UGC: Authors of Plagiarised Research Content will Face Penalty and Dismissal
- Draft of UGC Regulations 2017 has been released to control plagiarism in academic research and spread awareness.
- Seminars will be conducted to spread awareness and panels will be formed by the institutes to investigate plagiarism issues.
In order to control plagiarism in academic research, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has released the Draft of UGC Regulations 2017. UGC has also welcomed feedback for the draft called ‘Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Education Institutions’.
The aim of the draft is to spread awareness about the steps that must be taken while conducting academic research in order to prevent plagiarism in academic writing. The draft has also been introduced to promote a mechanism that ensures integrity.
The Regulations state that students from the non-core areas will be allowed up to 10% plagiarism. Research articles or papers in which 40% or more plagiarism is detected will be rejected and no marks will be awarded for those and a penalty will be charged. Such candidates will be given additional 6 months to submit a revised script of their research.
Registration of the candidates whose research scripts are plagiarised up to 60% or more will be cancelled from the respective university or institute.
Whereas, faculty members whose script is found to comprise 0 to 40% plagiarism will not be allowed to publish any research work for up to one year. Those faculty members whose manuscripts are found to be plagiarised by up to 60% will not be able to publish their work for up to 3 years and will be denied 2 successive increments.
In cases of excessive plagiarism, punishments have also been decided by the UGC. If a level 3 offence is repeated then the person responsible will be dismissed.
Under these new regulations, a system will also be developed to detect and prevent plagiarism. Higher Educational Institutes have been directed to instruct students and faculty about giving proper acknowledgement to the sources or authors, even seeking permission wherever necessary.
The draft also clarified that all research articles and records must be in accordance with rules and regulations set by the governing bodies of the respective fields. Institutes have also been asked to conduct awareness seminars regarding responsible conduct of research, assignment, project work, thesis, dissertation, etc.
Use of software and other mechanisms have also been promoted by the UGC in order to ensure that thesis, dissertation and other research related documents are plagiarism free. Students submitting research documents will also be asked to submit an undertaking stating that the document is an original work prepared by them and is free of plagiarism.
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According to the new regulations, the institutes will also be asked to develop a policy on plagiarism and get it approved by the authorised statutory body of the respective University. The Institutes have also been directed to submit soft copies of M.Phil. and Ph.D. papers on INFLIBNET.
An Academic Misconduct Panel (AMP) will also be set up by institutes to investigate any allegation of plagiarism in any of the research work and submit a report to the Plagiarism Disciplinary Authority (PDA) of the institute in question.
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Other details of the regulation draft are available on the official website of UGC. Stakeholders can give their feedback on the official email ID on or before 30 September 2017.