Search Page

Following the University Grants Commission’s regulations for the promotion of academic integrity, Andhra University decided to implement a technology-based mechanism to prevent plagiarism. No thesis with a similarity index above 20% can be submitted. In addition, the students must submit an undertaking stipulating that their work is original.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) implemented new regulations in order to prevent plagiarism and academic misconduct by students. They required every institution to establish a mechanism to enhance awareness about responsible conduct of research and academic activities, promotion of academic integrity and deterrence from plagiarism. The ministry of human resource development told a meeting of vice-chancellors that plagiarism software would be provided free to all institutions. However, similarity-detection is only possible if the original material is available online. And plagiarism is not just about text similarity, but also recycling of copied figures, tables, and photographs.

Some 82 cases of professors listing their secondary school offspring as co-authors in academic papers have been unearthed by an investigation by South Korea’s ministry of education. According to a Korea Herald Editorial, “It is obvious why the professors included the names of their children in the papers. The merit of being co-authors of research papers gives them a good advantage in seeking to enter universities through special admissions programmes”. The discovery could lead to disciplinary action in some cases, under Korea’s strict research misconduct laws which cover author attribution of research papers.

Universities in China and elsewhere in Asia are belatedly joining global alliances to promote ethical practices in artificial intelligence or AI, which were previously being studied in university research centres in a fragmented way. Crucially there are still no international guidelines and standards in place for ethical research, design and use of AI and automated systems. China’s universities in particular are turning out a large number of researchers specialising in AI who are now opting to stay in the country to work for home-grown technology giants such as Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu – companies which gather and use huge amounts of consumer data with few legal limits.

Universities are being urged to block websites that sell essays, identify cheating "hot spots" and consider publishing data on breaches of academic integrity. As universities grapple with a rise in contract cheating – which involves students outsourcing assessments – Australia's higher education watchdog has unveiled new guidelines to tackle the issue. A recent survey by a University of South Australia associate professor who helped create the guidelines, found that 6 per cent of Australian students engaged in cheating.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has released the Draft UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2017. As the name suggests, the aim of the draft is to create academic awareness about responsible conduct of research and prevention of misconduct including plagiarism in academic writing. The draft also seeks to establish institutional mechanism for promotion of academic integrity and develop systems to detect and prevent plagiarism.