The anti-plagiarism software—Turnitin—costing above Rs2 lakh bought by Panjab University has disappointed the Heads of Department (HoDs).
The software ‘Turnitin’ with certain limitations has failed to reduce the headache of supervisors to check the plagiarism/duplicate content in research thesis submitted by the research scholars.
Even after the installation of anti-plagiarism software, the student, guide and supervisor would have to sit together and check the whole thesis before the final submission.
The recently bought anti-plagiarism software, with a limited set of instructions, can only match the content which is fed or stored in the e-books/data library of research thesis in the server.
This means, if a student is copying the content from the web, which is not stored in data library server of ‘Turnitin’, the duplicity will not be detected.
While talking to The Pioneer, R Tankeshwar, Director Computer Centre said, “If any student copies the data from research books/thesis, and that data is matched with the research data in software library, the software will highlight the text with red underline.”
According to the official, the software will not detect universal quotes and offline thesis material.
This means, if any student uses the standard quotes and fundamentals, and this matches the data in ‘Turnitin’ software, he/she will not be found guilty.
However, there is no alternative detection available for the offline/hard copies. Similarly, if research thesis of other Universities are not stored in ‘Turnitin’, and scholars use such content, the software will not be able to detect the plagiarism.
Madhu Raka, Dean, Research Department, PU said, “The software is not 100 percent efficient in checking duplicity. The supervisor would still have to go through the thesis.”
She said, “It is not possible for the scholars to create the whole content by themselves. Only results of the researches are different. For other material/content, instance – introduction, references, the students take the help from other sources.”
Meanwhile, the research scholars feel that the implementation of this software would not affect them.
Asha Punia, 2nd year, Research Scholar in Geology subject said, “Our thesis are invention based. No doubt we will mention the same laboratories, Instruments and other appratus but it is obvious that Science students will have different outcomes from their research.”
“Our results could not be matched with previous or earlier inventions. If this so, then we do not have to work on the same. We choose the research topic on which the work/inventions have not been done,” Punia added.