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Korea University president Lee Pil-sang published 12 academic papers that are almost identical to those written by students he supervised between 1983 and 2005, either under his name alone or as co-author with the students. He is also suspected of plagiarizing content and graphs from foreign textbooks in three of his books. Lee denies plagiarizing his students’ work, saying it was his ideas that served as the basis of their work. He said the foreign textbooks are as good as public property, “and I believed it was acceptable to refer to graphs, tables and content.”

Academics are divided: some say publication of the papers follows standard practice, but others charge Lee with dishonesty. "Professors and students usually work together to write master's and doctoral theses, and in this case, students wrote papers and the professor contributed them to journals,” said Kim Kwang-woong, a professor at Seoul National University. “You can’t say that the professor plagiarized his students' papers in this case.” But Prof. Dokko Yoon of Ajou University's School of Business Administration says the papers constitute “downright plagiarism as he made it look as if they were his own even though they had already been published in the name of his students.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )