VTU junks 10% of theses as software nails plagiarists

The number of research theses rejected for plagiarism has touched a three-year high at Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU).

So far this year, the VTU has rejected 60 out of 577 research theses (10.39 per cent). Since 2020, the university has rejected at least 134 papers after they were found to be plagiarised thanks to an anti-plagiarism software in place.

To improve the quality of research work and based on the directions of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the VTU introduced its anti-plagiarism software in 2014-15. In fact, it was the first university in Karnataka to implement the software, which was also used in colleges to verify M.Tech theses.

"Checking for plagiarism manually used to be difficult. The adoption of anti-plagiarism software has helped us filter papers at the first level itself. Also, the quality of research papers has improved," VTU Vice-Chancellor Karisiddappa said.

Candidates whose theses are found to be plagiarised have to pay a penalty of Rs 5,000 to the university.

"Majority of the theses rejected have their content or text copied from already published theses. Once the thesis submitted is uploaded, the software will check for plagiarism at every level. If it is more than 25%, then such theses will be rejected," a VTU official explained.

The AICTE direction on anti-plagiarism measures applied to all technological universities and technical institutions across the country. The directive was given considering the increase in cases of plagiarism and low quality of papers that were getting published. Also, the AICTE said it wanted to promote academic integrity.

Stamp of disapproval

Year Total theses submitted Rejected Rejected %

2022 577 60 10.39

2021 831 31 4.45

2020 560 43 7.67