UGC.Starting from 2 August, all Indian universities have received trial access to Swedish anti-plagiarism software Urkund, reports The Hindu. Final subscription will commence from 1 September.
“We have a two-pronged approach. As part of the exercise to prevent plagiarism in the coming years, we are providing free of cost anti-plagiarism software to all 900 universities, including private players. It will be available to teachers, students, researchers, everyone,” Human Resource Development Secretary K Subrahmanyam stated.
The Swedish software was selected after a global tender procedure was followed; Turnitin is more commonly used internationally but it was estimated to cost ten times more while performing at almost the same level as Urkund.
Last year, the central government had rolled out the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018 which envisioned the creation of department and institution level panels to specifically check the problem of plagiarism.
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