NTU appoints acting head of Chinese department amid plagiarism claims against professor
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Associate Professor Yow Cheun Hoe (left) was appointed acting head of the Chinese department after former department head, Associate Professor Qu Jingyi, was accused of plagiarism.
PHOTOS: NTU.EDU.SG
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SINGAPORE – The Chinese department at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has appointed an acting head after news broke last Thursday that its head of department is being investigated for plagiarism.
Associate Professor Qu Jingyi is accused of plagiarising a former student’s final-year project in his 2018 research paper titled Escape As A Mode Of Existence: On Ruan Ji’s Escapism Complex.
According to NTU’s website, Associate Professor Yow Cheun Hoe was appointed acting head of the Chinese department with effect from last Friday.
He is also director of NTU’s Chinese Heritage Centre and the Centre for Chinese Language and Culture.
A check on Sunday showed that Prof Qu’s titles as head of the Chinese department and deputy director of the Centre for Chinese Language and Culture have been removed from the department’s webpage.
The accusations against Prof Qu were first made on online forum Reddit last Tuesday by someone claiming to be an NTU student who noticed stark similarities between Prof Qu’s 2018 research paper and Mr Wang Yueming’s 2014 project titled Escapism In The Literary Works Of Ruan Ji.
Prof Qu was Mr Wang’s final-year project supervisor in 2014.
Prof Qu’s 2018 paper is written in English, while Mr Wang’s is in Chinese. Prof Qu’s paper, which was accessible on Academia.edu, an open repository of academic articles, has since been taken down.
Checks by The Straits Times found that more than 50 per cent of Prof Qu’s paper looked like a direct translation of Mr Wang’s paper, with no attribution to the latter. These sections included analyses of poems and inferences made on related research papers.
ST has contacted NTU for more information on Prof Qu’s appointments and his teaching engagements in the new academic year, which begins on Aug 14.
In response to earlier queries, the university had said that it is investigating the allegations. It added that it will be inappropriate to comment further while the investigation is ongoing.
Prof Qu joined NTU in 2010 and holds a PhD from Peking University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to his profile on the university’s website.
He has received scholarships such as the Fulbright Scholarship, Peking University PhD full scholarship and NTU’s Nanyang Education Award.
He has produced more than 100 published works in English and Chinese, including 49 journal articles.
