A doctoral student affiliated with the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences submitted their thesis for the second time, after making corrections. However, the latest version of the thesis showed several signs of plagiarism according to UiO's plagiarism detection tool.
The Research Ethics Committee at UiO (FEU) meant that scientific misconduct according to The Norwegian Research Ethics Act depends on two conditions: whether plagiarism has indeed occurred and whether the doctoral student can be blamed for this. There must be a clear preponderance of the evidence for this to be proven.
FEU concluded that the thesis contained significant plagiarism. This was because the plagiarism checks highlighted 25 passages in the general part of the thesis and nine passages in one of the included articles as direct copies without appropriate citations.
FEU determined that the student’s failure to include source references was gross negligence, especially given that the student otherwise demonstrated good citation practices and had received training in research ethics. The candidate’s claim of a misunderstanding regarding the second submission was dismissed.
FEU also identified minor breaches of proper referencing standards in two other articles associated with the thesis but deemed these not to qualify as plagiarism.
The student’s two supervisors were co-authors of the plagiarized article. However, FEU asserted that the supervisors could not be held responsible for the text in the article as they had only evaluated the research results. Nevertheless, the supervisors were criticized for not ensuring better oversight of the doctoral thesis before submission.
FEU recommended that the plagiarized article be retracted, and that the two articles with insufficient source references be corrected. Regarding the main part of the thesis, FEU insisted that the extensive deficiencies be rectified before the student could defend their work.
FEU’s conclusion in the case was unanimous.
References
- Research Ethics Act (2017) Section 8
- The Regulations of the Law to The Norwegian Research Ethics Act (2018) Section 7, last paragraph
- Regulations on the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor (Ph.D.) at UiO Sections 7 and 12
- The Norwegian National Committee for Research Ethics in Science and Technology (NENT): "Guidelines for Research Ethics in Science and Technology" (2015) Section 4
The text has been translated and improved by UiO GPT.
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