Controversy Surrounds Education Minister Nominee Over Allegations of Plagiarism

On the morning of June 30, Lee Jin-sook, the nominee for Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, arrived at the personnel hearing preparation office at the Korea Educational Facilities Safety Agency in Yeouido, Seoul, responding to questions from reporters. Allegations have emerged that during her tenure as a professor in the Department of Architectural Engineering at Chungnam National University, she published several academic papers that closely summarized the master's and doctoral theses of her students, listing herself as the 'first author'.

An investigation comparing over ten papers authored by Lee since 2000 with the theses of her graduate students revealed significant similarities, suggesting instances of plagiarism. Many of the papers in question were published in academic journals shortly after or up to a year following the submission of her students' theses. These papers often included experimental data, research subjects, locations, and conclusions taken with little to no modification. For instance, a paper presented by Lee in March 2009 titled 'Emotional Evaluation of Lighting Design through Case Studies of Nighttime Landscape Lighting in Apartment Complexes' bore substantial similarities to a master's thesis by her student, which was published just a month earlier. A plagiarism detection service, 'CopyKiller', indicated a plagiarism rate of 52% between the two documents, a figure significantly above the typical threshold of 20% that raises red flags for potential copying. The analysis identified 19 identical sentences and 73 suspicious sentences that shared partial similarities.

Another paper published by Lee in July 2003, titled 'Experimental Study for the Correction of Unified Glare Rating (UGR) and Subjective Evaluation of Discomfort Glare', was found to be nearly identical in both title and content to a master's thesis by a student from the previous year. A comparison using CopyKiller revealed a 43% plagiarism rate, while an analysis by Google's AI service, NotebookLM, confirmed a high level of similarity across all sections of both documents, concluding that they represented different forms of the same research project.

In these instances, Lee presented her students' thesis content in her own papers while designating herself as the 'first author', with her students listed as co-researchers. There were no citations or references to the students' theses in the footnotes or bibliography. While it is common for professors to summarize their students' theses for publication, the first author should typically be the student, with the supervising professor listed as the corresponding author. Footnotes should also clarify that the research is a summary or modification of a student's thesis. Most academic societies in South Korea strictly adhere to these guidelines, and violations are considered breaches of research ethics. A professor from a private university in Seoul stated, 'Even if a professor provides ideas or topics for a student's paper, the student is the one who contributes most to the research, and thus should be the first author when the work is published.' He added that Lee's actions amounted to a serious violation of research ethics by presenting her students' work as her own.

Additionally, it was discovered that in 2018, Lee published two papers with nearly identical titles, experimental designs, and conclusions in different journals just a month apart, without citing or referencing each other, raising concerns about potential unethical duplicate publication.

Plagiarism issues have previously affected the appointments of education ministers in South Korea. In 2006, Kim Byung-jun resigned just 13 days after being appointed due to allegations of plagiarism. In 2014, Kim Myung-soo faced similar scrutiny when it was revealed he had published a paper that closely summarized a student's thesis, leading to the withdrawal of his nomination by the president.

Lee's team has stated that they will clarify the plagiarism allegations during the personnel hearing.