Dissernet
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Type of site
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Social movement |
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| Available in | Russian |
| Created by | |
| Website | http://dissernet.org |
| Alexa rank |
 160,063 (February 2016) |
| Commercial | No |
| Launched | 23 September 2013 |
| Current status | Working |
Dissernet (Russian: Диссернет) is a volunteer community network working to clean Russian science of plagiarism. The core activity of the community is conducting examinations of doctoral and habilitation (higher doctorate) theses defended in Russian scientific and educational institutions since the end of the 1990s, and making the results of such examinations known to as many people as possible. The community is composed of professional scientists working in various fields of science both in Russia and abroad, and also journalists, civil activists and volunteers.
Launched in early 2013, the project had by 2016 identified around 5,600 suspected plagiarists — focusing on officials in government and academia, and other member the country's elite — and released reports on around 1,300 of them. Russian media regularly report on Dissernet's findings, and the site has been credited with raising attention for the issue of academic fraud in the country. In a 2016 exposé, Dissernet showed that 1 in 9 members of the State Duma had obtained academic degrees with theses that were substantially plagiarized and likely ghostwritten.
The objective of Dissernet’s examinations is to detect gross and deliberate violations of the legally established rules for certification of scientific workers’, as well as violations of the regulations for awarding academic degrees. Dissernet deems theses containing such violations to be fraudulent, and diplomas certifying the doctoral and higher doctoral degrees conferred after defending such theses to be illegal and subject to cancellation.
The key elements of the dissertation fraud detected in the course of Dissernet’s analyses are as follows:
Within the active phase of Dissernet’s activity, which started in January 2013, its members have published results of examinations of thesis defended by scores of well-known and powerful Russian politicians and public figures. As of the middle of the year 2014, more than 2000 completed expertises of Doctoral and higher doctoral theses in various directions and branches of science were contained in Dissernet database. Among the people attracting Dissernet’s attention were deputies of the State Duma, members of the Federation Council, governors of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, high-ranking officials of executive authorities, heads of security and military services, etc.
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