Legal Regulation of Plagiarism Counteraction in the State Scientific Certification Procedures

Abstract

The need to improve the quality of dissertation research requires establishing effective legal instruments to fight plagiarism. It is of particular relevance in the light of the reform of the state scientific certification system aimed at providing more freedom to leading scientific organizations in awarding academic degrees. The study is devoted to identifying problems that arise in implementation of the existing tools to fight plagiarism, finding ways to eliminate them, as well as analyzing the best practices of organizations that independently award academic degrees. First, plagiarism counteraction is ensured by fixing the requirements for independent preparation of a dissertation and inadmissibility of using materials without reference to the author or other sources. According to the new model of state scientific certification, some organizations fix both the supporting nature of checking for plagiarism through special programs and the need for an expert review of the report. It is advisable to use the threshold values for the originality of the text based on the results of automated verification as a necessary condition at the stage of preparation by the organization of the conclusion on the dissertation. Detailed regulation of the procedure for checking research on the amount of plagiarism ensures transparency and increases the efficiency of certification procedures, and helps protect the rights of applicants. All applied forms of peer review and control of dissertation research are aimed, among other things, at fighting plagiarism. The well-established practice of posting dissertations, abstracts, information about persons involved in certification procedures on the Internet, information about facts of plagiarism found in the texts of dissertations, as well as a ban on re-defending such dissertations, should be recognized as a special tool for fighting plagiarism.