A Nanyang Technological University (NTU) professor has been accused of plagiarising a former student's final-year project (FYP) and passing the work off as his own for his research paper.

The tenured associate professor Qu Jingyi is the deputy director of NTU's Centre for Chinese Language and Culture and also the head of Chinese at the School of Humanities.

Qu was also the student's final-year project supervisor in 2014.

An NTU spokesperson told Mothership that the School of Humanities is investigating the allegations.

NTU said:

"The university is committed to the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct, and takes allegations of academic misconduct very seriously. The School of Humanities is investigating the allegations, and it would be inappropriate to comment further while the investigation is ongoing."

Accusations surfaced from a Reddit thread

The accusation first came to light in a Reddit thread.

The forum user found Qu's research paper and the FYP of a former student, Wang Yueming, while they were doing their own research.

The Reddit user shared that the student's FYP was published in Chinese in 2014, while the professor published his research paper in English in 2018.

The user also pointed out that while the two papers were written in different languages, they were "very similar and identical in many parts".

In addition, the user discovered that the professor was the FYP supervisor for the student at that time.

The user wrote: "Come to think of it, even though this [professor] is the thesis supervisor of this student, the [professor] doesn't have ownership of this research right?"

The user added on Reddit:

"To me, this is very hypocritical sia. NTU has consistently emphasized on the severity of plagiarism. We are taught to never plagiarize, students cannot even plagiarize, so how can NTU allow its profs to plagiarize their students? Is this what NTU wants to be known for its status as a top uni in the world? I believe NTU is more than that."

The link to the professor's paper has been taken down, but Wang's FYP paper is still online.

How much was plagiarised?

The student's FYP was titled, "Escapism in the literary works of Ruan Ji", while Qu's was titled, "Escape as a mode of existence: On Ruan Ji's escapism complex".

According to checks done by The Straits Times, more than 50 per cent of Qu's paper appeared to be a direct translation of Wang's 2014 FYP paper.

This included inferences and analyses of Ruan Ji's poems.

Qu is accused of passing off Wang's analyses of four of Ruan Ji's poems as his own, as the observations that Qu made of Ruan Ji's poems are too similar to Wang's to be a coincidence.

In one example, Wang used a particular quote from Ruan Ji's poem to prove Ruan Ji's "yearning for freedom", and Qu used the same quote to make the same observation, where the quote was analysed as "representative of Ruan Ji's desire for freedom".

Possible defence for similarities

However, not all similarities could be due to plagiarism.

Professors, who act as thesis supervisors, can argue that they helped to inform and develop the student's perspective, a graduate student told Mothership.

A lesser defence is that the FYP is not considered a journal-published research paper to begin with and not developed solely without the supervisor's help.

Professor also accused of publishing students' papers under his name

Some Reddit users have also surfaced accusations against Qu on how he has the capability to publish numerous research papers in just a few years.

"Qu is also known to publish papers in journals from students under his name, telling the students that journals will not accept papers from just students, so his as sole author or co-author would help. This is how he managed to churn out so many papers in a few year[s'] time," a source, who wished to remain anonymous, told Mothership.

NTU outlines on its website that plagiarism is the "unacknowledged use of words, images, diagrams, graphs, or ideas derived from any source".

It is stated that "the unacknowledged borrowing of another's work is theft".

Top photos via NTU & Google Maps