Education Ministry purchases plagiarism checker software

The Education and Science Ministry will be paying around BGN 500,000 each year for plagiarism checker software, which will be provided free of charge to university professors and students, the National Centre for Information and Documentation and the Academic Ethics Commission with the Minister of Education and Science, the Ministry reported on Monday.

The goal is for every teacher or students to be able to see if a certain thesis, dissertation or another publication is authentic and if its author has plagiarized. 

The software is developed in Poland and is currently being used by the Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski. The three-year contract was signed with the Romania-based Plagiat-Sistem Antiplagiat prin Internet SRL after a procedure under the Public Procurements Act. After the three years expire, the software's efficiency will be reviewed and a new public procurement announced. 

The Education Ministry will be paying a BGN 2 annual fee per user. Over 237,000 users are expected to use the system, including students, PhD students, teachers and civil servants. The software will be installed and configured over the next month across universities and other institutions. The system administrators and coordinators will be trained on how to use it in the meantime. 

The purchase of specialized software is the first step towards broadening the scope of plagiarism checks, which are currently only carried out on dissertations. 

The goal is to create intolerance for plagiarism and data falsification in the academic community, including among university students. This is expected to have a preventive effect and limit such practices, the Education Ministry said.