The Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education must act in defense of intellectual property and academic integrity, and take former Hsinchu mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) to task over allegations that he plagiarized his master’s thesis, the New Power Party (NPP) caucus said yesterday.
A report commissioned by the Hsinchu Science Park Administration that compared Lin’s thesis, which he obtained from Chung Hua University, and the document he is accused of plagiarizing showed that of the 18,806 words in Lin’s thesis, only 2,215 were original content, which if true means that about 88 percent of the thesis was copied, NPP Chairwoman Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said.
Lin only wrote six of the chapter titles and copied the other 14, Chen said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
He created three of the eight images in the thesis, apparently plagiarizing the other five, she said, adding that Lin appears to have copied the 11 forms and charts from the report, even copying typographical errors.
The core value of a politician and of academic integrity should be honesty, she said.
Only when one is honest about their profession can they ask others to trust them, she said.
The NPP called on Lin to stop hiding behind claims of political defamation and speak the truth.
If he plagiarized his thesis, he should apologize publicly and return his diploma, it said.
NPP Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) called on the ministries to respect the law, give due weight to academic integrity and not allow those in top positions to evade responsibility because of their political clout.
Lin’s claim that it is normal for Taiwanese professors and students to participate in a research project and his statement “I was involved in the research” are part of his effort to obfuscate, NPP Legislator Claire Wang (王婉諭) said.
The education ministry, which is the authority recognized in the Degree Conferral Act (學位授予法), should take a larger role in investigating claims of thesis plagiarism, Wang said, adding that it should implement policies to invalidate academic degrees of those found to be involved in such activities, including those who have someone else write for them.
This would uphold academic honesty and justice, she said.
The accusations against Lin were first made by Taipei City Councilor Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week.
Lin has since released two identical statements apparently signed separately by his thesis advisers Ho Li-hsing (賀立行) and Wang Ming-lang (王明朗) saying that Lin had been part of a team that conducted the research for the Hsinchu Science Park Bureau.
Lin took part in the formulation, distribution and analysis of the survey used in the research, the statements said, adding that they considered it “fair and reasonable” that Lin used data from the project in his own thesis.
Lin said he would sue Wang Hung-wei for slander.
He has also denied a second plagiarism accusation surrounding his master’s thesis published in 2017 at National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Graduate Institute of National Development.
Political commentator Huang Yang-ming (黃揚明) wrote on Facebook on Tuesday last week that he had found “striking similarities” between the first two chapters of Lin’s thesis about the 2014 Hsinchu mayoral election and those of Yu Cheng-huang (余正煌), another student at the same institute whose work was published in 2016.
Lin said it was Yu who “borrowed” his research materials.
“Mr Yu used my data and referenced my draft thesis, although I graduated later than he did,” Lin said, adding that he completed his oral presentation one year later than Yu because he had been busy with mayoral duties after winning the election in 2014.
Lin’s adviser at NTU, Chen Ming-tong (陳明通), who is now head of the National Security Bureau, has vouched for him, saying in a statement that he had asked Lin to help Yu with research material.
Lin resigned as Hsinchu mayor on Friday, as he is to contest the year-end Taoyuan mayoral election as the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate.
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