Candidate Park Sun-ae denies allegations of 'stealing student's thesis' as "baseless"

Late 2015 Paper by Candidate Park Similar to Student's Paper Published 3 Months Later
Candidate Registered as First Author, Student as Corresponding Author
Candidate Park: "Written Based on 2014 Research Report by Candidate Park"

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] Park Soon-ae, the nominee for Deputy Prime Minister for Social Affairs and Minister of Education, has been accused of plagiarizing her student's thesis. Park's side has completely denied the allegations, stating that the two papers were developed from Park's research report published a year earlier.

On the 14th, Seo Dong-yong, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, revealed that a paper titled "A Study on the Performance Factors of Local Government Regulatory Administration: Focusing on the Perceived Regulation Intensity," published in December 2015 in the "Administrative Review" by Seoul National University's Graduate School of Public Administration, closely matches a paper presented by Park's student, Son Mo.

In the paper published by Park, Park is listed as the first author, and the corresponding author is the student Son. Typically, in research papers, the person with the greatest contribution is listed as the first author. The corresponding author is the one who can communicate with other researchers or journal editors during the review process, and it is unusual for a student to be the corresponding author on a professor's paper, which has raised concerns.

Son wrote a doctoral dissertation titled "A Study on the Influencing Factors of Regulatory Reform Performance: Focusing on Corporate Perception of Local Government Regulations" in February 2016, three months after the paper was published in the Administrative Review.

Seo pointed out, "Apart from the difference in length, the title, subject, hypothesis, research framework, and data used in the two papers are almost identical, making them essentially the same paper."

Seo also claimed, "Even if it is customary to list oneself as a co-author on a student's thesis, it is difficult to avoid ethical criticism, but Park listed herself as the first author, effectively stealing the student's research achievements."

In response, Park's side rebutted, "The allegation of plagiarizing the student's thesis is completely untrue." They also stated that the similarity between the 2015 academic paper and the 2016 doctoral dissertation is only 1%.

Park's side explained that Park's 2016 research paper and Son's 2015 doctoral dissertation were written based on a policy research report authored by Park in 2014. They claim that the policy research report titled "Survey Design and Result Analysis of Regional Regulation Perception by Local Governments," published in April 2014 by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, developed into the academic paper and doctoral dissertation.

Park's side explained, "Son's 2016 doctoral dissertation clearly states that it was written using data from the 2014 research report and that parts of the 2015 paper were cited in the dissertation. Both papers used the same survey data and clearly mention that they are different papers."

Park also argued that assigning the corresponding author role was a matter decided after consultation based on role distribution.

Park's side stated, "The nominee played a leading role in writing the paper, provided key ideas, and directly wrote the manuscript, which is why she was the first author. The nominee assigned the corresponding author role to the student to nurture the next generation of scholars and support diverse experiences."

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