MKU yet to make its theses available in ‘Shodhganga’

• PONVASANTH ARUNACHALAM

The Ph. D theses available in Madurai Kamaraj Unviersity, numbering around 4,000, were yet to be made available in ‘Shodhganga’ portal, the national open access platform for research work.

This is despite signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) way back in 2012 with Information and Library Network Centre (INFLIBNET Centre) of University Grants Commission, which is managing the portal.

‘Shodhganga’ was launched in 2011 with the objective of making all research theses from universities in India available on a single platform. Apart from being a single repository to access research work from across the country based on research areas and other categories, the initiative also aimed at reducing plagiarism in research work.

According to data available in ‘Shodhganga,’ around 1,12,500 theses from nearly 280 universities have so far been made available in the portal. However, the contribution from MKU has been just one so far, a theses from Department of Library Sciences, uploaded in 2015.

In comparison, majority of the State-run universities have made hundreds of their theses available in the platform. For instance, Anna University tops the list in Tamil Nadu with 3,969 theses available in the portal. Universities from southern districts like Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Alagappa University and Mother Teresa Women’s University have also made 2319, 350 and 253 theses available respectively.

A senior professor from the university said that there were exemplary research work done in MKU in the past, particularly from departments like School of Social Sciences and School of Biological Sciences, which if made available in the portal would be of immense use to researchers.

A senior official from the university blamed the delay on INFLIBNET Centre. He said that there were about 3,500 theses in the library which were to be digitized from printed format, which would be a labour intensive work involving scanning of lakhs of pages. “As per the MoU, INFLIBNET Centre had to provide fund for the digitisation work. But it is yet to be sanctioned,” he said.

He added that approval was pending from INFLIBNET Centre even to upload 603 theses submitted to MKU in the recent years, which were already available in the digital format.