The RSM doctoral candidate who submitted a dissertation with plagiarised sections has not satisfactorily rectified this issue after being given a second chance. Although the dissertation no longer contains actual plagiarism, the doctoral candidate did not manage to “rewrite the dissertation in accordance with the standards of good scholarship”. For this reason, she has been asked to voluntarily relinquish the doctoral title conferred on her. Erasmus University Rotterdam explicitly distances itself from the dissertation in question.
Last year, Erasmus University’s Scientific Integrity Committee recommended revoking the candidate’s academic title of Doctor. It did so in response to plagiarism issues identified in her dissertation: at least 17 pages were copied word for word from books, and another two pages from online sources. However, the University decided not to revoke the recently conferred title at that point. In the opinion of the Executive Board, there were alleviating circumstances since the candidate had received seriously inadequate support and guidance from her thesis supervisor. For this reason, the candidate was formally reprimanded and given the opportunity to rewrite her dissertation. Other dissertations that had been overseen by the thesis supervisor in question were also checked for plagiarism.
Rewritten version does not satisfy the requirements
The revised version of the dissertation was examined by a new committee made up of two independent experts who are not affiliated with the University. This committee concluded that the rewritten version does not satisfy the conditions set by the Executive Board. While the plagiarised sections themselves had been removed from the dissertation, they had “only been very lightly revised in substantive terms”. In addition, 12 pages of text had simply been removed in their entirety. In addition, the committee points out that the dissertation contains a very large number of references to secondary sources, without the candidate offering any evidence that she has personally checked the primary sources.
Rewritten version does not satisfy the requirements
The revised version of the dissertation was examined by a new committee made up of two independent experts who are not affiliated with the University. This committee concluded that the rewritten version does not satisfy the conditions set by the Executive Board. While the plagiarised sections themselves had been removed from the dissertation, they had “only been very lightly revised in substantive terms”. In addition, 12 pages of text had simply been removed in their entirety. In addition, the committee points out that the dissertation contains a very large number of references to secondary sources, without the candidate offering any evidence that she has personally checked the primary sources.
Sub-standard quality
The committee members not only looked into the issue of plagiarism, but also found it necessary to judge the quality of the dissertation as a whole – even though the latter task was not included in their brief. They voiced strong doubts about the dissertation’s scientific quality. The research question had not been formulated with due care, for example, the dissertation lacked a systematic bibliography, the candidate’s data collection and reporting did not satisfy common academic standards and there is no way to validate the presented data, making it impossible to check the recorded results.
No instances of plagiarism in other dissertations
The other dissertations that were overseen by the thesis supervisor in question were also examined for plagiarism. This check established that there were no other instances of plagiarism. The plagiarism scans for these dissertations were compared with 104 other EUR dissertations, with the committee concluding that the examined dissertations did not contain a significantly higher percentage of duplicate text.
Thesis supervisor found to have seriously failed in his duty
Nevertheless, the University’s Doctorate Board and the Executive Board will be taking disciplinary action against the responsible thesis supervisor, who has since retired. The thesis supervisor has ‘seriously failed in his duty as thesis supervisor for the accused”, according to the Executive Board in its decision. For this reason, he will no longer be allowed to serve as thesis supervisor or copromotor for EUR candidates, nor as a member of a core or extended doctoral committee. In addition, RSM is not allowed to offer him a hospitality agreement, nor will he be allowed to hold a valedictory lecture or be given any other form of public farewell on campus.
Other measures against the doctoral candidate
In addition to asking her to voluntarily relinquish the title conferred on her, the Executive Board will be taking a number of other measures against the doctoral candidate in question. For example, her dissertation will be removed from the University Library archives, and EUR will be requesting other academic libraries to exclude the work from their collections. The University will also publish the report written by the committee charged with examining the candidate’s dissertation, and it will pay back the doctorate bonus received for the candidate’s degree.
Adaptations to doctoral regulations
Besides faulting both the doctoral candidate and the thesis supervisor for their conduct, the Executive Board and the Doctorate Board have also established that in this case, “the regular quality assurance system implemented within RSM’s doctoral programme for external candidates failed to a very grave extent”. In its decision, the Executive Board emphasises that it sincerely deplores the course of events and that it will do everything in its power to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
In line with the recommendations previously made by the Scientific Integrity Committee, the University has consequently taken a number of measures intended to tighten the existing doctoral regulations. For example, each doctoral candidate will henceforth work with an education and support plan, and will be overseen by at least two supervisors. In addition, candidates will be required to declare that they are cognisant of existing integrity codes at EUR. In addition, the core committee (kleine commissie) will be subject to stricter requirements. From now on, all members of the core committee need to provide a written, substantiated response to the dissertation manuscript. In addition, all manuscripts will not only need to pass a digital plagiarism check, but also be subjected to a closer analysis of the results of this plagiarism check.
RSM to tighten supervision of external candidates
The offending dissertation was written by an external candidate enrolled at Rotterdam School of Management (RSM). The candidate was not employed by the faculty. In response to the aforementioned events, RSM will be tightening its supervision and support of external candidates with a number of new measures. Two such measures are the requirement that all external doctoral candidates follow the faculty’s mandatory part-time PhD programme, and the requirement that at least one of the assigned thesis supervisors is a member of ERIM, the joint research institute established by RSM and EUR’s Economics faculty. TF
