IIM combats plagiarism with technology

KOLKATA: The cut-paste approach will no longer cut much ice at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C). Worried over an increasing tendency by students to copy from the internet and other sources, the city’s premier B-school has adopted a specialized software to check plagiarism. 

‘Turnitin’, the software, has the ability to compare documents submitted by students with papers, theses and reports that are already online — or those submitted earlier by earlier batches of students — and determine how much of the work is original and how much, if any, copied. In effect, papers with materials submitted from the internet or from senior students can no longer escape the system’s prying eyes. 

Instances of plagiarism have already taken a sharp dip. “We have been using the software for over a year now,” said IIM-C professor Prashant Mishra, the former chairperson of the postgraduation (PGP) programme. “It has had the desired effect. If a professor finds that a work is not an original one, then there are penal provisions in accordance with the institute’s policy on plagiarism,” he added. 

A source at IIM-C said that three years back, some students had resorted to plagiarism. “When journals or submissions are corrected manually, plagiarism may escape the professors’ eyes. But, with a software in place, that can hardly happen. The students who had copied had done so either from published material or from another project done by their seniors. IIM-C had taken strong action against the guilty students by failing them and even asking them to repeat a year,” the source added. 

The plagiarism had sent shockwaves among IIM-C teachers, who decided that strong anti-plagiarising steps had to be taken and a policy formed. Accordingly, students were notified about the consequences of copying from other sources, including the possibility of failing in subjects — and even expulsion, depending on the severity of the transgression. 

“Course assignments, project write-ups, research reports, individual assignments, submissions are done by students beyond classroom hours. Take-home submissions are one of the most integral parts of continuous comprehensive evaluation (CCE) done by the institute,” the source added. “Students get considerable time to complete the assignments. Usually, they are allotted two to four weeks to complete the homework and submit online assignments. Marks allotted to such projects could be 20% to 50% of the course marks. Hence, most professors use the software now to curb copying.” 

Just installing the software isn’t enough. “Sensitising students about the methods of doing referencing, ways to write a scholarly document are all part of IIM-C’s anti-plagiarism policy,” said IIM-C dean Anindya Sen. “We have created a system where the student knows the punishment.” 

So, how does the software work? It’s a simple process, but Turnitin scans and compares a particular document with a huge database and then gives a report — a near-impossible task in human terms, said the source. 

Courtesy Times of India. Click this link for the complete story.