The Higher Education commission (HEC) has taken historic step by launching its 'digital library programme' having over 40,000 e-books and over 25,000 journals of worlds' leading publishers to cater the specific needs of the public and private universities and R&D Organisations, participating in the programme.
This was stated by Dr Atta-ur-Rehman, chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) at a press briefing regarding the achievements and ongoing assignments of HEC here on Thursday.
One of the main objectives of the Higher Education Commission is to support and strengthen the research activities in Pakistan. In this regard HEC is utilising its resources to encourage and facilitate the researchers as it is providing indigenous scholarships, overseas scholarships, postdoctoral fellowships and foreign faculty hiring programmes to promote the standard of education in the country.
The chairman said digital library programme would place Pakistan on equal footings with the developed world having such facilities. It will enable every student to have access of over 40,000 e-books in varied disciplines such as business & management, information technology, health, engineering, history and social sciences.
Over 220 international leading publishers have been identified for the access these include Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis, Blackwell Synergy, BMJ Publishing Group, Cambridge University Press, and Stanford University Press. These publishers will also inform the researchers about the new books of their relevant fields.
He said, with the help of this facility the students would be able to download their required material free of cost, to highlight and take notes within a digital document.
Digital library programme will also enable the researchers to automatically save their highlighted material and notes on a personal bookshelf. In order to counter 'plagiarism,' the HEC has developed 'Anti-Plagiarism network,' which will ensure the genuineness of the research works, he added.
He said plagiarism should be considered 'intellectual death' and HEC is working to formulate a policy in this regard. The universities, which will not take action against plagiarism, the HEC will freeze their funds, he maintained.
The chairman told the media that HEC has established a special section for the evaluation of the research work and 'Pakistan Thesis Repository,' which will make the research work of Pakistani scholars available on the Internet.