Research scholars of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) will have to be careful while turning in their theses and dissertations, as the university can now find out if they have plagiarised.
The R&D cell of JNTU is using a software 'Turn It In' to check if the students have copied any content in their research submission, be it a term paper or an entire thesis. The university has taken this step following several complaints about plagiarism by the research scholars.
JNTU - Hyderabad has thus become the first university in the country to implement the use of such a software to track the plagiarised work of students. Officials at the R&D cell said that they had already run thesis of 300 students on the software; 40 per cent of them were found to have plagiarised the content. The students concerned were asked to resubmit their theses after deleting the plagiarised content, the officials said.
They said that they would allow use of content from other sources if there are proper ciations. "In the literature review and other parts of the thesis, basic citations are allowed. But if the content is copied without citation and passed on as one's own, then the system will be able to detect it," said Prof K Lalkishore, director (R&D). JNTU-H. He said that the students would be given two chances to delete the plagiarised content. "If it ( the thesis ) is seen as having plagiarised content for the third time, it will be rejected," he warned.
According to JNTU professors, the software has been in use for the past three months. The university management decided on introducing the software as the students were seen to be copying from different sources on the internet. "No research guide can find all copied content, if it is copied from some obscure journal which he is not familiar with. That way a student can do an entire thesis by just copying and pasting material from the internet," said an R&D official. Often, research guides from other universities are able to sniff out the plagiarized notes. "If foreign universities get to know that JNTU allows plagiarised content, then they can even refuse to admit students and also deny them partnerships, hence a crackdown," said an official.
The R&D cell director said that JNTU had also advised other universities in the state to get the software to check their research scholars' work. "It takes just about four hours for the software to run a thesis and mark the plagiarised content. Other universities should introduce the same," Lalkishore said.
