Actor's PhD revoked over academic dishonesty

Imaginechina

The Beijing Film Academy decided to revoke the PhD of a Chinese actor over academic fraud, the college said in an online statement on Tuesday.

Zhai Tianlin had his academic credentials pulled as academic misconduct was discovered in his doctoral research paper titled “The Performance of Bai Xiaowen, a Character in TV Drama White Deer Plain,” which was published in an industry magazine, Guangdianshiping (TV and Radio Review), in May 2018, the statement said.

The college said Zhai plagiarized others’ views in key sections of the paper after a review by its academic ethics committee and experts from other institutions.

Chen Yi, Zhai’s doctoral instructor, failed to fulfill the responsibility of directing and reviewing Zhai’s PhD studies, thus he was deprived of the right to further instruct doctoral candidates, the statement said.

The college said both Zhai and Chen accepted the results of the investigation.

Zhai obtained his PhD in June 2018 at the Beijing Film Academy and was enrolled in a post-doctoral program at Guanghua School of Management of Peking University in January 2019.

After his academic dishonesty was disclosed, Peking University removed him from the post-doctoral program.

Zhai's credentials were questioned after he appeared to be unaware about cnki.net, China's largest and most widely used academic online library, in an online interview with fans.