APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) has decided to boost research in its nearly 150 affiliated colleges. The Syndicate resolved to earmark ₹4.79 crore to establish sophisticated research facilities to foster engineering research with a focus on attaining a knowledge economy.
A Syndicate meeting chaired by Vice Chancellor M.S. Rajasree also decided to provide the services of Elsevier, a leading publisher of world-class scientific research publications, to all colleges.
This would enable students to access up to 300 research journals free-of-cost. The university will also purchase Knimbus mLibrary, a digital library platform, to disseminate Elsevier’s journals digitally and enable students to download and peruse journals on their mobile phones.
The KTU also decided to purchase Turnitin, an Internet-based plagiarism detection service, to prevent malpractices in research papers. The software too would be made available to affiliated colleges. A patent database will also be designed in collaboration with patent research agency Derwent Innovation in order to patent research outcomes.
The university also decided to debar two teachers from examination duties for two years in view of errors committed during answer sheet valuation. One of them, a faculty member of Vijnan Institute of Science and Technology in Ernakulam, was found to have made mistakes while evaluating the Structural Engineering papers of B.Tech seventh semester.
The action was taken following complaints raised by the students of Marian Engineering College in Thiruvananthapuram.
Another teacher, a faculty member of Nirmala College of Engineering, Thrissur, is also facing disciplinary action for committing errors in the valuation of Financial Markets and Services paper of fourth-semester MBA examinations. The university has informed the university IDs of both teachers will be temporarily cancelled.
The Syndicate also approved guidelines proposed by a subcommittee comprising Pro-Vice Chancellor S. Ayoob, G. Venugopal and Vinod Kumar Jacob to deal with similar issues pertaining to lapses in valuation in the future.
