Copy-paste doctorate: Comsats pro-rector’s PhD thesis found 72% plagiarised

[Jungibaaz]

LOL he didn't even have the brains to rephrase things? Speaking of NTS, this organization needs to be banned, it collects huge funds from students to only fail them and let only influential people go ahead.

Doesn't matter, one check with an internet tool will tell you the report similarity compared to; articles on the internet, text anywhere on the internet or in books/ebooks AND similarity to any previously submitted reports and theses record on various databases from many universities and institutions.

This for example, will even let you know if your work is similar, even if it wasn't your intent to plagiarise, often time students use text books and third party sources for background research, and some of it seeps through to their reports and little red flags pop up when they submit it to check for plagiarism.
Turnitin - Originality Check, Online Grading & Peer Review

In order to get 72% similarity, this idiot must have literally, copied and pasted entire sections of other people's report into his.

 

[kbd-raaf]

Turnitin is useless. It is so easy to re-word sentences and get by.

 

[Jungibaaz]

Turnitin is useless. It is so easy to re-word sentences and get by.

That's a basic one, most universities use far better systems. These sort of checks are good enough for any person who isn't trying to copy, only to check that his/her report is clean.

 

[Burhan Wani]

Ise lye me defend he nahe kar raha.. ni to abi lar parn gay mery sath.

Look i am working in HEC and we have turnitin facility.
If pro rector's thesis is 72 percent plagiarized then remaining 28 percent is genuine research.

 

[kbd-raaf]

That's a basic one, most universities use far better systems. These sort of checks are good enough for any person who isn't trying to copy, only to check that his/her report is clean.

For PhD theses, yes, for assignments and such they use Turnitin. As a tutor it is so obvious that multiple groups have the same report simply reworded but I can do nothing about it because Turnitin gives them a low %age.

 

[RazorMC]

As long as the professors or authorities know how to use turnitin, my papers routinely go 20-27% plagiarism because the professors had no idea that simple phrases such as "not to mention" and "simply put" were taken into consideration rather than being exempted from the plagiarism counter.

Not only that, but a paper that I turned in for American Government class, back in 9th Grade, is archived by turnitin to use to detect plagiarism.

Those simple phrases turn up in the results but are usually ignored by professors when accepting assignments and thesis. Quotes also raise the percentage and there's a limit to how many quotes one can use.

It's a very effective piece of software but like you said, the faculty need to use it properly to defeat plagiarism. Untrained professors would routinely turn down any assignment over 10%.

 

[Jungibaaz]

For PhD theses, yes, for assignments and such they use Turnitin. As a tutor it is so obvious that multiple groups have the same report simply reworded but I can do nothing about it because Turnitin gives them a low %age.

That's inevitable though to an extent. Some sections of that those group projects with individual reports have similar sections. Really, the only time I've ever heard of a student being called out for plagiarism is when their report is similar to books, lectures or internet material, and only then if they haven't referenced. I've also seen far too many students simply copy and throw on a reference and get away with clear plagiarism and zero effort.

 

[Icarus]

How can such a senior academic be guilty of something as petty as plagiarism? Something is a miss, either his list of accomplishments are all false or there is some other dimension to this case. An individual with multiple international publications should have no need to copy-paste someone else's work. Either way, this is a massive set back for academia in Pakistan.

 

[Burhan Wani]

That's inevitable though to an extent. Some sections of that those group projects with individual reports have similar sections. Really, the only time I've ever heard of a student being called out for plagiarism is when their report is similar to books, lectures or internet material, and only then if they haven't referenced. I've also seen far too many students simply copy and throw on a reference and get away with clear plagiarism and zero effort.

 

[kbd-raaf]

I've also seen far too many students simply copy and throw on a reference and get away with clear plagiarism and zero effort.

Modern day tertiary education y'all.

 

[VCheng]

How can such a senior academic be guilty of something as petty as plagiarism? Something is a miss, either his list of accomplishments are all false or there is some other dimension to this case. An individual with multiple international publications should have no need to copy-paste someone else's work. Either way, this is a massive set back for academia in Pakistan.

Has the charge of plagiarism been proved, or is it still being investigated?

 

[Icarus]

Has the charge of plagiarism been proved, or is it still being investigated?

Its just been recorded on turnitin, a proper investigation has now been launched.

 

[VCheng]

Its just been recorded on turnitin, a proper investigation has now been launched.

Exactly. Let us wait to see what the final determination is before we castigate the said Professor.

 

[Icarus]

Exactly. Let us wait to see what the final determination is before we castigate the said Professor.

Exactly my point. I don't think softwares like turnitin are made to grade doctoral thesis any way. Grade assignments and term papers are one thing but a doctoral thesis is no joke!

 

[Jungibaaz]

How can such a senior academic be guilty of something as petty as plagiarism? Something is a miss, either his list of accomplishments are all false or there is some other dimension to this case. An individual with multiple international publications should have no need to copy-paste someone else's work. Either way, this is a massive set back for academia in Pakistan.

If the similarity report is correct, and unless this person somehow was unlucky enough to publish the entirety of his report beforehand and then resubmit following another draft. AND unless the similarity index isn't diverse, he's in trouble.

Put it this way, the only thing that could save him is, if through no fault of his own sections of his work were published before he submitted again, or if he used long and lengthy quotes, in this case he's okay, but really the universities I've seen use a 20% limit, anything higher and they may not accept, anything above 40% and they may even investigate.

Not much has been said here about this turnitin report and when it was done in comparison to the initial submission and so on.