[PD수첩] Kim Gun-hee’s papers on allegations of plagiarism and controversies that do not subside

– It was revealed that some of the contents of Kim Gun-hee’s doctoral dissertation were copied and pasted directly from personal blogs, newspaper articles, and the website of a mail-order business reporting company.

– Two new papers by Kim Kun-hee, who appeared in the National Assembly Education Committee’s Certificate of Audit from the Ministry of Education on October 4th, and the controversy over plagiarism once more

On the night of the 11th, PD Notebook covered the allegations of plagiarism of Kim Gun-hee’s thesis and her history. A total of five articles were mentioned as plagiarism theses by Kun-Hee Kim, including Ms. Kim’s master’s thesis and her doctoral dissertation. Among them, except for her master’s thesis, the rest of the thesis were published by Mrs. Kim alone or jointly in 2007, and she published three academic theses. . On August 1st, Kookmin University concluded that Kim’s three papers related to the school did not fall under plagiarism or research misconduct, and that the remaining one paper was not verifiable. Kookmin University used a plagiarism verification program called ‘Copy Killer’ and reported that the plagiarism rate of problem papers was between 7% and 17%. In response, professors from 14 professors’ academic groups, including the Korea Association of Private Universities Association, found articles on fortune-telling sites, reports from ‘Happy Campus’, and business plans of companies that might not be caught by the copy killer program. He revealed contradictory results.

A 2002 thesis by Professor Gu Yeon-sang of Sookmyung Women’s University was searched for similar contents in the doctoral thesis of Kun-hee Kim. He said that he was surprised when he saw the chapter 2 verse 1 of her thesis on Mrs. Kim, who heard regarding it on TV. It was because part of his thesis on Mrs. Kim was the same as his thesis. He explained that part of her own thesis was made into three or four pages “as if she was using an editing technique, by stitching and pasting it.” On September 6, the so-called ‘verification team’ judged all four of Kim’s papers related to Kookmin University as plagiarism. Jong-bok Lee, a member of the National Inspection Group in the academia, explained, “It wasn’t in Copy Killer, but when I read it, it seemed like it was taken from somewhere, and when I searched for a keyword, it came out unexpectedly (similar content).” Mrs. Kim’s doctoral thesis also included a company’s business plan, but it was a problem because the source was not indicated. Kookmin University decided that it was not research fraud, considering that the patent holder of the company had agreed to the writing of the thesis. In response, lawyer Kim Gwang-san explained that the Supreme Court clearly states that “plagiarism is correct even if others agree, because plagiarism interferes with the normal verification of academia and blocks the virtuous cycle of academic development.” A thesis by Mrs. Kim that Kookmin University stated that verification was impossible. The verification team judged that the thesis was written by copying and interlacing the contents of 9 dissertations and 2 journal dissertations, and that it was almost entirely copied from someone else’s thesis. Yu Won-jun, a professor at Kyunghee University, a pan-academic national verification team, argued, “It’s not that (Kookmin University) can’t verify, it’s that they copied the whole (content), so I can’t say that it’s not plagiarism.”

When the Research Ethics Committee of Kookmin University did not conduct a main investigation of Mrs. Kim’s thesis due to the passage of the statute of limitations, regarding 200 graduates urging the verification of Mrs. Kim’s thesis decided to return their school diplomas. Kim Jun-hong, chairman of the emergency response committee for Kookmin University alumni, exclaimed, “If schools come out so cowardly, there is no need for diplomas and signboards from these schools.” In front of the school, one-person protests by current students were also held, urging the university to re-examine the thesis. And last October, when the Ministry of Education asked Kookmin University to submit a position and an investigation plan on Mrs. Kim’s thesis, Kookmin University began a re-investigation into the allegation of plagiarism of Mrs.

Kookmin University Techno Design Graduate School, where Kun-hee Kim received her Ph.D. The PD notebook was able to hear the situation at the time from an insider at the university regarding the past thesis examination situation. An official said, “When graduate students gather and talk regarding their thesis, they drop a lot (in the examination) and cannot pass, but Kim Myung-shin (Kim Gun-hee) passed it too easily at once.” According to an insider, there was a lot of talk within the graduate school regarding passing the doctoral examination of Mrs. Kim at the time. Kim’s doctoral dissertation had another suspicion. A certificate of approval with the signatures and seals of the judges. The approval of Mrs. Kim’s thesis was highly suspicious because the handwriting of the judges’ signatures was similar. PD Notebook met with Kookmin University Professor Oh Seung-hwan, who was the chairperson of the doctoral thesis review at the time, following several visits, and asked regarding the allegations. He said, “Originally, the teaching assistant prints it out on a computer. The teaching assistant forgot his name that morning and didn’t write it down. Let’s just stand up for a little bit and let the teacher just sign the autograph,” he replied.

In 1999, Kun-hee Kim received her master’s degree from Sookmyung Women’s University Graduate School of Education. She was also accused of plagiarism in that her master’s thesis by Mrs. Kim was that she studied the works of the master of abstraction, Paul Klee. Sookmyung Women’s University has already finished the preliminary investigation into the plagiarism of Mrs. Kim’s thesis and has not decided whether to conduct the main investigation or not. Sookmyung Women’s University alumni installed a banner and informed the school of their intention to urge the main investigation of Mrs. Kim’s thesis through solidarity signatures by more than 3,000 students and alumni. The plagiarism rate of Sookmyung Women’s University’s Democratic Alumni Association that self-verified Mrs. Kim’s thesis was 48.1% to 54.9%. The PD notebook asked Sookmyung Women’s University regarding the plan to conduct the main investigation on the thesis, and Sookmyung Women’s University responded that it was in accordance with the regulations and procedures of the Research Ethics Committee, and that it would comply with the regulations in case of plagiarism.

Last year, there was a public apology from Mrs. Kim Kun-hee for the false history controversy. Yoon Geun-hyuk, an education reporter at OhmyNews, who was covering the situation at the time, said, “These plagiarism and false career are all connected, and it is rare that people submit more than 20 false records, not just one or two.” The application that Mrs. Kim submitted to the recruitment of an adjunct professor at Suwon Women’s University in 2007. In her application, she stated that she had worked in the industry since December 2003, but she stated that the company was founded on November 30, 2004. She also stated that she had worked with other careers before the establishment as well. When she looked at her recruitment criteria table at Suwon Women’s University, it was presumed that she submitted her resume by extending her tenure in order to get a high score in an industrial career. She also revealed that Mrs. Kim is a ‘Seoul National University Business School Master’s degree’ in her resume and media interviews on several occasions. As a result of her confirmation, she found that Mrs. Kim attended the graduate school of business management at Seoul National University, where office workers attend on weekends, which was different from the graduate school of business, which is a general master’s program. Afterwards, this part was pointed out as a part in which her academic background was otherwise stated in a specific audit by the Ministry of Education. And on September 2nd, the police decided not to appeal once morest the allegations of false career entries of Mrs. Kim Kun-hee.

On the 4th of October, at the National Assembly Education Committee’s national audit, there was a dispute over the absence of key witnesses, including the university president, regarding the plagiarism of Kim Kun-hee’s thesis. And Seo Dong-yong, a member of the National Assembly, raised suspicions of plagiarism by referring to two new papers by Kim Gun-hee. It is said that the digital-related thesis that Kim Kun-hee wrote while she was an adjunct professor at ‘Korea Polytechnic University’ was copied from golf-related thesis to survey results. Another design paper she claimed was that she copied a dance performance paper, she claimed, even though it appears that she plagiarized a real estate paper. The PD Note sent an official letter to the presidential office to inquire regarding the truth regarding the plagiarism of Kim Gun-hee’s thesis, but there was no response.