Screening for Plagiarism

Plagiarism Policy

ETDC maintains a zero tolerance policy on plagiarism. All submitted manuscripts are screened using Turnitin before review.

Policy Type	: Zero tolerance
Screening Tool	: Turnitin
Maximum Acceptable Similarity	: Less than 20 percent
Manuscript Requirement	: Original, unpublished, and unmodified
Outcome of Severe Plagiarism	: Outright rejection without resubmission

Educational Technology in Developing Countries (ETDC) maintains a zero tolerance policy towards plagiarism. When plagiarism is identified in any article submitted for publication, the following specific actions and penalties are applied.

Definition of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as the use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author, and the representation of them as one's original work. Articles must be original, unpublished, and unmodified. Any material from another source taken verbatim must be clearly distinguished from the present original text by indentation, the use of quotation marks, and citation of the source. Any text exceeding fair use standards or any graphic material reproduced from another source requires permission from the copyright holder and, where feasible, the original authors. The source must also be identified, including any previous publications.

Similarity Index Thresholds

All submitted articles are checked for similarity using Turnitin. When plagiarism is detected, the Managing Editor responsible for reviewing the article determines the course of action based on the level of similarity, according to the following thresholds:

> 35%

High

Article Rejected

Due to poor citation or poor paraphrasing, the article is outright rejected and no resubmission is accepted.

20–35%

Moderate

Returned to Author for Improvement

The author must provide correct citations at all places of similarity and apply proper paraphrasing even when a citation is already provided.

< 20%

Acceptable

Accepted or Citation Improvement Required

The article may be accepted, although proper citations must be provided to all outsourced texts where needed.

Author Responsibility on Resubmission

For similarity scores in the 20 to 35 percent range and below 20 percent, authors must carefully revise the article, include necessary citations, and effectively paraphrase outsourced text. The revised manuscript must be resubmitted together with a Turnitin report demonstrating a similarity score of less than 20 percent.