Any thesis submitted by research students in the Kerala University (KU) will soon find its way to an online national-level repository, converting it into a piece of original work by a researcher. The Kerala University will sign an MoU with Shodhganga (repository of Indian electronic theses) in this regard on Friday.
The University is undertaking the digitisation of its theses and dissertations for converting it into online material. The project has the support of University Grants Commission (UGC).
The Information and Library Network (Inflibnet) centre, an autonomous inter-university centre of UGC, is the agency which is involved in promoting scholarly communication among researchers in India. And the Shodhganga@Inflibnet centre provides a platform for research students to deposit their PhD thesis and make it available to the research community as a whole.
‘’This will help avoid plagiarism to a great extent since we will be able to know if there is duplication of work. The University will have to digitise the research work now in its library. But once the MoU is signed, the students who submit their thesis will have to submit a soft copy too so that it could be deposited in the repository,’’ said Dr J Prabash, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Kerala University.
According to research students, a thesis is often a tedious work involving hours of hard work. To have it stored for eternity is a good thing, a research student in Kerala University said.
The UGC had initiated the Inflibnet centre as a national programme in 1991 with Gujarat University campus as nerve centre. Though it started off as a project, it became an independent inter-university centre in 1996.
The official website of Inflibnet says that it is involved in modernising university libraries in India and connecting them as well as information centres in the country through a nationwide high speed data network using the state-of-art technologies for the optimum utilisation of information.
As per the UGC Regulations on MPhil/PhD, the responsibility of hosting, maintaining and making the digital repository of Indian Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Shodhganga) accessible to all institutions and universities is assigned to the Inflibnet centre.