By Fadhlillah Abdallah
The Vice-Chancellor of Sokoto State University (SSU), Prof. Bashir Garba has warned researchers in the institution to avoid plagiarism and other forms of cheating in their research works.
Prof. Garba gave the warning at a one-day training workshop on submission of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) Institution Based Research (IBR) and Academic Research Journal (ARJ) interventions, organized by the Research and Development Centre of the University on Wednesday.
He further warned that the institution has zero-tolerance for cheating, especially plagiarism.
“I am urging all members of staff to be wary of plagiarism and other related offenses because the university has zero-tolerance for any academic cheating.
“Always ensure that all your works are free from any form of plagiarism. You are advised to be using anti-plagiarism software to find out the level of paraphrasing. This will help you in avoiding such offense,” he advised.
He commended TETFund for coming up with a new policy of running all academic manuscripts submitted by academicians through anti-plagiarism software, before approval.
“This initiative is highly commendable as it will check and reduce the level of plagiarism,” he added.
Prof Garba called on participants to put what they have learned into practice, while pointing out that the world is moving very fast due to technological advancement, especially in the area of information and communication technology, hence, the need for all to be ICT compliant.
“Let us key into a global trend. As we can see, efforts are geared towards the realization of a paperless society, where everything will be done electronically. The digitization process is taking place in all sectors of human endeavor, especially, the education sector.”
The Vice-Chancellor urged university staff to make judicious use of the fund allocated to them for conferences, study fellowship, Institution Based Research, by the University, TETFund, PTDF and other interventions.
Prof. Garba commended the centre for organizing such an informative and educative training workshop.
The speaker at the event, who is also the Director of the Centre, Dr. Thompson Izuagie said there were newly introduced methods by the TETFund on how best to submit any research electronically.
