Thanks to UGC guidelines, every faculty member will soon have tools to detect plagiarism. You have been warned!   

The draft says that every higher education institution (HEI) should establish the mechanism as prescribed in the regulation to enhance awareness about responsible conduct of research
What exactly comprises plagiarism? Read on
What exactly comprises plagiarism? Read on

Looks like the University Grants Commission (UGC) has had enough of plagiarism. In another attempt to bring the cases down, it has now suggested that every faculty, researcher and MPhil/PhD students should be provided with an account in plagiarism detection tools for checking the content of their scripts.      

It has come up with a draft regulation called 'Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Education Institutions' aiming to promote academic research and deter plagiarism.    

Copy cats, no more: The idea is to promote academic research and deterrence from plagiarism 

Raise awareness among students

The draft regulation says that every higher education institution (HEI) should establish the mechanism as prescribed in the regulation to enhance awareness about responsible conduct of research and academic activities, promotion of integrity and deterrence from plagiarism.    

Every student submitting a thesis, dissertation, term papers, reports or any other such documents to the HEI should submit an undertaking indicating that the document has been prepared by him or her and that the document is his/her original work and free of any plagiarism.

For all other (non-core) cases, plagiarism would be quantified into three levels similarities above 10-40 percent, similarities 40-60 percent and similarities above 60 percent. Penalties include maximum level of cancellation of registration for the course for students, to maximum of not allowing being a supervisor for a period of three years in the case of faculty

Similarly, each supervisor should submit a certificate indicating that the work done by the researcher under him/her is plagiarism free, the draft regulation added.    

All HEIs shall submit to INFLIBNET soft copies of all MPhil, PhD dissertations and theses carried out in its various departments after the award of degrees for hosting in the digital repository under the 'Shodh Ganga e-repository' programme, it added.    

Going pro with core areas

In case, Plagiarism is established in the core work, which includes abstract, summary, hypothesis, observations, results, conclusions and recommendations, claimed then Plagiarism Disciplinary Authority (PDA) of the HEI shall impose the maximum penalty.    

For all other (non-core) cases, plagiarism would be quantified into three levels similarities above 10-40 percent, similarities 40-60 percent and similarities above 60 percent.  Penalties include the maximum level of cancellation of registration for the course for students, to the maximum of not allowing being a supervisor for a period of three years in the case of faculty.    

Welcoming the UGC regulations, S Swaminathan, advisor, The NET SLET Association said, "Like universities, plagiarism should be checked at college level also by providing the software. The plagiarism should be checked in the thesis submitted in regional languages also. The thesis works already submitted in INFLIBNET should also be checked for plagiarism."     

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