Section 2 in The University Grants Commission (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018
2. Definitions.
- In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires-(a)"Academic Integrity" is the intellectual honesty in proposing, performing and reporting any activity, which leads to the creation of intellectual property;(b)"Author" includes a student or a faculty or a researcher or staff of Higher Educational Institution (HEI) who claims to be the creator of the work under consideration;(c)"Commission" means the University Grants Commission as defined in the University Grants Commission Act, 1956;(d)"Common Knowledge" means a well known fact, quote, figure or information that is known to most of the people;(e)"Degree" means any such degree specified by the University Grants Commission, by notification in the Official Gazette, under section 22 of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956;(f)"Departmental Academic Integrity Panel" shall mean the body constituted at the departmental level to investigate allegations of plagiarism;(g)"Faculty" refers to a person who is teaching and/or guiding students enrolled in an HEI in any capacity whatsoever i.e. regular, ad-hoc, guest, temporary, visiting etc;(h)"Higher Educational Institution (HEI)" means a university recognized under section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956 or an institution deemed to be university under section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956 or an affiliating college/institution or a constituent unit of a university;(i)"Information" includes data, message, text, images, sound, voice, codes, computer programs, software and databases or microfilm or computer generated microfiche;(j)"Institutional Academic Integrity Panel" shall mean the body constituted at Institutional level to consider recommendations of the departmental academic integrity panel and take appropriate decisions in respect of allegations of plagiarism and decide on penalties to be imposed. In exceptional cases, it shall investigate allegations of plagiarism at the institutional level;(k)"Notification" means a notification published in the Official Gazette and the expression "notify" with its cognate meanings and grammatical variation shall be construed accordingly;(l)"Plagiarism" means the practice of taking someone else's work or idea and passing them as one's own.(m)"Programme" means a programme of study leading to the award of a masters and research level degree;(n)"Researcher" refers to a person conducting academic/scientific research in HEIs;(o)"Script" includes research paper, thesis, dissertation, chapters in books, full-fledged books and any other similar work, submitted for assessment/opinion leading to the award of master and research level degrees or publication in print or electronic media by students or faculty or researcher or staff of an HEI; however, this shall exclude assignments/term papers/project reports/course work/essays and answer scripts etc.;(p)"Source" means the published primary and secondary material from any source whatsoever and includes written information and opinions gained directly from other people, including eminent scholars, public figures and practitioners in any form whatsoever as also data and information in the electronic form be it audio, video, image or text; Information being given the same meaning as defined under Section 2 (1) (v) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and reproduced here in Regulation 2 (l);(q)"Staff" refers to all non-teaching staff working in HEIs in any capacity whatsoever i.e. regular, temporary, contractual, outsourced etc.;(r)"Student" means a person duly admitted and pursuing a programme of study including a research programme in any mode of study (full time or part-time or distance mode);(s)"University" means a university established or incorporated by or under a Central Act, a Provincial Act or a State Act, and includes an institution deemed to be university under section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956;(t)"Year" means the academic session in which a proven offence has been committed.Words and expressions used and not defined in these regulations but defined in the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 shall have the meanings respectively assigned to them in UGC Act, 1956.
