Awareness, Perception and Attitude Towards Plagiarism among Library and Information Science Professionals in Maharashtra: An Investigative Study

Abstract

Awareness about plagiarism is essential for the evasion of intellectual mendacity, inculcation of academic integrity and assurance of quality research. Maintaining high standards regarding academic integrity is a major challenge for higher education and research organizations worldwide. In India, University Grants Commission in collaboration with INFLIBNET Centre widely working on plagiarism issues and in this movement, librarians played vital role as a support system for avoiding as well as checking plagiarism in dissertations and doctoral thesis. The main purpose of this study is to examine this cohort’s awareness of plagiarism among the Library and Information Science Professionals in Maharashtra. For the collection of data quantitative approach, a crosssectional survey method was used. A convenience sample of Aided college librarians affiliated to University of Mumbai were selected for the present study.75Questionnaires were distributed among the Aided College Librarians out of them 58 were received. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analyses. The findings revealed that while Librarians were aware of the concept of plagiarism, ways of avoiding plagiarism and plagiarism detection tools as well as most of the librarians have positive attitude towards avoiding plagiarism.