Search Page

Fontys University in the Netherlands is keen to teach students to think about the impact and use of educational technology through the Moral Design Game. Based on scientific insights, the game challenges players to think about the dominant values that various stakeholders draw on to make decisions. The goal of the game is to inspire and teach students, teachers, and staff to improve their thinking and debate ethical questions.

A survey of 51,000 college and high school students reveals that the average percentage of plagiarism before and after Covid increased from 26% to 45% in the Netherlands, from 37% to 49% in France and from 42% to 53% in India. The new anti-plagiarism software CopyLeaks uses Artificial Intelligence to detect plagiarism and copyright infringement. CopyLeaks can be used as a site license purchased by a school, institution, or publication, by individual writers who pay based on the number of words and pages checked.

In a national survey on research integrity by Dutch academics, 40,000 researchers, from PhD students to full professors, admitted to committing at least one of the 11 questionable research practices. One in 12 researchers is estimated to have fabricated or falsified research results in the last three years. According to a postdoctoral researcher and lead investigator of the survey, findings are already being discussed with policymakers in universities and medical centres in the Netherlands.

A survey on plagiarism conducted by Copyleaks collected responses from 31,000 colleges and 20,000 high school students worldwide. The study shows that the largest increase in plagiarized submissions was recorded in the Netherlands, with 26% of cases before COVID compared to 45% after the pandemic, i.e. a total increase of 19%. This was followed by France (37% before vs. 49% after, i.e. - a 12% jump), closely followed by India (42% before vs. 53% after; i.e.- an 11% jump). The UK, Canada and Germany all saw a 4% increase in plagiarism cases.

The world's largest multi-disciplinary research integrity survey is at risk of failing to achieve its objectives with two-thirds of the institutions invited to collaborate having declined to participate because of the sensitivity of the subject and fear of negative publicity. As a result, the researchers who conducted the Dutch National Research Integrity Survey found themselves alone in scraping up many e-mail addresses and soliciting responses. They gathered feedback from less than 15% of the 40,000 targeted participants.

KU Leuven is currently investigating some 20 papers from the period 1999 to 2013 that would contain fraudulent images. Two papers have recently been withdrawn, one has been officially corrected. The investigation of the Committee for Academic Integrity is in a final phase. The articles that are under discussion come from the biomedical sciences. Three Leuven professors are a co-author of several indicated papers. In many cases, this was done in collaboration with colleagues from foreign institutions.

On September 24, 2017 the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reported on an investigation into self-plagiarism (zelfplagiaat) that was conducted by a Nijmengen research group. The sociologist of science and his PhD student analysed 922 publications by Dutch researchers from recent years. In economics, 14 % of the papers contained text from previous publications of the author(s), in psychology the figure was 5 %. They even found a duplicate article republished with just one small change, and two highly similar articles by the same author in the same issue of a journal. They also found that authors who publish more papers are more likely to reuse text.

Every researcher in the Netherlands is to be questioned about whether they have committed research misconduct or engaged in “sloppy science” as part of a major national effort to bolster scientific standards. In response to rising concerns over a “reproducibility crisis” in science and a series of high-profile fraud cases in the Netherlands, the country is to commit 8 million euros ($9 million) to understanding the problem, finding solutions and trying to reproduce critical studies.