Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, June 12th Title: "My thesis was stolen" —— Hidden risks behind graduation thesis duplicate checking service
Xinhua News Agency "China Net" reporter
Obviously, I have done a good job of confidentiality measures, but the academic papers I have worked so hard to write have been published first by others.
With the coming of college graduation season, many graduates have already begun to prepare for graduation, and submitting an academic paper that meets the requirements is a top priority for many students before graduation. In order to reduce the "repetition rate" of one’s own thesis and ensure the smooth graduation, it has become a necessary link for most graduates to check the duplicate of the thesis through various channels before submitting the thesis. However, your paper may be stolen by others.
I copied my paper.
Recently, Xiao Yang, a second-year graduate student in a university in Guangxi, wants to revise and improve his undergraduate thesis and publish it as a graduate thesis. When Xiao Yang checked the revised and improved papers through the duplicate database, he found that no matter how he revised them, the core part of the papers was plagiarized, and all the plagiarized contents pointed to a published paper.
After searching online, Xiao Yang, who was full of doubts, found that the article was published in Legal System and Society in September 2016, and the author of the article was shown as Yu Moumou.
Xiao Yang told reporters that this article is more than 90% similar to his graduation thesis "On the Improvement of China’s Civil Litigation Pre-trial Conference System" submitted and passed in June 2016.
By comparison, the reporter found that the full text of Xiao Yang’s undergraduate graduation thesis "On the Perfection of the Pre-trial Conference System in China’s Civil Litigation" is more than 12,000 words, while the paper published by Yu Moumou in "Legal System and Society" is only more than 3,000 words, and all the core contents are consistent with Xiao Yang’s undergraduate graduation thesis.
Because Yu Moumou has published the paper first, Xiao Yang can’t successfully publish his revised and improved new paper at present.
In the negotiation between Xiao Yang and Yu Moumou, Yu Moumou clearly admitted that his signed paper was purchased on Taobao in 2016 to evaluate his professional title. After many times of communication between Xiao Yang and Yu Moumou, Yu Moumou expressed respect for Xiao Yang’s original achievements and sent a letter to the editorial department of Legal System and Society requesting to withdraw the manuscript.
As of press time, the papers signed by Yu Moumou can still be searched on the Internet, and the influence on Xiao Yang caused by plagiarism and preemptive publication has not been completely eliminated.
"How did my paper get lost?"
How can my graduation thesis written after hard research be stolen by others? Xiao Yang believes that the theft of papers should occur in the process of duplicate checking.
Xiao Yang said that before he graduated from undergraduate course, he bought the duplicate checking service of papers twice through Taobao. The seller said that the databases used to compare the duplicate rate of papers were "SameReport" and "PaperPass", and the fees for each duplicate checking service were less than that in 20 yuan.
The reporter found that in some university forums and news reports, cases in which papers were stolen or published by others in advance caused their graduation to be affected can be seen. Most of the results of the final investigation point to the paper duplicate checking institutions in the market.
At present, in most colleges and universities in China, if the citation rate of graduation thesis references exceeds the requirements of the school, graduates may face the dilemma of not graduating. Therefore, in order to ensure that they can graduate smoothly, before submitting their graduation thesis, many students will check the duplicate of their thesis through the paper duplicate checking platform on the market.
At present, the well-known and heavily used duplicate checking systems are mainly provided by knowledge database platforms such as China Zhiwang, Wanfang and Weipu, and many sellers also provide duplicate checking services on e-commerce platforms such as Taobao.
Taking Taobao as an example, reporters searched for keywords such as "duplicate checking", and a large number of businesses under the banner of various duplicate checking platforms were providing duplicate checking services for papers. The duplicate checking databases used by various businesses are varied, and the fees range from tens to hundreds of yuan.
The reporter found in the duplicate checking methods of many papers provided by Taobao sellers that sellers often ask buyers to copy and paste the papers into the third-party website links provided by sellers, and buyers can wait for a certain period of time before downloading the electronic duplicate checking report. However, it is not known whether the paper data uploaded by the buyer was deleted or properly kept by the seller in time.
Another phenomenon worthy of attention is that many businesses that provide duplicate checking services also provide paper writing services. The seller claims that he can provide graduation thesis for writing, while ensuring that it is original and the repetition rate meets the requirements of the school.
According to a seller who has been engaged in writing papers on the Internet, many writing service stores tend to prefer writing undergraduate graduation papers because of their low difficulty, large quantity and wide sources. The seller said that because the undergraduate graduation thesis is often kept as data by universities and other units after submission, it will not be uploaded to the Internet and generally will not be included in various databases, which provides an opportunity for some businesses to steal undergraduate graduation thesis and then sell it.
Expert: We should raise the awareness of intellectual property protection and use the duplicate checking service carefully.
Many legal experts said that the original intention of the paper duplicate checking system is to prevent the occurrence of academic misconduct, and it is not a necessary procedure for personal paper creation. If college students use the paper duplicate checking service, they need to raise their awareness of intellectual property protection.
"We only provide’ public-to-public’ duplicate checking service for magazines, periodical editorial departments or scientific research institutions or units such as universities. If college students need this service, they can only operate it through schools." Sun Xiongyong, the person in charge of scientific research integrity products of China HowNet, said, "All paper duplicate checking services under the banner of China HowNet on the e-commerce platform are illegal and counterfeit."
Sun Xiongyong said that China Knowledge Network has set up a separate database for the duplicate checking data of undergraduate papers, and the resources in this database are only used by colleges and universities after fragmentation, and are not open to other subjects in society, thus avoiding the possibility of leakage of paper data before publication.
Liu Ling, vice president of the Intellectual Property Court of Shijingshan District People’s Court in Beijing, said that the paper submitted for duplicate checking can be regarded as a "semi-finished product" created by the author of the paper. If the duplicate checking part can fully express the author’s thoughts in some form, it can be considered as a finished work.
Gao Guilin, a professor at capital university of economics and business Law School, believes that college students’ graduation thesis is copyrighted as soon as it is completed. When the final paper is submitted to the defense jury, it can be regarded as public publication.
Liu Ling believes that the right to publish duplicate papers is a personal right in the copyright law, and only the author can decide when, where and how to publish them publicly. Paper duplication checking is a stage in which the author modifies and perfects his works in the process of creation. It cannot be regarded as the exercise of the right of publication by the author of the paper. If others use the unpublished content of duplicate checking papers without the consent of the author of the paper, they will be liable for stopping the infringement and eliminating the influence.
Gao Guilin suggested that college students should pay attention to protecting the intellectual property rights of their scientific research achievements, keep evidence in time, raise their sense of confidentiality, and use all kinds of papers carefully to check the duplicate service. (Reporter: Cao Yiming, Fang Sixian, Wang Aona, Xu Xiangda)