1. IMPLEMENTING ANTI-PLAGIARISM POLICY
A CASE STUDY OF THE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, MINNA, NIGERIA By
Prof. Wole Morenikeji (TURNITIN Administrator FUTMINNA)

2. ABOUT Nigeria Location: West Africa Population : About 160 Million
Number of Universities: 129
Number of Polytechnics & COE: Over 300
Official Language: English
Local Languages: About 500

3. ABOUT FUTMinna
One of the 4 the four specialised universities of technology established in 1983
Focus on science and technology education.
Seven schools (faculties) – engineering, agriculture, environmental, science education, education technology, entrepreneurship, and information & communication technology.
Student population is about 16,000.

4. BACKGROUND & CHALLENGE OF PLAGIARISM IN NIGERIA (FUTMinna)
Plagiarism Challenge
Online – Google, search engines e.t.c
Online - Wikipedia
Offline by copying fellow students within the same school or from other schools

5. FUTMinna APPROACH AT TACKLING PLAGIARISM
Sample opinion of other colleagues and students
Compare the level of originality of the academic work in minna with other schools
Analyze the common types of plagiarism issues in FUT Minna
Internal Factors
Collect data of number of students caught copying others
Develop draft plagiarism policy
Requested for Turnitin Pilot test alongside others
Research different types of plagiarism methods used by the students
Study anti plagiarism policy information available online and through contacts with colleagues abroad
Research the market on anti plagiarism
External Factors
TURNITIN WAS SELECTED AS THE PREFERRED TOOL

6. PRE- IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES1 2 3 4 5 6
Resistance from Academics & Students – Mainly due to lack of understanding how it works not because they don’t like it
Issues with training all the instructors/Lecturers
Ensuring that the lecturers actually check originality report
Developing the anti Plagiarism policy in FUT Minna and being able to advocate for National anti plagiarism policy
Scanning and digitalizing all past projects and dissertations
National Anti Plagiarism Policy?????? Still a challenge

7. IMPLEMENTATION CYCLE Methodology Methodology 1 9 2 3 8 4 7 6 5
Identification of the Project, research of the solutions in the market, identification of potential champions be 9
Project Closure/Monitoring and Evaluation 2
Stakeholders Engagement/Advocacy to the Ecosystem 3
Development of Anti Plagiarism Policy 8
Another Round of Training 4 7
Digitalization of over 30,000 Dissertations which is about 2,400,000 pages.
Set up of the Anti plagiarism Committee 6
Post Implementation trial of the solution using only Phd students as pilot 5
Turnitin Implementation & Training – ORACO
Methodology

8. POST IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGESCHALLENGES1 2 3 4 5 6
Putting everything in quote: It was reported that some students were getting unusually low similarity index score because they put most of their thesis write up in quote that are not found on the hard copies.
Slow progress – Resistance to change management, Even after enlightenment campaigns, the diffusion process was very slow as most instructors failed to create classes and register their students
Who takes charge: Who carries out the originality test and whose test report is authentic?
Standardisation: Standardising these report format in terms of what to supress (filter) is another challenge
Forging of report: Some Departments do not care where the originality reports come from, they are only interested in looking for the similarity index
Anti-turnitin software? Feedbacks from our instructors indicate that the students have discovered a software called “Article Spinner” which can “confuse” turnitin and return very low similarity index for students’ write-up. We are yet to verify this.

9. HOW WE ARE ADDRESSING THESE CHALLENGES
Anti plagiarism Advisers for the Schools (Faculties) and Departments have been appointed
The Adviser for each Department will enrol all final year students from undergraduate to post-graduate level writing projects
In between registration and final date (deadline), students are free to turn in their write ups and effect corrections
After deadline, Adviser will produce the originality reports of the students
Training will be intensified and each project/theses supervisor will take over the responsibility of producing originality test reports of their students.
All instructor will also be in position to create classes for courses they are teaching and request students to turn in every written essay/assignment
Courses such as General Studies and Research Methods are to place further emphasis on the art of referencing and plagiarism avoidance.
New guidelines on what to and not to filter when checking the results
Continuous review meetings, advocacy campaigns and trainings
Internal capacity development through the Turnitin Champions

10. FUTMinna SENATE APPROVED SIMILARITY INDEX
Ph.D – 10%
Masters – 15%
Undergraduate – 20%
This is to take care of the over-sensitivity of the software even after the filter facility of the software has been employed

11. PLAGIARISM REDUCTION IN FUTMinna – THE RESULTS
2011/2012 SESSION
1843 Turnitin reports were generated and 276 (14.98%) had similarity index of 75% and above.
2012/2013 SESSION
2453 Turnitin report was generated and 746 (30.41%) have similarity index of 75% and above
2013/2014 SESSION:
In 7 months of 2013/ reports have been generated so far with on 204 (7.28%) having similarity index of 75% and above
It must however be noted that category of papers in “no matches” has not improved as expected as only 2.3% belong to this category

12. FUTMinna PERFORMANCE IN RANKING
FUTMinna was rated A+ in the first NUC University Accreditation
FUTMinna moved from 24th to 16th and now to 4th position on the 4ICU ranking
By January 2014, FUTMinna was rated in the top 100 University in Africa
It must however be noted that category of papers in “no matches” has not improved as expected as only 2.3% belong to this category

13. Thank You.