Rethinking Academic Integrity In Nepal
Summary
Nepal’s universities are relying too heavily on similarity scores to judge thesis quality, even though textual overlap does not by itself prove plagiarism. The article calls for contextual review, stronger writing support, supervisor training and clear AI policies to protect academic integrity.
Key Points
- Similarity scores from tools like Turnitin can flag overlap, but they cannot by themselves establish plagiarism.
- A low score does not guarantee originality, since borrowed ideas can be copied with rewritten wording and no attribution.
- Nepal’s universities should use contextual review, clear misconduct procedures and stronger academic writing instruction instead of fixed percentage thresholds.
- The article says generative AI makes percentage-based judgment even less adequate and calls for explicit university policies on disclosure and authorship.
