Research: “Investigative open data journalism in Russia: actors, barriers and challenges”

This is a research paper that was accepted but not presented at the GlobalĀ Investigative Journalism Conference 2017 Academic Track, which IJEC organized and covered.

Anastasia Valeeva from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford researched the culture of data reporting in Russian investigative outlets through interviews, case studies and qualitative content analysis.

“In this study, I wanted to show how open data is used for investigative storytelling in Russia, and what are the barriers that prevent journalists from embracing it. To answer these questions, the study draws on a combination of semi-structured interviews with investigative journalists and open data experts, case studies, and qualitative content analysis. In the final section, I discuss the existing barriers and provide guidelines on how to make investigative data journalism stronger in Russia.”

Dissernet: Exposing Fraud and Plagiarism in Russia’s Academia

In 2013, three Russian academics and one journalist launched Dissernet, a project aimed at exposing plagiarism in academia. Last week Wednesday (Jan. 17, 2018) they released a report summarizing their findings and exposing the systematic nature of academic fraud in Russia. Dissernet report: The Structure of the Dissertation Industry in Russia

“On our server we have 7,500 fake degrees, 500 universities issuing fake degrees, 4,500 fake scholarly papers and 522 journals that published fake papers,” said Dr. Andrej Zayakin, one of Dissernet’s founders. “There are 22,000 persons involved, namely thesis authors, supervisors and referees.”