TETFund Targets Two Billion Pages of Research Materials

Kuni Tyessi

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has begun a two-billion pages drive to accelerate the ongoing digitisation of thesis across 100 least digitised institutions.

Inaugurating the committee on yesterday in Abuja, the executive secretary, Sonny Echono, said the need for a National Academic Research Repository (NARR) necessitated the project, given that numerous research outputs were lying dormant in libraries across tertiary institutions in the country.

He said the digitisation project would also address plagiarism, intellectual property, commercialisation of academic works, etc.

While saying the few existing repositories in the country are not available to national or global audiences, Echono noted that the ugly development prompted TETFund’s board of trustees (BOT) intervention.

“To ensure homegrown solutions are encouraged, we are working with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors (CVC) to embed ‘Eaglescan’, developed by them, as the plagiarism detection software, as part of the project to ensure the academic integrity of all digitized resources,” explained Echono. “Further to this is the use of Galaxy Backbone to serve as the digital archive of the Repository, while the National Copyright Commission, as part of this Committee, will help advise on guidelines for the intellectual property related matters.”

Echono listed the committee’s terms of reference to include developing and adopting a model digitisation policy for beneficiary institutions, providing support and guidance for the project management team to implement this digitisation project successfully, develop frameworks and procedures to ensure that the project deliverables are strictly adhered to.

Responding, Prof. Yakubu Ochefu, the committee’s chairman and secretary-general of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, pledged the readiness of his team to deliver on the task.

Ochefu, who commended TETFund for initiating the project, said the scheme would turn around the fortunes of the nation’s education system.