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.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RSS