Dear Michael,

I thank you for your email and, indeed, I was informed about the issue.

You are right about the need to be very strict about the quality of the deliverables. I agree that deliverables go thru the automatic plagiarism check before they are sent to the internal reviewers.

However, we have to be aware that some matters, as law for example, use terms which are used more and more in legislation and doctrine as well as in case laws. We also rewrite pieces of law to explain a position or theory (and it's even more true when we do a state of the art document). The anti-plagiarism will detect such quotes even if it's a usual way to write reports and articles.

I wanted to highlight this particularity.

Best regards,

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc Van Gyseghem
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Research Centre Information, Law and Society (CRIDS)

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Le 18/02/2021 à 18:21, Friedewald, Michael a écrit :
Anhang verfügbar bis 20.03.2021
Dear members of the Ethics Committee,

maybe you heard that one of the SPARTA deliverables was rejected by the European Commission because “the sources […] are not properly referenced”.
This is Deliverable 7.1 "AI systems threat analysis mechanisms and tools“.

I have attached the results of an automated similarity  (scribbr.com<http://scribbr.com>) that CEA has initated. You will see that a lot of text is highlighted, not not necessarily indicating plagiarism: there are elements such as the disclaimer, documents titles in the text and in the bibliography, quotations from the GDP and other properly marked quotations.

At the beginning of the PDF there is a list to the domains where documents with similar text were found, but it’s not possible to click on a link to see the full text of the document.

Thibaud has already discussed the issue with the responsible editor from Tecnalia. They have agree upon the following:

  *   some quotation marks (in Italics font) have been lost in the edition process -> solution: we will use the quotation marks “” besides italics in all the quoted texts.
  *   in some cases the report reflects the taxonomies and techniques analysed too literally -> solution: we will mark the quoted text and try to reduce the size of the quotation as much as possible.
  *   some parts contain inputs from SPARTA partners that were too literal from their own papers -> solution: we will mark the quoted text and provide the self-reference

So from my point of view there is no urgent need to intervene directly in this case because a solution has been found.

However, it might be good if we write a reminder to all partners and remind them of the following:
* that there are guidelines for good scientific practice  that all SPARTA partners are contractually obliged to follow.
* that there must be a good balance between what is already known and new knowledge in each deliverable.
* that there must be a critical examination of third-party knowledge (out of many possible threat frameworks, why did we adopt this one in SPARTA?).
* that the (financial) risk lies with the editor of a deliverable (in the case of D7.1 the EC has withheld payment to the editor of the deliverable, but not to the contributing partners).

This is perhaps a salutary shock that makes it clear that more careful quality control is needed and that "minimum effort strategies" do not go undetected.
The EB has also started discussing whether deliverables should first go through the automatic plagiarism check before they are sent to the internal reviewers.

If you agree with this approach, I would draft a message to all SPARTA parters which I would submit to you in advance for your approval. If you feel it is necessary, we can also schedule a meeting of the Ethics Committee to discuss how to proceed .

Best
Michael


Zum Laden klicken<https://www.icloud.com/attachment/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcvws.icloud-content.com%2FB%2FAW6eSCLKrUjw83zjZRBKX_6O5Hg_AfIOQCI8wcHiZ2_GevBL2yNkOl5r%2F%24%7Bf%7D%3Fo%3DAplMjjj5MgQ7Z80bnHB-p15pQOE5fXKDwxfrkveFN1Ci%26v%3D1%26x%3D3%26a%3DCAogfY3zxGRf34qptSfxoRct3s_qSt_PVGr-WEoUM-DH6ekSdhC9kaSx-y4YvaGfhYUvIgEAKgkC6AMA_1JXFM9SBI7keD9aBGQ6XmtqJbpXV-abdQB7Nm752NsZyssLYwbMz-nh0GSaAXkxETBfilICOb5yJczIph6YXzGEFRo9TynJm0gBVjYvXXwen4DEjxe7vsu7rBYyp74%26e%3D1616260878%26fl%3D%26r%3D0C180991-E581-4E77-AFC7-9408F91ED519-1%26k%3D%24%7Buk%7D%26ckc%3Dcom.apple.largeattachment%26ckz%3D7961DA24-6B83-4A09-8779-860FFDDD005C%26p%3D61%26s%3DFSc8hiycxfbRXoZhVikF9sCnp4o&uk=SfhHf4AYN4eaicehgQNFyA&f=1025719-Similarity-Check.pdf&sz=23100792>
1025719-Similarity-Check.pdf
23,1 MB


---
Dr. Michael Friedewald

Coordinator ICT Research
Competence Center Emerging Technologies
Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI
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fon: +49 721 6809-146  (-189, ass.) | fax: +49 721 6809-77-146
mailto: michael.friedewald@isi.fraunhofer.de<mailto:michael.friedewald@isi.fraunhofer.de>
http://www.isi.fraunhofer.de
http://works.bepress.com/michael_friedewald/


Neue Veröffentlichungen:

Friedewald M., Schiffner S., Krenn S. (Eds.) (2021, im Erscheinen): Privacy and Identity Management. 15th IFIP WG 9.2 9.6/11.7 11.6/SIG 9.2.2 International Summer School Maribor Slovenia September 20-23 2020 Revised Selected Papers.  Cham: Springer International (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 619).

Ammicht Quinn, R., Friedewald, M., Heesen, J., Krämer, N., Stapf, I. (Hrsg.) (2021, im Erscheinen): Aufwachsen in überwachten Umgebungen: Interdisziplinäre Positionen zur Privatheit und Datenschutz in Kindheit und Jugend. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

Martin, N.; Friedewald, M.; Schiering, I. et al. (2020): Die Datenschutz-Folgenabschätzung nach Art. 35 DSGVO: Ein Handbuch für die Praxis.  Stuttgart: Fraunhofer Verlag.