Vice-chancellors tackle plagiarism with technology

April 9, 2013 by Segun Olugbile

Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, Prof. Julius Okojie and Prof. Michael Faborode
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Determined to check plagiarism, the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities opts for a digital device, SEGUN OLUGBILE reports

If you are a lazy student or a lecturer who hopes to plagiarise other people’s works for your final year project or academic publication, think twice. And if you belong to the cabal that specialises in ‘exporting’ other people’s final year long essay from another university and submitting as yours in another institution, you had better desist. This is because the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities has adopted a new technology to stop you in your track.

The Executive Secretary of the CVCNU, Prof. Michael Faborode, says the  committee will deploy a device known as the Turnitin Plagiarism Detection Software to fight the scourge in the nation’s universities. In fact, the AVCNU, in collaboration with the system administrator, will soon start regional training for university workers on how to use it. The adoption of Turnitin, he says, is to strengthen academic integrity of the nation’s universities.

“The idea is to eliminate plagiarism in the system. It is aimed at enhancing the academic integrity of our universities. All universities have subscribed to the idea and we are partnering with a California-based leading provider of web-based solutions for plagiarism prevention, iParadigms, to install the device,” Faborode says.

 The Vice-President of Turnitin, Will Murray, who confirmed the collaboration, says with the move, Nigeria has become the first country in Africa to embrace technology-driven anti-plagiarism device.

“Nigeria is pioneering the promotion of academic integrity in Africa, as it has just become the first country in the region to adopt Turnitin nationwide. This highlights the determination of tertiary institutions in the country to promote academic authenticity,” Murray says.

Faborode adds that the adoption of Turnitin will assist students in ensuring their writing is original, by comparing submitted works against a vast repository of information from the web, including scholarly journals and other academic contents.

The service is for the submission and originality checking of undergraduate and postgraduate students’ work. Faculty members will also find it useful in checking and ensuring the originality of their published works in elite journals and conference presentations.

Murray adds that Nigeria, is following the example of the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Turkey and several other countries in selecting Turnitin to ensure the integrity of their scholarly works on a national basis.

Murray says Turnitin is good in evaluating and improving student writing. The device, he says, is a cloud-based service that checks for academic originality and authenticity, while it also saves instructors’ time and provides rich feedback to students. As one of the most widely distributed educational applications in the world, Turnitin is used by more than 10,000 institutions in 126 countries to manage the submission, tracking and evaluation of student papers online.

Faborode says that the CVCNU settled for Turnitin because it discovered that the device has been proved to reduce plagiarism and promote academic integrity.

“It is used by all the major STM journals, prominent awarding bodies and scholars to protect scholarly works and maintain the integrity of academic awards worldwide,” he notes. Though the association, founded in 1962, is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organisation, Faborode says its primary goal is to provide a focus for academic leadership and a platform for discussing issues affecting higher education in Nigeria.

He adds that the adoption of the device will not come free. Each university will pay an annual subscription fee of N1m.

 “This will be renewable every year. Though the fee is much more than this, our decision to do it collectively and the passion of our partners to collaborate with us to address the issue of plagiarism is the reason we are paying just N1m per university per year,” Faborode says.

However, the annual subscription fee could change. In the price list on the agreed proposal, each university would have paid more, but the company did not include the cost of online grading, spelling, grammar or peer review system in the charges.

On how the device works, Faborode says Turnitin, as a hosted cloud-based solution, will be accessed via a web browser connected to the Internet.

To ensure that the process is not compromised, he adds, “No software will be stored on the client machine and all student papers submitted will be transferred to the i-cloud for processing. The results of processing are displayed in the browser. Access to the service is paid for each year as an annual license. Administrative support is provided free via a built-in help desk within the service. Again, phone-based support will be provided by a Turnitin partner in Nigeria.”

He adds that the adoption is a product of a series of meetings between AVCNU and Turnitin. According to him, 111 universities, including 37 owned by the Federal Government, 31 state government-owned and 43 private universities have subscribed to the device.

Most of the stakeholders express happiness at the initiative. They note that it will not only promote scholarship, it will also help the integrity of Nigerian academics and students. A professor at the Lagos State University, Ademola Onifade, says though there are existing laws that forbid plagiarism in various universities, this initiative will further strengthen and deepen scholarship.

“Plagiarism is a very serious offence in the university system. Penalty for it in various universities that I know is dismissal for any faculty member involved and expulsion for a student that violates the law. However, I want to commend the AVCNU for this great step. It is thoughtful and commendable. Though the issue of plagiarism is not that common in the nation’s universities, the adoption of this device would further serve as a check against anybody nurturing the idea,” he says.

Another lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Dr. Kehinde Kester, expresses a similar view, saying technology should not just be deployed to check plagiarism, it should also be embraced in all sectors of the nation to promote transparency and integrity.

But asked whether he was aware of the involvement of lecturers and final year students in particular in plagiarism, popularly called ‘dubbing’ among students, Kester says it could not be ruled out.

“I’ve not experienced it here in UI, but one cannot say it is not happening in the nation’s university system. But a very experienced lecturer should be able to detect a student that is plagiarising because, as a supervisor, you probably would have taught the student you are supervising and, by this, you would know his or her capacity. So, by the time such a student submits his or her project and it is error-free and smooth, something should tell a brilliant lecturer that something is not right somewhere,” he says.

Another lecturer, Prof. Funso Falade, of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Lagos, says the adoption of Turnitin is a welcome development. According to him, information telecommunication technology device should not just be deployed in universities, it should also be used in the nation’s education sector from the basic through to secondary and tertiary institutions.

 “One, I will not subscribe to the idea that the device is being deployed because of high rate of plagiarism in our universities. I don’t believe in that; at least I’ve been in this system for some years and I have not experienced such a trend. However, I will not be against anything that can make the system functions better. This, I think, will instil confidence in our students, faculty members and even members of the international academic community.

“Since ICT has come to stay and has helped humanity to do things better, faster and more transparently; and also since developed nations are making the best use of it to make things better, Nigeria should not lag behind. I commend the AVCNU for this forward-looking step,” Falade says.