c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 185 Plagiarism in the Research Reports of Indian Doctoral Students: Causes and a Remedial Action Plan Tapan Kumar Pradhan 1 and Ajit Kumar* 2 • Many reputable academic journals have retracted research papers from Indian researchers because of plagiarism. The University Grant Com - mission, a representative organisation of the Indian government, is dili - gently endeavouring to ensure academic integrity by applying stringent guidelines. The present study aims to find the potential causes of the pla - giarism found in the research reports of Indian doctoral students and to formulate a remedial action plan. A literature review was undertaken to identify incidences of plagiarism at educational institutions. Based on the review’s insights, a survey was conducted to investigate doctoral students’ awareness of plagiarism, including causes and remedial action plans. In addition, 21 interviews were conducted with senior academics and pro - fessionals from various academic disciplines to gain an understanding of their viewpoints. An analysis was then undertaken of the responses re - ceived through the questionnaires and interviews. The results suggested the widespread incidence of plagiarism and shed light on its causes. A remedial action plan emerged from the study, which included 1) establish - ing a research ethics committee at all academic or research institutions, 2) fostering a correct understanding of plagiarism and its implications by conducting training, workshops and awareness campaigns at an early stage of doctoral students’ lives, 3) ensuring clarity of research purpose among doctoral students and emphasising the quality of research work, 4) developing academic writing skills, and 5) making anti-plagiarism soft - ware available free of charge to all students and faculty members. Indian students perceive the University Grant Commission’s stringent guidelines as a good initiative. However, these guidelines cannot be implemented fruitfully without addressing the underlying causes of plagiarism. Keywords: academic integrity, higher education, India, plagiarism, re - search ethics 1 School of Rural Management, XIM University, Bhubaneswar, India. 2 *Corresponding Author. Xavier Institute of Management, XIM University, Bhubaneswar, India; ajit@xim.edu.in. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26529/cepsj.1494 186 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students Plagiatorstvo v raziskovalnih poročilih indijskih doktorskih študentov: vzroki in akcijski načrt za izboljšavo problematike Tapan Kumar Pradhan in Ajit Kumar • Številne ugledne akademske revije so umaknile raziskovalna dela indij - skih raziskovalcev zaradi plagiatorstva. University Grant Commission (t. i. Univerzitetna komisija za štipendije), reprezentativna organizacija indijske vlade, si močno prizadeva zagotoviti akademsko integriteto z uporabo strogih smernic. Namen te študije je poiskati morebitne vzro - ke in oblikovati akcijske načrte za izboljšavo problematike kot odziv na plagiatorstvo v raziskovalnih poročilih indijskih doktorskih študentov. Opravili smo pregled literature, da bi našli primere plagiatorstva v iz - obraževalnih ustanovah. Na podlagi spoznanj iz pregleda smo izvedli anketo, da bi opredelili, kako ozaveščeni so o plagiatorstvu doktorski študentje, ter vključili tudi vzroke in akcijske načrte za izboljšavo pro - blematike. Poleg tega smo opravili 21 intervjujev z vodilnimi akademi - ki in s strokovnjaki iz različnih akademskih disciplin, da bi razumeli njihova stališča. Analizirali smo odgovore, ki smo jih prejeli z vprašal - niki in intervjuji. Rezultati so pokazali, da je plagiatorstvo zelo razšir - jeno, in osvetlili vzroke zanj. Poleg tega je iz študije izšel akcijski načrt za izboljšavo problematike, ki je vključeval: 1) ustanovitev komisije za raziskovalno etiko na vseh akademskih ali raziskovalnih ustanovah; 2) spodbujanje pravilnega razumevanja plagiatorstva in njegovih posledic z izvajanjem usposabljanj, delavnic in kampanj ozaveščanja v zgodnji fazi statusa doktorskih študentov; 3) zagotavljanje jasnosti raziskovalne - ga namena pri doktorskih študentih in poudarek na kakovosti razisko - valnega dela; 4) razvoj veščin akademskega pisanja; 5) omogočanje brez - plačne uporabe programske opreme proti plagiatorstvu za vse študente in člane fakultete. Indijski študentje so stroge smernice University Grant Commission (Univerzitetne komisije za štipendije) za univerzitetne šti - pendije razumeli kot dobro pobudo, vendar pa jih ni mogoče uspešno izvajati, če se ne odpravijo temeljni vzroki za plagiatorstvo. Ključne besede: akademska integriteta, visokošolsko izobraževanje, Indija, plagiatorstvo, raziskovalna etika c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 187 Introduction Many reputable academic journals have retracted research papers au - thored by Indian researchers because of plagiarism. Plagiarised articles, even re - puted research journals, have been hit hard, resulting in large-scale retractions. Retracting papers worldwide has increased sevenfold from 2004 to 2009 (Steen, 2011). From 2011 to 2019, over 980 articles were withdrawn from India alone: 330 were reported for text plagiarism and 127 for image duplication (Prasad, 2019). Many researchers have found that the types of plagiarism commonly found in articles published in health journals include phrases copied from Wikipedia and tables or images reproduced from websites without attribution (Kumari et al., 2018; Mukherjee et al., 2018; Sharma & Singh, 2011). A significant factor con - tributing to plagiarism is the proliferation of predatory journals that charge fees from contributors without diligent peer review (Frandsen, 2019; Thomas, 2020). Around 20,000 research journals are published in India (Priyadarshini, 2018), but fewer than 500 of them are indexed by citation databases such as SCOPUS and Web of Science, implying that the rest are sub-standard (Mills & Inouye, 2021; Priyadarshini, 2018). The proliferation of predatory journals is a crucial reason behind the changes made by the University Grants Commission of India (UGC), a statutory organisation of the Indian Government responsible for co - ordinating, determining and supporting education, examinations and research in university education (Patwardhan, 2019b). In 2010, the UGC began evaluat - ing current and potential university faculty members by their publications. Later, in 2013, it mandated that graduate students must publish two research articles to receive a doctoral degree (Hegde & Patil, 2021). Although well intended, this regulation encouraged corruption. It resulted in thousands of students being des - perate for publication, which, in conjunction with ineffective monitoring, led to the mushrooming of predatory publishing (Patwardhan, 2019a). The predatory journal publishes articles in return for a fee without going through the rigour of peer review (Hegde & Patil, 2021). In 2016, in order to curb this unwanted trend, the UGC prescribed stricter eligibility criteria and screening tests for doctoral admission aimed at filtering out candidates who lack research reasoning (Patwardhan, 2019a, 2019b). The UGC mandated submission and unrestricted access to all theses or dissertations through the Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) to facilitate the detection of plagiarism. Furthermore, in 2018, the UGC announced the estab - lishment of a dedicated Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics (CARE) (Patwardhan, 2019a, 2019b; Patwardhan & Nagarkar, 2021; Patwardhan & Thakur, 2019). The UGC-CARE is responsible for identifying, continuously monitoring 188 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students and maintaining a referral list of quality journals across disciplines. Only research articles published in the CARE Reference List of Quality Journals (CARE List) are considered for all academic purposes (Garanayak & Ramaiah, 2019; Patwardhan & Nagarkar, 2021; Patwardhan & Thakur, 2019). The UGC further mandated In - dian universities to screen all theses, dissertations, term papers and publications through plagiarism detection services, and the maximum penalty was prescribed in cases of plagiarism detected in core work, such as abstracts, summaries, re - sults and conclusions (Lahiry & Sinha, 2019). In non-core areas, plagiarism was quantified into four categories according to the content copied: below 10% (can be overlooked), Level 1 (10–40%), Level 2 (40–60%) and Level 3 (above 60%) (Lahiry & Sinha, 2019). For a Level 3 offence, students can lose their registration, while faculty members can be barred from further publications or even lose sal - ary increments (Lahiry & Sinha, 2019). Several researchers have pointed out shortcomings in the radical ini - tiatives by the UGC. For instance, an article containing 10% text copied from core areas can be labelled plagiarised, while another article copying 25% from non-core areas may not (Kadam, 2018; Pandita & Singh, 2019). Furthermore, two articles may appear similar without actually being plagiarised, in which case universities may require expert human intervention to assess the articles’ originality instead of mechanical word-matching software tools. Such human intervention can become subjective and hence potentially discriminatory for individual researchers. In view of all of this unintended chaos, in 2022, the UGC proposed doing away with the mandatory requirement of publishing research papers in peer-reviewed journals for doctoral thesis submission (If - tikhar, 2022), instead allowing higher education institutions to formulate rules and regulations. It looks like the UGC plans to return to the era before 2013 (Iftikhar, 2022). However, the question remains: Why did linking faculty per - formance and doctoral students’ mandatory requirements with paper publica - tions have undesired consequences in India, such as predatory journals full of plagiarised articles, but not in developed nations like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sin - gapore, USA, Canada, Australia and Japan (Sureda‐Negre et al., 2022)? In order to understand plagiarism better, we reviewed the Indian literature to reveal the underlying potential causes. A study was then conducted to obtain further in - sight into the causes of plagiarism and to determine a remedial action plan. Literature Review The literature review we conducted revealed several causes of plagia - rism. The first factor that drives Indian students to plagiarise is a fundamental c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 189 misunderstanding about plagiarism. Students must understand plagiarism as research misconduct (Thakur & Lahiry, 2019). A study was conducted by Kumari and Lakshmi (2015) on the awareness of plagiarism among doctoral students at the Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. An analysis of the 123 responses indicated that 100% of the respondents knew about the punishment for plagiarism, 98% knew about various anti-plagiarism tools, and 93% thought that plagiarism concerned paraphrasing a paragraph. How - ever, 26% of the respondents felt that composing a paragraph by taking short phrases from works by other authors and joining them with their own words was acceptable. More than 50% of the respondents reported difficulty with aca - demic writing skills and 26% reported poor writing skills. Likewise, Varghese and Jacob (2015) conducted a study using a quiz and a questionnaire on 423 medical students at V ellore in Tamil Nadu, India. The quiz was conducted to as - sess the students’ knowledge of plagiarism. A self-administered questionnaire was used to determine their attitude towards plagiarism. The results showed a negative correlation between plagiarism awareness scores and a permissive attitude toward plagiarism (Sorgo et al., 2015). Men were found to have a more permissive attitude towards plagiarism than women, but the students’ age and educational background did not correlate with their knowledge of or attitude towards plagiarism. The researchers found that the medical students’ knowl - edge of plagiarism was relatively low. The second cause of plagiarism is a negative perception of the research ethics committee that supervises research from its start until completion. Gopi - nath et al. (2014) studied the research ethics committee awareness of 96 faculty members of a dental college in India. About 30% believed the research ethics committee would cause delays or make the research more challenging. The third reason for plagiarism could be rooted in Indian education and job culture. For a long time, the Indian education system could not understand the declining quality of research (Pushkar, 2018). For years, plagiarism was not considered something that needed to be addressed (Pushkar, 2015) and it is only recently that it has attracted more attention. Moreover, India has not inculcated an awareness of plagiarism in children from their school days. At an early age, Indian children are not allowed to think independently. Parents decide every - thing for them, such as which school they will go to, which field they will study and whom they will marry. Schools even provide students with notes and an - swers: students are expected to write the same response during examinations. Most teachers do not like it if the students deviate from the notes provided and write answers in their own words, often deducting marks for doing so. Students are therefore taught to follow the trodden path and are not encouraged to think 190 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students independently from a young age (Handa & Power, 2005). This type of educa - tion often kills children’s creative abilities (Gradišek, 2012). Somewhere along the way, they stop thinking and blindly follow what they are told or expected to do (Đurišić & Bunijevac, 2017). These schools encouraged pupils to repli - cate their teachers’ ideations (Ma et al., 2008). Thus, creativity was suffocated and copying text became an everyday task (Ma et al., 2008). In such a culture, the concept of self-plagiarism is beyond the students’ imagination (Kanchan et al., 2010). When they apply for a job, they find it challenging to think innova - tively. As per UGC guidelines, those involved in teaching and research receive promotions and progress in their careers depending on the number of papers published (Padmanabhan, 2017; Šorgo & Heric, 2020). Universities maintain constant pressure to publish in order to obtain better rankings, such as from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, the National Institute Rank - ing Framework and QS World University Ranking. Creative work takes time, and people often struggle to be creative under pressure (Pradhan & Pradhan, 2017). Therefore, teachers and researchers are, to a degree, forced to copy and edit someone else’s work. Another problem in the workplace is work credit to the deserving. Often, the person who actually does the job receives limited credit for his or her work. The lack of work credit makes the person unwilling to work in a fully committed way, so papers are prepared half-heartedly and derived from plagiarising the work of others. Moreover, many Indians believe in helping friends and classmates, and their help is glorified and talked about (Parikh, 2021). The fourth factor is that cultural and language barriers prevent open discussion about plagiarism between students and teachers, as rote learning is often taught. Researchers from non-English-speaking localities are obviously disadvantaged (Chaddah, 2014), with the lack of original thinking skills in Eng - lish forcing many students to copy text from others, despite English being a second or third language. Fifthly, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have made the plagiarist’s job much easier by providing instant internet access to the work of others, with the ability to copy-paste with the mere click of a mouse. On the other hand, ICT has helped curb plagiarism by developing anti-plagiarism software and online tools for detecting plagiarism. Pathak and Malakar (2016) conducted a telephone survey of 150 students pursuing higher studies at Gauha - ti University regarding anti-plagiarism software usage. Of the 100 respondents, 85% indicated that they were aware of such software and 84% said it benefited them. Ten percent of the respondents reported that their papers had exceeded the 20% similarity limit prescribed by their university. Another 24% reported c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 191 that the similarity level ranged from 11% to 20%. The authors also compared seven North-East States universities that used different plagiarism detection software, such as Turnitin and Urkund. Badrinath and Prakash (2016) con - ducted a case study on the incidence of plagiarism at the Alliance University, City Campus, Bengaluru, by analysing various reports submitted by students during the years 2014 (325 reports) and 2015 (220 reports). Their analysis re - vealed that the percentage of reports showing a similarity score above 75% had decreased from 12% in 2014 to 8.2% in 2015. Similarly, the percentage of reports showing similarity scores in the range 50–74% dropped sharply to 30.4–16.2% over the same year. The authors attribute this significant improvement to the introduction of Turnitin software on the campus in 2014 and the subsequent training and awareness campaign aimed at faculty members. However, various plagiarism detection programmes, such as T urnitin, come with challenges: they are too costly for individual students and advisors, while some freely available software is unreliable and requires interpretation by trained persons (Misra et al., 2017). Search engines like Google provide free look-up options, effectively de - tecting simple copy-paste type plagiarism and poor paraphrasing, but failing to pick up complex mosaic-type plagiarism (Mondal & Mondal, 2018). According to most researchers, paraphrasing constitutes plagiarism, as it involves stealing ideas (Dhammi & Ul Haq, 2016). Paraphrasing software, such as Article Re - writer, makes it challenging to identify subtle plagiarism. Most anti-plagiarism software can only detect word-to-word copying, while detecting data manipu - lation and the adoption of others’ ideas is difficult to spot (Rao, 2008). People with sophisticated linguistic abilities can paraphrase and go unnoticed by anti- plagiarism software. Using a structured questionnaire, Kumar and Mohindra (2019) studied plagiarism among Panjab University students. An analysis of the 152 responses showed that simple copy-paste was the most popular method of plagiarism and that collusion between students made it exceedingly difficult to identify the real culprits. Research problem Apart from the five reasons mentioned above, other factors that con - tribute to plagiarism include ghost writers who write papers for others for pay - ment, a nexus among researchers who have each other’s names as authors of articles, the publication of sub-standard conference proceedings as research work, and vanity production of edited books that include chapters by unrec - ognised authors (Pandita & Singh, 2019). In summary, plagiarism is a problem 192 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students in India that is not easy to address. Doctoral students and advisors are two key stakeholders in this issue. Although a few studies have been conducted to un - derstand the plagiarism problem, most of them have focused on the perspective of doctoral students, while the side of the advisor has been relatively neglected. Other studies have highlighted the problem of plagiarism but failed to suggest a potential remedial action plan to address the issue. There is a need for com - prehensive research. Therefore, we conducted a study to understand the causes of plagiarism and formulate a potential remedial action plan from the perspectives of key stakeholders: doctoral students and advisors. Method As mentioned in the Introduction and the Literature Review, doctoral students and advisors are two key stakeholders in this research and paper pub - lication ecosystem. In order to understand doctoral students’ perspectives, we conducted a survey. Participants Table 1 presents respondents’ demographic and academic profiles (Questions 1–10). We can see that the respondents are doctoral students with a diverse mix of gender, age, educational qualification, employment status, re - search experience, research publication, publication in a peer-reviewed jour - nal, attendance of a research ethics course before doctoral registration, pres - ence of a research ethics committee at the institution of the respondents, and educational level to which research ethics needs to be taught. A total of 36% of the students surveyed had not taken or were not aware of any research ethics course, while 41% were unaware of the presence of a research ethics committee at their institutions. Ideally, a research ethics course should be the first course students take on entering a doctoral programme. Moreover, almost 95% of the doctoral students surveyed agreed that research ethics courses should be taught at high school, intermediate, graduate or postgraduate levels. c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 193 Table 1 Demographic and academic profile of respondents (N = 105) PART 1 Descriptive Questions Options Frequency Percentage (%) 1. Gender Male Female 73 32 69.5 30.5 2. Age Up to 25 26–30 31–35 36–40 Above 40 5 41 25 13 21 4.8 39.0 23.8 12.4 20.0 3. Educational qualification MA MSc MCom MBA MTech MPhil PhD Other 19 24 4 11 27 11 9 0 18.1 22.9 3.8 10.5 25.7 10.5 8.6 0 4. Employment status Employed Unemployed 49 56 46.7 53.3 5. Research experience < 1 year 1–2 years 3–4 years 5–6 years > 6 years NA 21 22 20 12 26 4 20.0 21.0 19.0 11.4 24.8 3.8 6. Research publication NIL 1–2 papers 3–5 papers 6–10 papers 11–20 papers > 20 papers 26 18 21 19 11 10 24.8 17.1 20.0 18.1 10.5 9.5 7. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal Yes No 75 30 71.4 28.6 8. Research ethics course before doc- toral registration Yes No Not Sure 67 32 6 63.8 30.5 5.7 9. Presence of a research ethics committee at the institution of the respondents Yes No Not Sure 62 19 24 59.0 18.1 22.9 Prescriptive Question 10. Educational level to which research ethics needs to be taught High School Intermediate Undergraduate Postgraduate MPhil PhD 15 6 53 23 3 5 14.3 5.7 50.5 21.9 2.9 4.8 194 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students Instruments The study used a questionnaire with three parts (see Appendix 1). In the first part (Questions 1–10), we gathered the demographic and academic profiles of the doctoral students, the completion of a research ethics course before or after doctoral registration, the presence of a research ethics committee at the institution, and opinions about the educational level to which research ethics needs to be taught. We did not collect any identifying details of the respond - ents. The second part used the Harris scale (Question 11), with 12 statements to be rated on a Likert-type scale: (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) neutral, (4) disagree, and (5) strongly disagree (Harris, 2001). The Harris scale has been used and cited by several other researchers whose results have been published in peer-reviewed papers (Ehrich et al., 2016; Javaid et al., 2021; Khairnar et al., 2019). Moreover, after discussion and mutual consensus with one research eth - ics professor, PhD students and one linguistics expert, we agreed that the Harris scale was simple to understand, easy to use and suitable for Indian doctoral stu - dents compared to some other scales, such as those by Mavrinac et al. (2010), Farooq and Sultana (2022), and others. The third part of the survey (Question 12) involved an open-ended question (Question 12: Please offer your sugges - tions for improving research ethics, including curbing plagiarism in your field of study) requiring a descriptive answer. In order to understand the doctoral advisor perspective, interviews were conducted with 21 advisors of doctoral students who supervised doctoral stu - dents, engaged in research projects and had significant peer-reviewed publica - tions. The interviews were semi-structured and open-ended, centred around the following open-ended questions: 1) What is the extent of plagiarism in your area of research and within your own institution, and how would you describe the trend of the incidence of plagiarism? 2) In your opinion, what makes re - searchers adopt such unfair practices? (3) What, in your opinion, are the ef - fective methods of curbing plagiarism? (4) How effective is anti-plagiarism software? (5) If you have used such software, what are the advantages and disad - vantages? (6) Have you gone through the latest UGC guidelines on plagiarism? If so, how do you think the UGC guidelines will help curb plagiarism? Research design The questionnaire was circulated to almost 950 doctoral students at various universities, colleges and research institutions in India, with the re - sponses being collected using Google Forms. A total of 105 valid responses c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 195 were received, three of which were removed because the respondents were not involved in any doctoral programme. The responses were analysed up to the second and third parts of the questionnaire, as summarised below in Tables 2–4 in the Results section. Table 2 summarises the responses to Question 11, which used the Likert scale. The text responses to Question 12 were collated in a file (word count: 2,322) and uploaded to the online tool Free WordCloud (https:// monkeylearn.com/word-cloud/), which generated 50 words, their frequencies and relevance, as summarised in Table 3. These words, as well as combined words with similar meanings, were analysed manually. The analysis involved selecting interesting comments and putting them into containers called codes, as shown in the last column of Table 3. While deriving the codes and categories, the text responses were cross-referenced to avoid missing essential points. Two independent researchers (one applied linguistics expert and a doctoral advi - sor) were asked to check the codes. Based on their advice, a few minor changes were made to the codes and categories. Finally, we arrived at 21 codes and three categories, as shown in the last columns of Tables 3 and 4 in the Results section. The interviews were conducted over the phone, with key points being noted in a Word document. The duration of each interview varied from 15 to 30 minutes. After conducting 21 interviews, we had complied a Word docu - ment with 7,243 words. The document was uploaded to the online software tool Free WordCloud (https://monkeylearn.com/word-cloud/), which generated 50 words, their frequencies and relevance, as summarised in Table 5. Table 5 was created in the same way as Table 3. Finally, we arrived at 21 codes and three categories, as shown in the last columns of Tables 5 and 6 in the Results section. Results Table 2 summarises the doctoral students’ attitudes toward plagiarism, as determined in the second part of the questionnaire (Question 11). The values in the last column are a weighted mean, calculated based on the sum of the frequencies of Likert scale options multiplied by the weight assigned to each choice and then divided by the number of study respondents. The options were Strongly Disagree (SD), Disagree (DA), Not Sure (NS), Agree (AG) and Strong - ly Agree (SA), having weights 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively. 196 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students Table 2 Attitude towards plagiarism (N = 105) PART 2 11. Statements Frequency * Weighted Mean Strongly Disagree (SD) Disagree (DA) Not Sure (NS) Agree (AG) Strongly Agree (SA) i. Sometimes I feel tempted to plagiarise because so many other students are doing it. 60 (57%) 28 (27%) 7 (7%) 6 (6%) 4 (4%) 1.7 ii. I believe I know accurately what constitutes plagiarism and what does not. 2 (2%) 3 (3%) 16 (15%) 30 (29%) 54 (51%) 4.2 iii. Plagiarism is as bad as stealing the final exam ahead of time and memorising the answers. 5 (5%) 3 (3%) 11 (10%) 31 (30%) 55 (52%) 4.2 iv. If my roommate gives me permission to use his or her paper for one of my classes, I do not think there is anything wrong with doing that. 34 (32%) 23 (22%) 20 (19%) 18 (17%) 10 (10%) 2.5 v. Plagiarism is justified if the professor assigns too much work to the course. 61 (58%) 25 (24%) 9 (9%) 8 (8%) 2 (2%) 1.7 vi. Punishment for plagiarism in college should be light because students are young people just learning the ropes. 17 (16%) 32 (30%) 28 (27%) 21 (20%) 7 (7%) 2.7 vii. If a student buys or downloads a free whole research paper and turns it in unchanged with his or her name as the author, the student should be expelled from the university. 3 (3%) 19 (18%) 19 (18%) 22 (21%) 42 (40%) 3.8 viii. Plagiarism is against my ethical values. 2 (2%) 5 (5%) 4 (4%) 12 (11%) 82 (78%) 4.6 ix. Because plagiarism involves taking another person’s words and not his or her material goods, plagiarism is no big deal. 41 (39%) 28 (27%) 18 (17%) 14 (13%) 4 (4%) 2.2 x. It is okay to use something you have written in the past to fulfil a new assignment because you cannot plagiarise yourself. 21 (20%) 19 (18%) 26 (25%) 27 (26%) 12 (11%) 2.9 xii. If I lend a paper to another student to look at, and then that student turns it in as his or her own and is caught, I should not be punished also. 19 (18%) 11 (10%) 22 (21%) 30 (29%) 23 (22%) 3.3 xii. If students caught plagiarising received a special grade for cheating (such as XF) on their permanent transcript, that policy would deter many from plagiarising. 9 (9%) 9 (9%) 30 (29%) 29 (28%) 28 (27%) 3.6 * Weighted Mean =(SD*1+DA*2+NS*3+AG*4+SA*5)/105 c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 197 Tables 3 and 4 summarise the textual feedback provided by 105 doctoral students for improving research ethics and curbing plagiarism. It has twelve codes and five categories. The codes and categories are further discussed below in the Discussion section. Table 3 Summary of suggestions provided by doctoral students for improving research ethics and curbing plagiarism (N = 105, total word count = 2,322) Word Count Relevance Codes research ethics 20 0.997 research ethics committee (1) plagiarism 53 0.781 plagiarism (2) students 49 0.378 doctoral students (3) research work 5 0.262 research work (4) early stage 4 0.21 education at an early stage (5) importance of research 2 0.157 clarity in research purpose (6) researchers 10 0.128 doctoral students (3) plagiarism policy 2 0.105 plagiarism case handling policy (7) awareness 11 0.09 awareness through various courses (8) quality of research 1 0.079 emphasis on the quality of research (9) problem of life 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) academic writing methods 1 0.079 academic writing skill development (10) institutional policy implementation 1 0.079 plagiarism case handling policy (7) proper learning session 1 0.079 education at an early stage (5) goal of research 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) spirit of research 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) short terms course 1 0.079 awareness through various courses (8) show ethics rules 1 0.079 plagiarism case handling policy (7) concept of plagiarism 1 0.079 awareness through various courses (8) effects of plagiarism 1 0.079 consequences of plagiarism (11) blind peer review 1 0.079 research ethics committee (1) monitoring system in place 1 0.079 research ethics committee (1) ability of scholars 1 0.079 awareness through various courses (8) set of guidelines 1 0.079 plagiarism case handling policy (7) strong quality control 1 0.079 emphasis on the quality of research (9) regular awareness programme 1 0.079 awareness through various courses (8) fear of consequences 1 0.079 consequences of plagiarism (11) knowledge research writing 1 0.079 academic writing skill development (10) field of research 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) PhD course work 1 0.079 awareness through various courses (8) field of study 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) a sense of purpose 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) sake of research 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) lower class everybody 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) plagiarism detection tools 1 0.079 plagiarism detection tools (12) 198 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students Word Count Relevance Codes honest academic work 1 0.079 research ethics committee (1) case of plagiarism 1 0.079 plagiarism case handling policy (7) undergraduate level students 1 0.079 education at an early stage (5) stage of education 1 0.079 education at an early stage (5) issues of research 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) lack of patience 1 0.079 consequences of plagiarism (11) previous year questions 1 0.079 research work (4) discussion of effects 1 0.079 consequences of plagiarism (11) beginning of course 1 0.079 education at an early stage (5) questions lack clarity 1 0.079 clarity in research purpose (6) quality assurance committee 1 0.079 research ethics committee (1) strict disciplinary action 1 0.079 plagiarism case handling policy (7) special awareness programme 1 0.079 awareness through various courses (8) new synonymous word 1 0.079 plagiarism case handling policy (7) research ethics certificate 1 0.079 research ethics committee (1) Table 4 Categories derived by combining twelve codes obtained from the text analysis of doctoral students’ responses Codes (1–12) Categories research ethics committee (1) research ethics committee, plagiarism case handling policy, and consequences of plagiarism plagiarism case handling policy (7) consequences of plagiarism (11) plagiarism (2) plagiarism awareness and education, and consequences at an early stage awareness through various courses (8) education at an early stage (5) clarity in research purpose (6) clarity in research purpose among doctoral students, and emphasis on the quality of research work doctoral students (3) emphasis on the quality of research (9) research work (4) academic writing skill development (10) academic writing skill development plagiarism detection tools (12) plagiarism detection tools Tables 5 and 6 summarise the research advisors’ suggestions for improv - ing research ethics and preventing plagiarism. It has 21 codes and three catego - ries. The categories and codes are further examined below in the Discussion section. c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 199 Table 5 Summary of suggestions provided by research advisors for improving research ethics and curbing plagiarism (N = 21) Word Count Relevance Codes (1–21) plagiarism 104 0.66 Loopholes in plagiarism detection software (1) software 28 0.176 Free availability of anti-plagiarism software (2) paper 21 0.248 Plagiarised works already in mass circulation (3) research guide 14 0.996 Tacit collusion among research guides (4) UGC guidelines 13 0.92 Research qualifications de-linked from job appointments and promotions (7) suggestions 12 0.26 Research qualifications de-linked from job appointments and promotions (7) research area 11 0.843 An independent research committee decides the area of research (8) publications 11 0.164 Plagiarised works already in mass circulation (3) plagiarism software 10 0.766 Loopholes in plagiarism detection software (1) plagiarism incidence 6 0.46 Plagiarised works already in mass circulation (3) incidence of plagiarism 5 0.575 Plagiarised works already in mass circulation (3) sensitisation 5 0.184 Sensitisation and accountability of research guides and supervisors (6) form of plagiarism 4 0.46 Plagiarised works already in mass circulation (3) area of research 4 0.46 An independent research committee decides the area of research (8) external expert 4 0.307 Comprehensive online tests conducted by external experts (9) proper implementation 4 0.307 Rules about plagiarism documented in clear and straightforward language (10) old dissertation 4 0.307 Old dissertations re-submitted (11) research scholars 4 0.23 Students’ freedom to frame their research objectives and hypotheses (12) implementation of plagiarism 3 0.345 Rules about plagiarism documented in clear and straightforward language (10) independent research committee 3 0.345 An independent research committee decides the area of research (8) accountability of research 3 0.345 Sensitisation and accountability of research guides and supervisors (6) art of plagiarism 3 0.345 Research guides help teach the art of plagiarism (5) plagiarism detection software 3 0.345 Loopholes in plagiarism detection software (1) selection of examiner 3 0.345 Unfair selection of examiners for dissertations (13) research qualifications 3 0.345 Research qualifications de-linked from job appointments and promotions (7) comprehensive online test 3 0.345 Comprehensive online tests conducted by external experts (9) 200 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students Word Count Relevance Codes (1–21) specialised research writing 3 0.345 Social strictures, moral suasion, awareness, and training programme, specialised research writing workshops (14) oriented curriculum 3 0.23 Practical-oriented curriculum emphasising creativity (15) free availability 3 0.23 Free availability of anti-plagiarism software (2) moral suasion 3 0.23 Social strictures, moral suasion, awareness, and training programme, specialised research writing workshops (14) worldwide database 3 0.23 A worldwide database of all papers with keywords in English and primary languages (16) social stricture 3 0.23 Social strictures, moral suasion, awareness, and training programme, specialised research writing workshops (14) straightforward language 3 0.23 Rules about plagiarism documented in clear and straightforward language (10) uniform standard 3 0.23 Lack of uniform standards in identifying plagiarism (17) strict regulations 3 0.23 Strict regulations and penalties (18) tacit collusion 3 0.23 Tacit collusion among research guides (4) jobs appointment 3 0.23 Research qualifications de-linked from job appointments and promotions (7) training programme 3 0.23 Social strictures, moral suasion, awareness, and training programme, specialised research writing workshops (14) primary language 3 0.23 A worldwide database of all papers with keywords in English and primary languages (16) academic integrity 3 0.23 Plagiarised works already in mass circulation (3) unfair selection 3 0.23 Unfair selection of examiners for dissertations (13) plagiarism regulations 3 0.23 Non-proper implementation of plagiarism regulations (20) research objectives 3 0.23 Students’ freedom to frame their research objectives and hypotheses (12) widespread corruption 3 0.23 Widespread corruption in the country (21) extent of plagiarism 2 0.23 Plagiarised works already in mass circulation (3) Sahitya Akademi Award 2 0.23 Research qualifications de-linked from job appointments and promotions (7) Bank of India 2 0.23 Research qualifications de-linked from job appointments and promotions (7) incident of plagiarism 2 0.23 Plagiarised works already in mass circulation (3) topic of research 2 0.23 An Independent research committee decides the area of research (8) list of examiners 2 0.23 Research guides are not allowed to submit examiners’ lists to evaluate the thesis (19) c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 201 Table 6 Categories derived by combining the 21 codes obtained from the transcript of the 21 interviews of research advisors Codes (1– 21) Categories Old dissertations re-submitted (11) The extent of plagiarism in the interviewee’s research field Tacit collusion among research guides (4) Research guides help teach the art of plagiarism (5) Students’ freedom to frame their research objectives and hypotheses (12) Unfair selection of examiners for dissertations (13) Lack of uniform standards in identifying plagiarism (17) Reasons that encourage researchers to adopt unfair practices Non-proper implementation of plagiarism regulations (20) Loopholes in plagiarism detection software (1) Plagiarised works already in mass circulation (3) Widespread corruption in the country (21) An independent research committee decides the area of research (8) Potential Methods to curb plagiarism Comprehensive online tests conducted by external experts (9) Research guides are not allowed to give examiners’ lists to evaluate the thesis (19) Research qualifications de-linked from job appointments and promotions (7) Free availability of anti-plagiarism software (2) A worldwide database of all papers with keywords in English and primary languages (16) Practical-oriented curriculum emphasising creativity (15) Social strictures, moral suasion, awareness, and training programme, specialised research writing workshops (14) Rules about plagiarism documented in clear and straightforward language (10) Strict regulations and penalties (18) Sensitisation and accountability of research guides and supervisors (6) Discussion This section discusses the study findings from two perspectives: that of the doctoral students and that of the advisors. Findings from the doctoral students’ perspective The key findings of this study from the doctoral students’ perspective are presented in Tables 2– 4. Question 11 (12 statements) found that plagiarism awareness is not encouraging among students pursuing doctoral studies in India. The responses to Statements 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 12 in Table 2 are on the expected line. However, the respondents’ confidence in plagiarism awareness seemed fee - ble in Statements 4, 6, 9, 10 and 11, as reflected in Table 2 of the Results. For in - stance, there is a low score for Statement 4: “If my roommate gives me permission 202 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students to use his or her paper for one of my classes, I do not think there is anything wrong with doing that” . Other statements with low scores, as shown in Table 2, are Statement 6: “Punishment for plagiarism in college should be light because students are young people just learning the ropes”, Statement 10: “It is okay to use something you have written in the past to fulfil a new assignment because you cannot plagiarise yourself ” , Statement 9: “Because plagiarism involves taking another person’s words and not his or her materials goods, plagiarism is no big deal” , Statement 11: “If I lend a paper to another student to look at, and then that student turns it in as his or her own and is caught, I should not be punished too” (Ehrich et al., 2016). The reason for these low scores could be rooted in Indian education, employment and culture. For the students, how could something be called cheating when there was proper permission to use it? Students are taught to help each other from childhood onwards and cannot imagine that they are not supposed to share assignments. Moreover, it is inconceivable to Indian students that they cannot freely reuse self-created artefacts. In the past, many research - ers have been caught cheating red-handed, yet they continue to work as though nothing had happened. Indian IP and copyright laws are not strict enough to punish cheaters effectively in academia, while institute policies are too lenient, with many institutes being unaware of the existence of a research ethics commit - tee. In India, any wrongdoing is not considered a crime until money is involved. In recent years, however, the Indian government has been taking initiatives to curb unethical practices in various ways. Restoring ethics in education will take time, as it involves a change in mindset and culture. Good values, discipline and habits as well as ethical ways of living become part of one’s life if they are taught in primary school (Pallela & Talari, 2016). Another important finding is the twelve codes (Table 3) and five catego - ries (Table 4) from the text response to Question 12 of the survey questionnaire. The categories and codes are discussed below: • Research ethics committee, plagiarism case handling policy and con - sequences of plagiarism. As identifying plagiarism is a specialised task, Chaddah (2014) suggests that all research institutions should establi - sh a University Plagiarism Cell or Research Ethics Committee to assist manuscript submission or investigate plagiarism complaints. Research Ethics Committees should have a fair representation of faculty mem - bers, domain experts, external legal professionals and student repre - sentatives, and could be assisted by specially created Plagiarism Cells, as recommended by Chaddah (2014). These cells would be composed of specialist committees and each submitted manuscript and compla - int received would be referred to the relevant committee. Research on c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 203 anti-plagiarism policy by the Higher Education Regulatory body found a lack of uniformity in the adopted anti-plagiarism policy before the UGC guidelines of 2018. As universities are now empowered to impose a penalty for plagiarism, an appellate authority should be in place to deal with complaints of unfair treatment of students. • Plagiarism awareness and education, and consequences at an early stage . Research ethics and plagiarism awareness should be included in under - graduate and postgraduate programmes, and should be mandatory at the doctoral level. Gopinath et al. (2014) found a positive correlation between prior research experience and familiarity with research ethics principles. Over 93% of respondents supported teaching research ethics at the postgraduate level. • Clarity in research purpose among doctoral students and emphasis on quality of research work. Many doctoral students are unclear about what they are doing and how quality research is conducted. Although a rese - arch methodology course is taught in almost all doctoral programmes, it is clear from the respondents’ comments that these courses are not taught in effective ways. Students will resort to existing material when the research purpose is unclear and plagiarised. • Academic writing skill development. Academic writing differs from other forms of writing, such as business, general and technical writing. It has a rigid structure and requires learning. Therefore, a writing course might help students. Some doctoral students perform quality research, but do not know how to express this research, and so resort to plagiarising. • Plagiarism detection tools . Anti-plagiarism software should be accessi - ble to all students and faculty members. The government could develop specialised software for Indian students, as the commercially available software is rather costly. Paraphrasing detection tools can be expanded to identify copying from others’ work ideas. There is a great deal of pu - blished research literature, mainly in the discipline of computer science, that can be used to identify translation plagiarism or paraphrasing (Kent & Salim, 2010; Mustofa & Sir, 2013; Naik et al., 2015; Tlitova et al., 2020). Findings from the advisors’ perspective The findings from the advisors’ perspective are expressed in 21 codes (Ta - ble 5) and three categories (Table 6) derived from transcripts of interviews con - ducted with 21 research advisors. The categories and codes are discussed below: • The extent of plagiarism in the interviewee research field. Most of the in - terviewees accepted that plagiarism is widely present in their area. 1) 204 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students Dissertations written before the stringent UGC guidelines came into force are re-submitted by other students after changing the title and ma - king other cosmetic changes. 2) There is tacit collusion among research guides to get each other’s students to qualify through various tests. 3) Research guides often teach their students the creative art of plagiarism, including how to use earlier dissertations with minor modifications. 4) Research guides avoid the burden of designing the methodology and research framework: students can frame their research objectives and hypotheses by copying earlier works in the field. 5) The research subject matter is deliberately chosen from areas where similar studies have been conducted. When selecting examiners for dissertations, the guide and the evaluation committee deliberately avoided people who had done work in the field: examiners are chosen from a known circle with a mu - tual understanding that they will help each other. 6) Books translated from other languages are awarded as original works by bypassing the scrutiny of subject experts. • Reasons that encourage researchers to adopt unfair practices . Excellent insights were gained into why researchers adopt unfair practices. 1) Most of the interviewees reported that a lack of uniform standards in identifying plagiarism helps clever people escape unpunished. 2) The interviewees were concerned about how plagiarism regulations might be implemented when copyrights and patents are protected due to legal loopholes. Given the country’s legal loopholes, the impartial implemen - tation of the UGC guidelines is doubtful; thereby, innocent people can be selectively targeted. 3) Ghost writers are being paid to write papers and theses. 4) Anti-plagiarism software can check content similarity, but not idea similarity and smart paraphrasing. Plagiarism detection soft - ware provides users with clues on how to bypass it, and people using such software 10–12 times can learn to circumvent it. 5) Thousands of plagiarised works have already entered mass circulation, and there is a lack of a clear plan to remove them from the public domain. 6) Plagi - arism reflects widespread corruption in the country. Most people are afraid to point out instances of plagiarism due to fear of retribution from influential people and a lack of faith in the system. • Potential methods to curb plagiarism . The interviewees also suggested improving academic integrity in higher education research. 1) Research subject areas should be determined by an independent expert committee, which could be done by considering various national and international priorities. Prospective researchers could then choose their topics from the c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 205 list created. 2) The viva-voce test for defending one’s thesis should be re - placed with a comprehensive online test conducted by external experts. 3) Neither the research guides nor the university’s examination committee should provide the examiners’ list to evaluate the thesis. A discipline-wise database of examiners should be built through inter-university consorti - ums, and examiners could be selected at random from this database. 4) Job appointments and promotions should be executed through proper policy and should be de-linked from overemphasising research achieve - ments. 5) Plagiarism detection software should be fine-tuned to detect paraphrasing and translation from other languages. The free availability of anti-plagiarism software can curb plagiarism. 6) A worldwide database of all papers with keywords in English and primary languages should be built. 7) There should be a practical-oriented curriculum that emphasi - ses creativity by replacing theory-based rote learning. 8) Social strictures, moral suasion, awareness and training programmes should be in place, as well as specialised research writing workshops. 9) Rules about plagiarism should be documented in clear and straightforward language. 10) Strict regulations and penalties are very much needed. 11) Research guides and advisors need to be sensitised and held accountable. Limitations and future scope of the study Firstly, the study used the Harris scale, which was developed and tested in the US environment. The scientific rigour and contribution of studies of this kind could be more robust if a new scale were developed and tested for the Indi - an environment. The newly developed scale would help to advance the knowl - edge of research literacy and academic integrity in higher education. Secondly, the study’s sample size was 105, which is just enough to conduct an analysis (95% confidence level with a margin of error of 10%). The authors feel there is a need to conduct a further study with a bigger sample size. In future studies, we therefore plan to have a bigger sample size (more than 384 participants), which would yield more robust study results (95% confidence level and a margin of error of 5%). Thirdly, the survey questionnaire was sent to almost 950 doctoral students via email in Google Forms, but only 105 responses (response rate: 11%) were received. There could be many reasons for the relatively low response rate. For instance, the email addresses were collected from the university website and it was not known whether they were still valid or active. Almost 200 emails were received regarding ‘message delivery failure’ or ‘message block notifica - tion. ’ It is therefore possible that email servers identified our message as spam. Therefore, better ways to contact doctoral students need to be explored. 206 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students Conclusions Plagiarism is widespread in India. Although some stringent guidelines issued by the University Grant Commission Government of India are in place to minimise the incidence of plagiarism, awareness of plagiarism among doc - toral students in India is not encouraging. Moreover, there is a need to ad - dress the underlying causes of plagiarism before implementing the guidelines issued by the University Grant Commission Government of India. In order to address the underlying causes of plagiarism, the present study suggests an ac - tion plan including: 1) establishing a research ethics committee at all academic or research institutions, 2) conducting training, workshops and awareness cam - paigns in the early stage of doctoral students’ studies to ensure that they under - stand plagiarism and its implications correctly; 3) ensuring clarity of research purpose among doctoral students and emphasising the quality of research work in the initial training days, 4) developing academic writing skills, and 5) provid - ing anti-plagiarism software free of cost to all students and faculty members. The findings and the suggested action plan of this study would be help - ful to doctoral students, guides and policymakers involved in addressing the plagiarism issue. The present study has limitations concerning the sample size and the scale used to measure plagiarism. 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Employment status Employed Unemployed 5. Research experience < 1 year 1–2 years 3–4 years 5–6 years > 6 years NA 6. Research publication NIL 1–2 papers 3–5 papers 6–10 papers 11–20 papers > 20 papers 7. Publication in the peer-reviewed journal Yes No 8. Research ethics course before doctoral registration Yes No Not Sure 9. Presence of a research ethics committee at the institution of the respondents Yes No Not Sure Prescriptive Question 10. Educational level to which research ethics need to be taught High School Intermediate Undergraduate Postgraduate MPhil PhD c e p s Journal | V ol.13 | N o 3 | Y ear 2023 211 PART 2 11. Statements Strongly Disagree (SD) Disagree (DA) Not Sure (NS) Agree (AG) Strongly Agree (SA) i. Sometimes I feel tempted to plagiarise because so many other students are doing it.      ii. I believe I know accurately what constitutes plagiarism and what does not.      iii. Plagiarism is as bad as stealing the final exam ahead of time and memorizing the answers.      iv. If my roommate gives me permission to use his or her paper for one of my classes, I do not think there is anything wrong with doing that.      v. Plagiarism is justified if the professor assigns too much work to the course.      vi. Punishment for plagiarism in college should be light because students are young people just learning the ropes.      vii. If a student buys or downloads a free whole research paper and turns it in unchanged with his or her name as the author, the student should be expelled from the university.      viii. Plagiarism is against my ethical values.      ix. Because plagiarism involves taking another person’s words and not his or her material goods, plagiarism is no big deal.      x. It is okay to use something you have written in the past to fulfil a new assignment because you cannot plagiarize yourself.      xi. If I lend a paper to another student to look at, and then that student turns it in as his or her own and is caught, I should not be punished also.      xii. If students caught plagiarizing received a special grade for cheating (such as XF) on their permanent transcript, that policy would deter many from plagiarizing.      212 plagiarism in the research reports of indian doctoral students PART 3 Question 12: Please offer your suggestions for improving research ethics, including curbing plagiarism in your field of study. ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ Biographical note Tapan Kumar Pradhan, PhD, is a researcher at the School of Rural Management, XIM University, Odisha, India. His research interests include fi - nancial inclusion, rural development, natural resource economics, communal harmony, indigenous literature, and empowerment of people at the grassroots level. He has authored several books on rural society, tribal culture and com - parative religion. Ajit Kumar, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Information Systems at the Xavier Institute of Management, XIM University, India. He teaches courses like Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation of Business, Business Transfor - mation using Artificial Intelligence, and Design Thinking for Managers. His research interests include innovations in pedagogy, design thinking, and health informatics.