At the end of last week, the presentation of software for quality control of scientific works and implementation of the principles of academic integrity – "Unicheck" was held at ZNU. Now ZNU has joined universities that have signed agreements with the developers of this software product. At present, according to the laws of Ukraine "On Education", "On Higher Education", "On Copyright and Related Rights" at the University considerable attention is paid to the formation of a system for preventing and detecting academic plagiarism at all levels of the educational process, which also applies to qualification papers, dissertation researches, scientific articles, etc.
Development Manager of Open Company "Anti-Plagiarism", representative of the company "Unicheck Ukraine" Andriy Sidlyarenko met with representatives of the academic community of ZNU. Vice-rector Yuriy Kaganov firstly emphasized the need to have effective means, in particular, software, to combat plagiarism: "The presented software product will allow the quality control of research work of university scientists and students. However, it should be remembered that it only simplifies the verification process, but does not replace the expert control by the academic community. In addition, representatives of the scientific community need to understand the importance of forming the culture and values of academic integrity and to teach these students the first steps in their scientific activities, to establish ethical norms in all areas of higher education in order to keep the renown and image of Zaporizhzhia National University high! ».
Andriy Sidlyarenko presented the results of the signing of the Memorandum between the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and “Anti-Plagiarism” LLC regarding the free examination of all the dissertation papers that will be defended at the universities of Ukraine. The memorandum provides for free access to the “Unicheck” service (https://unicheck.com/), which will allow Ukrainian universities to have free access to some of the program modules for a number of years, in particular in terms of reviewing the theses by corporate users. In addition, institutions of higher education independently decide on the use of the service and the conclusion of a contract on cooperation with the company.
Andriy Sidlyarenko clearly demonstrated to the audience how the service works: he presented the structure of the software product, the profile setup technology, the procedure for registe
ring users and the rules of using the software product, individual options, etc., how to download files for verification. As a result of the technical inspection, color markers show the moments of coincidence in the text, and automatically determined their percentage acts as an indicator to recognize the presence/absence of plagiarism. The final conclusions should be provided only by experts who, if necessary, return the work to the author - for refinement.
After a long discussion and questions, the participants of the meeting expressed their gratitude to the visitor on behalf of the entire academic community. Instead, Andriy Sidlyarenko gave his approval and expressed his impressions of staying at ZNU on the page in the social network: "Warm and meaningful. With these words, I can describe the atmosphere of the meeting with the teachers of the Zaporizhzhia National University in implementing “Unicheck Ukraine”. Subject discussion, meaningful questions, and most importantly the fire in the eyes during the question: "And when will it be possible to start to use?"… From such meetings you always have a good mood and great inspiration. Inspiration for the development of Ukrainian education and science and for the struggle for academic integrity! "
