Seoul National University is mulling over installing a plagiarism detection program amid a series of scandals involving several professors.

There are several detection programs, such as Turnitin, that check for duplication of content by comparing submitted papers and theses through an online database.

The school announced on Sunday that it was looking to purchase plagiarism-tracking software and to start using it from next year.

All master’s and doctoral degree theses as well as professors’ publications will be checked by the specialized detection program by comparing the thesis under review with the accumulated database to look for similar or questionable sentences and paragraphs, the school said.

Theses will be checked before the official review so that they can be sent back for revision if plagiarism is suspected. Authors will also be able to voluntarily check their work with the program.

The decision came after a number of professors and graduates were linked to plagiarism.

An investigation by the Ministry of Education revealed 83 professors were penalized for copying other work from 2008-2012.

In February, a SNU professor resigned after admitting to plagiarizing a foreign professor’s academic paper.

Most recently, Cho Kuk, a law professor at SNU is under investigation by the school after a claim made that he plagiarized a research paper published in 2008 from a different paper published earlier.

Another accusation of academic misconduct was made against professor Kang Soo-kyung, a leading stem cell researcher. Kang was accused of manipulating data in 14 papers published in international journals published in journals from 2010-2012.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)