Vernacular thievery: Plagiarism in regional languages continues

Universities lack software to detect plagiarism in work in regional languages.

LAHORE:

The universities in Pakistan have no software to detect plagiarism in research papers and theses of scholars in regional languages, The Express Tribune has learnt.

No public or private sector university in the country has any software to spot plagiarism in Persian, Arabic, Kashmiryat, Urdu, Punjabi and Islamic studies research papers or theses.

“There are more than 400 seats in the universities of Punjab alone for MPhil and PhD programmes in these languages. It is safe to say that every year at least 500 students produce their theses and research in these subjects and there is no reliable method to rule out plagiarism in this research. The research papers for all other subjects which are in English are run through a software which determines the extent of plagiarism in the text,” an associate professor at Punjab University told The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity.

“Many faculty members in these departments have filed complaints of plagiarism against their colleagues and fellow researchers but lack of an authentic software reduces the chances to verify their claims,” the faculty member said.

Islamia University Bahawalpur Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Mukhtar agreed that no software was available to detect plagiarism in the regional languages in the country. He said there was little chance of the problem being solved at least in the next two years. “Information technology-based software for some international languages other than English are available but there are none for our regional languages. The base of most of our languages is Arabic and if an Arabic language software becomes available in the market then software for other languages could also be developed,” he maintained. Dr Mukhtar said the issue should be dealt with by educating the students from the beginning that plagiarism was theft plain and simple. “Plagiarism is like robbing somebody. We should educate our students not to commit this crime,” he added.

Bahauddin Zakariya University Registrar Malik Munir Hussain said the solution to this problem was with the teachers. “Students conducted research even before the Internet was invented and we had never heard of plagiarism. The problem now is that every university teacher wants to supervise the maximum number of MPhil students to get the honorarium. Any way you look at it, a teacher simultaneously supervising 40 students would always struggle to ensure quality. The Higher Education Commission should strictly monitor its policy on M. Phil and PhD to resolve such issues,” he added.

University of Sargodha Publications Director Dr Hussain Piracha called the lack of a software for regional languages ‘a pertinent issue’ and said he would raise it in the next meeting of the academic council of the university. “Development of such software is not a difficult task and work on this should begin,” he added.

Punjab University Registrar Dr Amin Athar said that even the software used to detect plagiarism in English language research had shortcomings but agreed that even such software was unavailable for regional languages. “If we receive any complaints we have to compare the theses manually and decide if there is any substance to the plagiarism charge. I think special software for regional languages should be developed,” he added.

A Higher Education Commission (HEC) spokesperson said that in the absence of software in regional languages, experts’ opinion is sought to detect plagiarism. “The HEC is making a policy that if anyone accuses another of plagiarism and the inquiry does not prove that then action would be initiated against the accuser,” she said.

“A software to detect plagiarism in Arabic has been developed and we plan to procure it in during the current financial year. Software for other regional languages are currently not available in the market,” the spokesperson added.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2014.