CHENNAI: The state higher education department has decided to create a web portal, which would act as a centralised dashboard for data related to PhD works from across state universities. The initiative is aimed at monitoring PhD works, ensuring timely completion of the PhD, streamlining the process and keeping a tab on the quality of research work in state universities.
“The portal will serve as a one-point information centre for all the information related to PhD research work happening in the 13 state universities. Currently, there is no such mechanism,” said C Samayamoorthy, secretary, higher education department.
He added the universities will have to continuously update data right from registration of PhD scholars, topics of their research work, and progress on their work.
“The database will help us to track and identify the scholars, who have sought extension of time for thesis submission, as well as check plagiarism in final dissertations,” Samayamoorthy said.
An announcement regarding the project was made by Higher Education Minister Govi Chezhiaan in the Assembly recently, following which the department held a meeting to discuss the functions and execution of the web portal.
According to officials, the project is likely to be implemented from the next academic year. An agency will be selected to create the software and it will take six months to one year to get the portal running, said a senior official.
Higher education department officials said only the 13 universities will be included in the portal initially, and in later phases steps will be taken to upload data of the remaining state universities, functioning under other departments.