University said to rescind doctorate

The Leipziger Volkszeitung reports that the University of Halle doctoral thesis committee is unanimously recommending to the faculty board that the doctorate of Siegfried Haller be rescinded. VroniPlag documented  significant plagiarism on over 20% of the pages. Three quarters of these pages were more than three quarters plagiarized. The thesis on the restoration of living quarters in a town plagiarized heavily from documents published by the city authority responsible for the restoration. Haller worked for the city authority and is said to have been co-author of much of the documentation. However, no authorship is listed for the documents, and the thesis does not mention using them.

The faculty board meets on April 18 to decide.

There has been some criticism about a local newspaper reporting on the state of internal affairs of the university before the university reaches its final decision.