The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has begun a process to digitise thesis and projects in the nation’s higher institutions to ensure seamless access to research outputs and end plagiarism.

The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Professor Suleiman Bogoro, made this known at a workshop on thesis digitization project for beneficiary institutions in Abuja.

Professor Bogoro said the world has gone digital and Nigeria cannot continue to operate on analogue, stressing that a number of materials from thesis at post-graduate level and even under-graduate have literally disappeared.

“Where there are fire incidents, physical papers are burnt and the thesis gone. But if we are able to dematerialise them and they are stored in different forms in different repositories, it will be easier to access, and the protection of the materials is guaranteed,” the TETFund boss observed.

Digitisation would assist to check and stop plagiarism by researchers at any level, he maintained.

Professor Bogoro said the workshop was to bring together Librarians, Directors of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Desk Officers to address key issues on collective academic research output by bringing ICT and digitization to bear.

According to him, digitising academic research output will lead to increased access and innovation, accelerating the journey between research and commercial application.

Digitisation, he stressed, remained critical to secure the contributions of fledgling research base to productivity, growth and social benefits.