The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked the State and Central universities to use anti-plagiarism software to check duplication of Ph.D. theses.
Making it mandatory for the university to use anti-plagiarism software before awarding Ph.D.s, the UGC has recommended ‘URKUND’ software.
S. Srinivas Raghavan, Head, Department of Library, Bharathidasan University, told The Hindu that the UGC’s recent communication had been circulated to all departments, schools, and centres of the university.
A training programme had been given to teaching and non-teaching staff members. They had been apprised on the need for checking the originality of theses.
The software could be applied for checking duplication of Ph.D.s, M. Phil theses and dissertations. He said the software would mark the sentences and paragraphs if 30 words of other persons writing had been used without citing a quotation or stating a source. As per the norms, theses that were found to be had more than 30 per cent of the content from another individual’s material would be treated as plagiarised. The university had so far used Turnitin anti-plagiarism software. It would use “URKUND” software, Mr. Raghavan added.
