HEC to curb plagiarism | UoP demands rent

HEC task force to curb plagiarism
Islamabad, July 11: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has taken a serious note of reports of academic thefts, also known as plagiarism, and constituted a taskforce to curb this menace.

The initiative has been taken on the direction by Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Incharge HEC and Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Social Sector.

The taskforce has developed the plagiarism policy and after approval of the Commission the same was circulated amongst the universities for implementation. Plagiarism Policy focuses on different ways in which plagiarism may appear, its intensity levels, punishment for each level and the procedure to be adopted for such punishment.

Nevertheless, the issue of plagiarism needs to be addressed in holistic manner therefore, HEC purchased an anti-plagiarism service 'ithenticate' in the year 2007 for the purpose of measuring similarity index between publications.

Thesis and research papers and the available material on internet and ten User IDs (accounts) were provided to selected Universities the Quality Assurance Department of HEC has taken a lead on the subject and initiated the process at HEC as well to facilitate the Higher Education Institutes.

The theses submitted by the students at Higher Education Institutions were forwarded to Quality Assurance Department for checking and research papers submitted to R&D of HEC were also checked by QAD through this service.

It is pertinent to mention that during past two years 9, 256 documents were checked by HEC through this service and reports were provided to respective Higher Education Institutions as per policy. The level of extensive utilization shows the significance of the service and trust of stakeholders.

Further, to build the capacity of the universities to detect any plagiarized documents, papers, theses etc at their own, the HEC has decided to purchase & provide anti-plagiarism service to all those public sector Universities which are getting recurring grant from Government. of Pakistan through Higher Education Commission.

The service has been purchased by HEC and has successfully been launched in 60 public Universities on dated June 22, 2009. All faculty members of Universities will get User ID and password through which they can check theses/papers and assignments of their students and papers/written by them as well.

Focal person of each University will be responsible for creation and management of accounts of faculty members and scholars. HEC's role will be of a facilitator for capacity building and monitoring of all stakeholders in case of any difficulty.

This is major step taken by the HEC to eradicate "cut-paste" culture from scholarly works and to support the knowledge extension. The Nation

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UoP demands rent from engg, agri varsities
Peshawar: The University of Peshawar (UoP) has renewed its claim over the properties occupied by the NWFP engineering and agricultural universities and said these institutions are bound to pay rent to the UoP.

UoP Director Planning and Development Professor Dr Shafiq-ur-Rehman gave a formal briefing to this effect to Secretary to Governor Arbab Arif and the Governor's Inspection Team. He said all the 1,045 acres of the campus land belongs to the University of Peshawar, including land from engineering and agriculture universities. The land holds the present buildings temporarily and these institutions are bound to pay rent to UoP.

The land of Islamia College spreading over 201 acres was transferred to the University of Peshawar by the Government of NWFP under Section 3(2) of the NWFP Dar-Ul-Islamia Act 1949, with effect from April 1, 1954 with all its assets including buildings, shops, roads, drains, lawns, playgrounds, etc. The University of Peshawar has been paying the 'abiana' of the entire land of campus since 1950.

Puta President Dr Arbab Afridi, who was also present on the occasion, said the government had first separated faculty of engineering and agriculture as a separate institution in 1980 and 1981, respectively, and has now made Islamia College as Islamia University within one campus, offering the same courses which seems to be an average decision. He said instead of this, the government should come up and establish universities in remote areas so that rural population should have access to higher education.

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Lord Nazir seeks clarification over detained Pak students
London: British Parliamentarian Lord Nazir Ahmad has promised to keep raising the issue of the arrest and the decision to deport 10 Pakistan students with the UK government until they are released.

He made the declaration while releasing to the media a response from British Home Secretary Alan Johnson with regard to his concerns over the issue in a letter despatched to the Home Office in April.

The home secretary, in his reply, said at the time of their arrests on April 8, there was credible intelligence to suggest there was an imminent threat to the public. "However, we are now seeking to deport 10 individuals. As I have indicated whilst criminal prosecution will always remain our preferred option, the government's highest priority is always to protect public safety by taking appropriate action, including deportation. I do not take the decision to seek to deport somebody lightly on national security grounds," Johnson wrote in his letter.

The ten detained students have exercised their right to appeal against this deportation decision before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and the hearing of their bail is due on July 27. The News

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