Half of Public Institution Contests Do Not Even Review for Plagiarism or Copying

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission Announces Results of Survey on 1,306 Contests from 2018 to 2020

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Over the past three years, more than half of the 1,306 public contests held by public institutions did not conduct any plagiarism or infringement checks on the submissions.

According to the Public Institution Contest Operation Survey results announced by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission on the 10th, from 2018 to 2020, there were 1,306 contests held by public institutions with prize money totaling 11.5 billion KRW. However, 53.4% of these contests did not review or verify submissions for plagiarism or infringement.

Only 46.6% conducted such verification, and 12.5% of the contests did not publicly disclose the results after completion.

The survey found that while there were approximately 620,000 submissions across the 1,306 contests, only 39 cases had awards revoked due to plagiarism or infringement.

Following an incident in January where a plagiarism case won the grand prize in a public institution contest, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission investigated contests held over three years from 2018 to last year by 43 central administrative agencies, 17 metropolitan local governments, and 17 education offices.

From January 25 to last month’s 8th, the Commission collected public opinions through the National Policy Participation Platform “People’s Thoughts” with 1,913 participants. Among those who had experience participating in contests (956 people), 48.3% cited the lack of transparency in the judging and verification process as the biggest dissatisfaction.

Furthermore, 98% of participants agreed on the necessity of introducing a public verification system. Ninety-five percent supported the idea that all contest information conducted by public institutions should be registered and managed in one place.

Chairperson Jeon Hyun-hee of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission stated, “Based on the issues revealed by the public institution contest operation survey and the collected public opinions, we plan to establish fair and transparent contest operation measures.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.