The draft amendment to the Law on Higher Education prepared by a group of PiS deputies has been submitted to the Parliament - said Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education Prof. Aleksander Bobko during the European Anti-plagiarism Forum. The proposed provisions delay the time when the universities will be required to check papers with anti-plagiarism software by two years. Universities will have this obligation only from the academic year 2018/2019.

By then, an uniform anti-plagiarism system compatible with the national repository of written theses should be developed. Universities will use this system free of charge.

Bobko admitted that plagiarism is a shameful phenomenon for scientists. "Anti-plagiarism mechanisms are somewhat similar to mechanisms that operate in casinos, where all players are monitored at all times to prevents anyone from pulling an ace from his sleeve, cheating. It\'s awful" - he said. He expressed the hope that "the plague of plagiarism" is only a "childhood disease of the beginning of widespread Internet and network society" and that the disease period has already passed.

Electronic plagiarism detection systems should only be an aid in preventing the bad phenomena, which have been taking place at universities in recent years - noted the deputy minister. According to him, the most important thing should be to build the culture of quality, in which no one has an idea to copy someone else\'s work and present it as his own.

In early March, the National Centre for Research and Development cancelled the competition for universities for operating anti-plagiarism systems. 50 potential winners already selected in the competition were to receive a total of 35 million zlotys. The money would be used to finance the purchase of licenses from companies that operate anti-plagiarism systems, or build own anti-plagiarism platforms and systems.

Ministry of Science decided to cancel the competition. In return, it undertook to an uniform anti-plagiarism system available to Polish universities free of charge.

Nationwide, free anti-plagiarism system should be built within two years, according to the announcements of the Ministry - by the National Information Processing Institute.

The initial concept of the planned competition (which would be open to companies, universities and start-ups) has been revealed by Marek Kozłowski from the National Information Processing Institute. "The aim will be to select the best anti-plagiarism algorithm" - he said.

The algorithm selected in the competition will then be adapted and implemented in the central anti-plagiarism system.

According to Gosia Faba, plagiarism prevention systems expert at Turnitin, the proposed formula of the competition might not allow to actually select the best solutions. The winner will have to share the anti-plagiarism algorithm with the National Information Processing Institute. "I do not believe that any of the existing plagiarism prevention companies would share such intellectual property" - she said and pointed out: "the organizers want to actually buy our system to present it as the state anti-plagiarism system. This is a wrong approach". In her view, a better solution would be to simply issue a tender for services relating to the anti-plagiarism activities.

The obligation to check engineering, undergraduate, master\'s and doctoral papers in an anti-plagiarism system was introduced by an amendment to the Law on Higher Education of 2014.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland

lt/ zan/ mrt/

tr. RL