The Inter-University Project in partnership with LuxDev-Lao/031 has organised from 20-22 January 2021 a 3-day workshop dedicated to plagiarism and research ethics in Vang Vieng. The event in English gathered 20 FLP lecturers.
This workshop took place in the framework of our support to the establishment of “Guidelines on legal research” (see). The Luxembourg Cooperation is committed to foster the recognition of the distinctiveness of law, and the pursuit of higher research standards of scholarly and scientific integrity. The foreseen guidelines are meant to describe some basic rules about academic integrity and plagiarism, which could be a first step before the creation of law journal, or the adoption of a NUOL “Code of research ethics”.
During the seminar, participants discussed what academic ethics and plagiarism are. Presentations were given by Dr. Perrine Simon and Dr. Boulaphiane Sisouk (FLP lecturer) and Dr. Latdavanh Domkeodavong. The seminar was dedicated to explaining clearly what plagiarism is, by showing examples of plagiarism and highlighting the importance of handling problems of plagiarism. Participants discussed potential solutions to improve academic ethics and plagiarism. They performed group exercises during which they had to search for examples of definitions on the website of various universities to identify how it is tackled elsewhere.
By the end of workshop, participants listed some basic rules which should be included in the Guidelines and made recommendations as regards future actions that could be established by FLP and NUOL.
The guidelines on legal research are an important tool to improve the understanding about legal research and quality research. They could serve as a benchmark for research in law, but could also inspire similar academic strategies/policies in political science, and on plagiarism and research ethics at NUOL level.
