UGC to Provide Free Online Plagiarism Tool to Universities

HRD Ministry will provide universities with a free online plagiarism detection tool. This will help the universities to check plagiarism in publications and research work.

University Grants Commission has made it mandatory for all the universities across the country to check plagiarism using the detection tool to safeguard the institute's reputation. The decision regarding the same was taken last month and following this decision Andhra University decided to withdraw its order of purchasing an anti-plagiarism software.

Prof Nageswara Rao, Vice-Chancellor, Andhra University said that the quotation for the online software programme was Rs. 95 lakh. However, they have cancelled the deal when the MHRD Minister decided to provide the software free of cost. He further explained the importance of anti-plagiarism software and said that the tool will help the institutes to detect plagiarized work from the original content. It will also provide a report and prevent and detect plagiarism in the first place itself.

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A nominal fee will be charged from students, researchers and faculty to use the anti-plagiarism tool. Also, the researchers and scholars will be provided with a chance to rewrite the thesis if the plagiarism is within the limits.

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The HRD Ministry gave a green signal to the new plagiarism guidelines as directed by the University Grants Commission Regulation 2018 (UGC 2018). According to the new regulation, every student submitting their dissertation/ thesis will be required to submit an undertaking stating their work is original and is free of plagiarism.