The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Thursday made it mandatory for students enrolling for PhD in India to study two new courses on publication ethics and misconduct.
Titled Research and Publication Ethics (RPE), the 30-hour course needs to be made compulsory for all PhD students for pre-registration course work in the universities.
The decision to introduce these two courses in PhD curriculum was taken by the UGC in a recent meeting.
The aim of introducing these courses is to teach the PHD students about the best possible ways of researching a topic and how they can avoid plagiarism.
With complaints of plagiarism in research becoming more and with a view to enhance the standards of quality of research works, the UGC had decided to introduce these courses under its universities.