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Guideline for Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism

(In pursuance of UGC’s Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism Regulation-2018)

1. Introduction

The concept of plagiarism is related to the idea of theft of intellectual property, i.e., copying someone else's work or ideas as their own, with or without their consent, by including it into their work without full acknowledgment and citation. All forms of information fall under this category, whether may it be published and unpublished material, or manuscript, printed and electronic form, plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional. Under regulations for examinations, willful or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offense (Source: Oxford University). This Plagiarism guideline for IIA has been formulated based on the UGC Academic Integrity and prevention of Plagiarism Regulation-2018 vide D. O. No F.1-18/2010 (CPP-II) dated 23 July 2018. This ensures that the institute has zero-tolerance for plagiarism in the research output carried out by our researchers.

2. Objectives

  • To promote the quality of the scholarly publications with appropriate research activities.
  • To promote academic integrity and create awareness among the research community within IIA about ethical issues of academic writings.

3. Need of the guideline

Any academic institute's reputation and prestige lie in the scholarly output contributed by a researcher. Through this, a researcher can guide oneself with academic integrity guidelines that one may not be aware of previously. Maintaining an acceptable plagiarism policy is mandatory to check whether any researcher indulges in activities beyond academic integrity rules.

4. Forms of plagiarism

According to the Legal Service India forum, the different types of plagiarism that authors get indulged in are mentioned as follows:

  • Copy and paste plagiarism: this is when the author exactly copies the words or the sentence from the referred document and does not acknowledge it.
  • Word-switch plagiarism: this is when the author fails to synthesize the ideas, and manipulates some of the words of the referred record, and then claims it to be the author's work.
  • Metaphor plagiarism: The use of metaphor has been evident to provide a much clearer idea in some analogy works. Copying the metaphor words to improve the research result also falls under the concept of plagiarism.
  • Idea plagiarism: taking reference from ideas of any other's work should be properly attributed, or else it will be considered under the domain of plagiarism.
  • Reasoning style/Organization plagiarism: when someone takes reference by copying sentences after sentences or paragraphs after paragraphs, without proper attribution, it is only considered a form of plagiarism.
  • Self-plagiarism: where the plagiarist borrows generously from his or her previous work.

5. UGC Recommendations on Plagiarism


5.1. Exclusion from plagiarism
While running the similarity check for plagiarism, the following can be excluded:

  • All works that have quotations or phrases.
  • Any references, bibliography, table of content, preface, and acknowledgments.
  • Any use of generic terms, laws, standard symbols, and standards equations.

    Note: The research work carried out by the student, faculty, researcher, and staff shall be based on original ideas, including abstract, summary, hypothesis, observations, results, conclusions, and recommendations only and shall not have many similarities. It shall exclude common knowledge or coincidental terms, up to fourteen (14) consecutive words.

    5.2 Plagiarism levels
    Plagiarism would be quantified into the following levels in ascending order of severity for its definition:

  • Level 0: Similarities up to 10%
  • Level 1: Similarities above 10% to 40%
  • Level 2: Similarities above 40% to 60
  • Level 3: Similarities above 60%

    5.3 Penalties in case of plagiarism in the submission of thesis and dissertations

  • Level 0: works with similarities up to 10% - Minor Similarities, no liability.
  • Level 1: works with similarities above 10% to 40% - Such student will be asked to re-submit a revised script within a stipulated period not exceeding six months.
  • Level 2: works with similarities above 40% to 60% - Such student shall be banned from submitting the revised script for a duration of one year.
  • Level 3: Similarities above 60% -Such student registration for that program shall be canceled.

    5.4 Penalties in case of plagiarism in academic and research publications

  • Level 0: Similarities up to 10% - Minor similarities, no penalty.
  • Level 1: Similarities above 10% to 40%- Shall be asked to withdraw the manuscript.
  • Level 2: Similarities above 40% to 60%
        Shall be asked to withdraw manuscript.
        Shall be denied a right to one annual increment.
        Shall not be allowed to be a supervisor to any new Master’s, Ph.D. Student/scholar two years.
  • Level 3: Similarities above 60%
        Shall be asked to withdraw the manuscript.
        Shall be denied a right to two successive annual increments.
        Shall not be allowed to be a supervisor to any new Master’s, Ph.D. Student/scholar for three years.


    For more details, please check University Grants Commission (Promotion Of Academic Integrity And Prevention Of Plagiarism In Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018


    6. Access Procedure

    IIA has access to iThenticate, a commercial plagiarism detection service from iParadigms. iThenticate is the pre-eminent tool for researchers and academicians to check their original works for possible plagiarism. It compares the documents (including journal article manuscripts, proposals, research reports, annual reports, patents, pre-prints, thesis, dissertations and conference proceedings, etc.) against millions of published works available through the Internet and subscription databases. IIA Library helps researchers to retain their originality of research work through the plagiarism checking procedure as a part a library service.

    Academic staff and technical staff have direct access to iThenticate.

    • Every authorised user will receive an email from noreplay@ithenticate.com.
    • To begin using iThenticate please visit https://app.ithenticate.com/en_us/login.
    • Have to log in using your username (your IIA email id) and password, which are provided in an email you received.
    • You will be directed to change the password when you first log in, reset the password, and login again.

    Note that: While performing the plagiarism check for article and reports, the following can be excluded as guidelines from UGC, publishers, funding agencies, etc.:

    • Quotes and phrases
    • Bibliographies
    • Small matches up to 1% or 14 words
    • Mathematical formulas/equations
    • Name of institution/ departments

    Students and Researcher (Integrated MTech-PhD, JRF, SRF and PDF) are encouraged to use iThenticate with support from their supervisor as a tool to advance their understanding of good academic integrity practices.

    • 6.3 For Article and Reports submission

    Most of the top-quality journals in astronomy and astrophysics use iThenticate as their plagiarism detection service. For checking the word limit and file size of the article, the authors are requested to follow the article submission guidelines of the respective journals in which they prefer to submit their article. One can check the ethical policies for academic writing for the publishers, as mentioned earlier, through the below-mentioned links:


    7. Self-help Documentation:

    To get more details about the usage of iThenticate, refer to the documentation and video training materials
     
     Upcoming webinar on User Awareness Session: 1st June 2022 (4:00 PM) - https://turnitin.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bgvaOSv5S62vcCBE6Np-Gg

    8. References

  • Barnbaum, C. (n.d.). Plagiarism: A Student's Guide to Recognizing It and Avoiding It. Retrieved September 28, 2021, from http://www.valdosta.edu/~cbarnbau/personal/teaching_MISC/plagiarism.htm.
  • University Grants Commission (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018. (2018). Retrieved September 28, 2021, from https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/7771545_academic-integrity-Regulation2018.pdf.

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