The irony of this is truly staggering.

[Real Reality]

Minister Admits Bungle: Kim Apologizes for Publishing Thesis Twice
Kim Byong-joon, deputy prime minister and minister of education and human resources development, on Thursday apologized for having published identical research papers in academic journals but denied the allegation that he stole part of the thesis of his student in publishing his paper.

According to the ministry, Kim, a former public administration professor, received 270 million won ($283,200) from the government together with two fellow professors for an educational project run from September in 2001 to August in 2002. The research team submitted 46 papers to academic journals over the next few years and Kim worked on eight of them. The minister acknowledged two of his six research papers were identical.

The GNP chief policymaker said allegations on Kim's plagiarism and thesis inflation are continuously erupting and those are serious matters for the education chief. "If the allegations are all true, he should voluntarily step down," she said.
By Park Chung-a, Korea Times (July 27, 2006)
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200607/kt2006072717401711950.htm

[RACETRAITOR]

Meh, the premier of my province was caught plagiarising, and nothing ever happened to him. The fact that he was trying to get a degree while he was premier was telliㅜg though.

[Reflections]

[Woland]

[Hyeon Een]

Today's topic in one of my adult conversation classes today was "cheating".

One of the students relayed to me in broken Konglish that when he was taking an English Literature final test at this University that everyone in his class were so terrible at English that they spoke to the professor invigilating their exam (also their teacher) and he agreed to let them all cheat on the test so that they could pass. If he hadn't been such a 'good' teacher most of his class would have failed.

I also mark a lot of writing for 'real' University English classes. There is LOTS of plagiarism. It's particularly funny when they copy off of their friend, but include their friend's teachers comments in their submission. Or for their one paragraph homework they submit a perfectly written 2 page essay they just downloaded from the internet. I'm nicer to those downloading students however than the ones who just type something in Korean and use a translation website though. Those are mindboggingly bad. (Just as a taster: When you write 요 in Korean it gets translated as "bedspread". There are quite a lot of "bedspreads" in the homeworks I've received..) Totally incomprehensible.

[Juregen]

The reason Koreans cheat is mainly because they have a lot of social pressure to "succeed".

I even have kids as old as 7 years old trying to cheat, just to be a bit bettter then the rest. For them it is part of life i guess.

They will have to wake up to the intermational community or they will discredit themselves very fast in the international business/academic environment.

[Roch]

[rothkowitz]

Why didn't he just hang on for a bit and get an honorary one?Dumbass....

[Real Reality]

Education Minister Pressured to Resign
Voices calling for the education minister to step down are rising in academic as well as political circles since he admitted that he published identical research papers in two academic journals on Thursday.... Rep. Chun Yu-ok, a member of the supreme council of the largest opposition Grand National Party (GNP), also demanded that Kim resign. "How dare Kim to want to continue his job as a deputy prime minister now that we all know that he inflated his research work and is being suspected of plagiarism?" she was quoted as saying at a meeting of the council.
By Park Chung-a, Korea Times (July 28, 2006)
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200607/kt2006072817485311950.htm

[Real Reality]

Kim accused of cheating at least three more times
Besides the one he already admitted, Deputy Prime Minister for Education Kim Byong-joon resubmitted at least three other research papers as if they were new works, a JoongAng Ilbo investigation has found. Mr. Kim received government research money for at least one of them.
by Park Seung-hee and Ser Myo-ja, JoongAng Daily (July 29, 2006)
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200607/28/200607282223164279900090409041.html

[khyber]

you know...i think it's kinda lame RR posts only news articles...

But then we read stuff like this and it's too funny to bother being upset.

[Guri Guy]

Real Reality saves you the trouble of digging up these "gems" yourself.
He puts out the info and you can make up your own mind about it. Nothing wrong with that.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The most outrageous thing is that he took grant money and then just re-printed old papers. Intellectual dishonesty is...well, dishonest. Fraud is criminal.