Taiwan’s top university on Friday passed a motion to have students enrolled in graduate or doctoral programs sign a plagiarism declaration stating that their theses conform to ethics and are original, amid a spate of incidents that saw politicians accused of academic plagiarism ahead of the Nov. 26 local elections.

The National Taiwan University (NTU), during an internal administrative meeting, passed the motion to amend its rules on the qualification examinations for master’s and doctoral degrees.

The university’s administrators voted to have all students that have passed the thesis defense sign a plagiarism declaration stating the integrity and originality of their theses and provide the results of plagiarism detection software on the document before they can graduate.

The declaration states that there is no fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or ghostwriting involved in the production of the thesis, and that the graduating student shall accept any and all legal liability if the statement is found to be false.

The passage of the motion formalized a practice that had been adopted by the NTU’s management after an academic ethics review committee at the school determined that former Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Taoyuan mayoral candidate Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) had plagiarized his thesis at NTU’s Graduate Institute of National Development.

Following the announcement, NTU rescinded Lin’s diploma and degree, forcing him to give up his campaign. He was replaced by DPP Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬).

More allegations of academic plagiarism have since been made, mostly through media reports or by DPP members, against candidates and members of other parties.

Participants of the meeting also passed an addendum stating that the university’s Office of Academic Affairs shall report theses deemed serious breaches of academic integrity to the personnel department, which shall then hold faculty members who served as the theses’ advisers accountable.

When asked by reporters on Saturday what would constitute a “serious breach,” Ding Shih-Torng (丁詩同), who heads the NTU’s Office of Academic Affairs, cited as an example cases where students’ degrees were revoked.

On the other hand, no punishments would be imposed on the adviser if a thesis was found to contain only a small paragraph copied from other published materials, which is considered a minor violation, he said.

In Friday’s meeting, the university administration also passed a motion that stated if a diploma was to be conferred upon a student of a part-time graduate program, it must bear wording that differentiates it from diplomas awarded to full-time graduate students.

The university’s administration said it is necessary to make such a distinction because the first type of graduates often demonstrate superior job skills than those who attended full-time graduate programs.

So far, only 13 of the 25 part-time graduate programs for working professionals at NTU make the distinction on diplomas.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel