Giga Khositashvili (2019)

Ilia State University implemented Turnitin in 2015 to enhance the academic integrity principles, as a Deputy Library Director Giga Khositashvili was actively involved in both pilot and implementation. In 2018, under the Erasmus + CBHE "INTEGRITY" project Giga expanded his promotion of academic integrity beyond the campus by personally visiting 12 other higher education institutions in Georgia. Giga provided training and endorsed academic integrity best practices within the institutions, stressing the following:

“..[T]he most important thing here is - in this project, we are not only focused on usage of the software, but on the academic integrity policy of each university. We support universities to develop not only the regulations and sanctions but also developing academic writing curriculum and student support services in order to guarantee the prevention of plagiarism cases."

From the very beginning, Ilia State University has been focused on plagiarism prevention rather than detection and punishment. Thanks to Giga's effort in providing training, in the 2018/2019 academic year alone, 100,000 papers were uploaded, with feedback on 75% of the papers. Giga states, “During the training with our faculty members we stress on providing feedback as this is a key in teaching and learning, particularly when it comes to plagiarism".

Check out all of the 2019 Global Innovator stories here!