Indore: In order to check plagiarism, Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV) has decided to digitize around 2000 PhD theses lying at its library. “We have in fact floated tenders for hiring an agency to which will digitize, archive, and convert nearly 20000 PhD these into the base digital format,” registrar Ajay Verma said.
“The step has been taken to check plagiarism. When digitized, we will be able to check candidates submitting new theses do not have contented copied from older ones,” he added. Verma said that it is difficult to check plagiarism through hard copies of theses. “The digitized copy can catch plagiarism easily through a software we use,” he added.
Till June 2015, the university used to take only hard copies of theses. But from session July 2015, DAVV started taking hard and soft copies of theses following the directives by the University Grants Commission (UGC). Using the softcopy, the university checks plagiarism cases. There is permission for copying only 10 per cent of content from some other’s person’s work with references.
The DAVV said that the agency, which will be hired, will have to digitize all theses in one month of time. Majority of the content is in English language and rest in Hindi language. Also some of the thesis content already stored in CD has to be converted as per Metadata creation. “Tenders have been invited from only turnkey solution providers having knowledge organization systems experience have undertaken and executed projects involving digitization of hard/print copies, and integrating with born-digital contents,” Verma said.