Recently, at the first plenary meeting in academic degree evaluation committee, Tsinghua University, it was decided to cancel the paper grade of "internal papers", and the University Degree Office issued a notice as soon as possible. After graduation in June and the third review of the degree, applications for "internal papers" are no longer accepted.

According to the Administrative Measures for the Confidentiality of Postgraduate Dissertations in Tsinghua University, which was revised in May 20 13, the degree of confidentiality of graduate dissertations in Tsinghua University is divided into four grades: confidential, secret, internal and public. Among them, the internal thesis mainly refers to the degree thesis that is going to apply for patent or technology transfer, involving technical secrets or commercial secrets, which should not be made public for a period of time, and the research results do not belong to the scope of state secrets. All dissertations that meet the above definition can be classified as internal dissertations and made public after two years of confidentiality.

Of the nearly 6,000 master's and doctoral dissertations in Tsinghua University, nearly 200 are internal dissertations, mainly from nuclear research institutes, medical schools, biological schools, etc., involving technology and patent applications, and a small number of papers involving trade secrets, such as those from the School of Economics and Management.

It is understood that there are two main reasons for canceling the grade of "internal papers": first, the standards for judging whether the papers reach "internal" by schools and departments are vague as a whole, and second, there are many human judgments and subjective factors in the identification of internal papers. Coupled with the lack of academic norms inspection and anonymous evaluation, the quality of internal papers is difficult to guarantee, and the risk of academic misconduct is great.

After the cancellation of the "internal thesis" grade, in order to solve the problem that some departments and disciplines' dissertations may need to be delayed, Tsinghua University decided to add the option of "delayed publication" on the basis of public papers, and the time limit was still two years.

Xiong Bingqi, vice president of the College Entrance Examination Research Institute, believes that canceling the "internal papers" can effectively improve the problem of academic research fraud in colleges and universities, but the core problem to solve the phenomenon of academic fraud in colleges and universities is to establish an academic evaluation mechanism among professors.