KU holds seminar on effective use of plagiarism tools

The University of Karachi on Wednesday organised a seminar on the effective use of Turnitin to avoid plagiarism.  The office of the KU students’ adviser arranged the event for the students enrolled in MS/ MPhil and PhD programmes.

Speaking via video link from the Higher Education Commission, Islamabad, HEC’s Deputy Director on Quality Assurance Muneer Ahmed highlighted the policy the commission had adopted over the year for the avoidance of plagiarism at different levels in the academia.

He said the now HEC had a very well-defined framework for avoiding plagiarism through different policies and frameworks and that was also adopted by different universities in Pakistan.

He spoke about the HEC road map in case of receiving any complaint from any affected individual. He reprimanded the students that by indulging in plagiarism, “you are not only bringing a bad name to yourself and family but also to your institution”.

Later, Professor Dr Nasir Sulman, dean of the Faculty of Education and member of the Standing Committee on Plagiarism, KU, spoke about the reasons that led students to plagiarise. He talked about the strategies to prevent indulgence in plagiarism, and the need to learn to write and analyse.

Syed Asim Ali, KU students’ adviser, who is also assistant professor at the varsity’s Department of Computer Science, conducted the hands-on workshop on Turnitin and taught students about the strategies to use Turnitin effectively to avoid plagiarism.

He said that this was the first time the office of the students’ adviser was taking on board the students of MPhil and PhD. “As the research culture at the University of Karachi improves, the ranking of the university will also improve.”  

He said that they would be organising a series of seminars and workshops for MPhil and PhD students, and next month a seminar/workshop on SPSS and Excel would be conducted to help students learn the art of data analysis.