Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University celebrated International Day against Plagiarism on February 19, 2022. At the initiative of TSU Quality Assurance Service, an online meeting for doctoral students and young scientists was held as part of the Erasmus Institution Development Program "Academic Integrity for Quality Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Institutions in Georgia (INTEGRITY)”.

During the event:

1. PhD students were provided with information on the university's academic integrity policy and available resources;
2. Georgian graduates of European higher education institutions shared their experience in the field of plagiarism prevention;
3. Ms. Ketevan Khutsishvili, Chair of the TSU Dissertation Council, spoke about the path that a doctoral student goes through from being admitted to a university to defending a dissertation;
4. Ms. Nino Pavliashvili, Head of TSU National Science Library, spoke about library resources and students' academic support services.

At the end of the meeting, a discussion was held on the topic of protection of academic integrity and prevention of plagiarism, during which the individual needs and questions of doctoral students were discussed. More than 120 doctoral students were registered at the event.

On February 19, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University celebrated International Day against Plagiarism. At the initiative of TSU Quality Assurance Service, a number of activities were planned and implemented in connection with the day of plagiarism prevention within the framework of the Erasmus Institution Development Program "Academic Integrity for Quality Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Institutions in Georgia (INTEGRITY)”:

1) 3 video lectures on scientific integrity, big data processing and types of academic misconduct (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism) were prepared by Edwin Constable, Professor at the University of Basel (Switzerland), President of Euresearch, EUA CDE Board Member, Expert. Video lectures were uploaded to the TSU YouTube page and delivered to students via LMS;

2) Online training was planned and conducted in cooperation with the National Science Library on the topics of protection of academic integrity and prevention of plagiarism. Also, the online public speech of the Deputy Director of the National Scientific Library Nino Pavliashvili was held, during which students were provided with information about the library book fund, electronic resources and academic support services. 160 students registered for the event;

3) All TSU students were provided with learning resources (guidelines, video lectures, video tutorials, etc.) developed within the INTEGRITY project through the LMS.

On October 23, 2020, at the initiative of the Quality Assurance Office of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, within the framework of Erasmus+ CBHE project INTEGRITY, an informational meeting was held via Zoom platform for 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th-grade students of the Public Schools.

During the online meeting, students and prospective entrants were provided with the following information: the objectives of the INTEGRITY project, activities carried out within the project, achievements, university services and resources, academic integrity policy and plagiarism prevention mechanisms. A total of 134 students registered for the online meeting, of whom attended 35.

It is noteworthy, that a diverse contingent of Public Schools from different regions of Georgia was presented at the information meeting. Accordingly, the meeting was attended not only by students of Tbilisi public schools but also by public school students from Kutaisi, Telavi, Rustavi, Chokhatauri, Tsalka and other cities.

On October 23, 2020, at the initiative of the Quality Assurance Office of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, an information meeting will be held for 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th-grade students of Local public schools to support the promotion of academic integrity culture. The meeting will be held using the Zoom Platform from 15:00 to 16:00. During the online meeting, students and
prospective entrants will be provided with the following information: the objectives of the INTEGRITY project, activities carried out within the project, achievements, university services and resources, academic integrity policy and plagiarism prevention mechanisms.

The information meeting is carried out within the framework of the Erasmus Institutional Development Project "Academic Integrity for Quality Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Institutions in Georgia (INTEGRITY)”. The partners of the project, along with four European universities - Roehampton (University of Roehampton, England), Uppsala (University of Uppsala, Sweden), Vienna (University of Vienna, Austria) and Dublin (Dublin City University, Ireland)- are twelve Georgian universities, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of Georgia and the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement. The project aims to develop appropriate policies and mechanisms for the protection of academic integrity that will help detect, prevent, and eliminate cases of plagiarism in higher education institutions in Georgia.

Please, follow the link below:

Registration

On October 6-7, 2020, within the framework of INTEGRITY project the final online management meeting was held, where Ms. Irma Grdzelidze, Head of Quality Assurance Office at TSU, spoke about the activities carried out under the project and sustainable development plans of the results achieved.

Georgian and European project partners took part in the meeting. The project INTEGRITY is being implemented under the coordination of Ilia State University.

On October 5th, 2020 the first International Conference on Academic Integrity was held as part of the “INTEGRITY” project. TSU Vice-Rector for Research, Professor Nino Okriblelashvili signed a declaration of academic integrity at the conference.

The conference was the final dissemination event of the 2017 Erasmus + CBHE Institutional Development Grant Competition project "Integrity for Quality Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Institutions in Georgia (INTEGRITY)".

At the conference, representatives of the partner universities discussed the following issues of academic integrity: Fostering Academic Integrity in Online Exams; Academic Integrity and Distance Learning; University Approach to Enhancing Academic Integrity; Curriculum Developing in enhancing Academic Integrity; Fairness in implementing institutional Policy at the university and etc. Prof. Nino Okribelashvili, along with other participants, discussed University’s policies on Academic Integrity, its challenges and perspectives.

To boost students’ academic writing skills an academic writing training course has been developed and is still being implemented. The purpose of the trainings is to provide students with information and help them to develop relevant skills in the following areas: Requirements and Characteristics of the Bachelor/Master/Doctoral Thesis. Citation Styles: APA and Chicago, Mendeley Program. Electronic scientific databases. What is plagiarism? How to Avoid Plagiarism? Similarity detection electronic program “Turnitin”.

Since May-July 2019, the project has been institutionalized, which implies that a series of training sessions have been conducted at the National Science Library of TSU in coordination with the University Quality Assurance Service to promote the development of the academic writing and academic integrity culture at the University. During the eight weeks, 384 students attended the training course. In total, up to 500 students underwent training under the project in 2018-2019 (see news).

In the first phase of the project, in 2018-2019, the University's IT Department and Quality Assurance Office conducted special trainings for students, administrative and academic staff on the use of the text-similarity software "Turnitin", purchased under the project. Overall, 517 people, including 459 students and 58 academic and administrative staff were trained during the reporting period.

With the support of the Quality Assurance Office and the initiative of the Student Self Government,  information meetings were held for freshmen in the fall semester of 2019, during which representatives of the National Science Library informed the students about library resources and services, including issues of academic integrity. More than 1,200 freshmen attended the orientation week (see news).

At the initiative of the Quality Assurance Office, the University Administration held an information meeting with the PhD students of the first-semester at the National Scientific Library on October 17, 2019. 102 first-semester doctoral students attended the meeting. Within the framework of the information meeting, the representatives of the University Library and the National Scientific Library presented comprehensive information regarding academic integrity and the supportive activities taken by the libraries in this direction (See here).

As part of the project INTEGRITY, the University has planned and started a cycle of public lectures since 2019 on specific topics and issues of academic integrity with the participation of Georgian and foreign experts and researchers. The cycle of public lectures opened with a lecture by Gebhard Royle, an invited professor, Head of the Tbilisi Bureau of the German Academic Exchange Service, on the topic "Good scientific practice - a perspective from Germany" (see here). The present public lectures will be continued with the participation of various well-known researchers and university academic staff to share experiences with stakeholders.

Based on the goals of the project "INTEGRITY", on the initiative of the University Administration, meetings were held with the lecturers of the academic writing course in 2019-2020. The purpose of the meetings was to introduce the main objectives of the project INTEGRITY, to develop student services, to update the syllabi of academic writing course, to introduce the Plagiarism Detection/Prevention Feedback instrument "Turnitin" as a learning resource, to share the experience of leading European universities following the principles of academic integrity, etc. (See here)

1. Integrity Project workshop at the University of Vienna;
2. Local Capacity Building Training/TOT within the Frames of Academic Integrity for Quality Teaching and Learning in Higher Educations in Georgia (Integrity) Project;
3. The Second Consortium Meeting at Shota Meskhia State Teaching University of Zugdidi;
4. Iakob Gogebashvili Telavi State University hosted a training within the frames of Erasmus plus CBHE project “Academic Integrity for Quality Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Institutions in Georgia (Integrity)”;
5. INTEGRITY project all partner meeting at Samtskhe-Javakheti State University.

From May 28 to June 19, 2020, 22 online pieces of training (using the Zoom platform) were conducted in academic writing for undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and one-cycle students within the framework of the Erasmus Institutional Development Program project "Academic Integrity for Quality Teaching and Learning in Higher Educational Institutions of Georgia (INTEGRITY)”.

The online meetings discussed 13 different topics related to academic integrity and academic writing, including how to write a bachelor's thesis, how to create a good scientific article, use of scientific databases, use of the program "Mendeley" and "Turnitin", scientific research skills in medicine and etc.

The total number of students registered for the trainings is 573. Each participant was awarded a certificate.

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