Plagiarism

Plagiarism, the unacknowledged use of someone else's work, is a growing concern for many people in education. It is common and is on the increase in universities.

 Plagiarism is increasing mainly because of the easy access to Websites that have essays that can be downloaded, 'ghost writers' and copying from others. Plagiarism may be common in distance learning courses because work cannot be authenticated. External pressure such as working part-time while studying, having to write in a language that is not one's mother tongue, stress, lack of personal organization, and heavy coursework load, can all trigger plagiarism.

Plagiarism can be more common in some teaching methodologies such as where students are assessed through assignments rather than through practicals. It occurs more often in large classes where students feel they can hide behind the number.

The majority of students plagarise accidentally because they do not understand academic requirements or they do not know how to insert quotations in their work properly. International students may involuntarily plagiarise because they might not have sufficient time to develop the required skills of the foreign University.

Also, dyslexic students tend to plagiarise by patching together texts instead of paraphrasing. During the Freshers Week at the University, students could be taught how to reference work, to take notes preserving the link with the source, to paraphrase, to summarise and in the use of in-text citation.

However students who deliberately plagiarise are the most worrying because they anger other students who do not cheat, they discourage lecturers who want to teach rather than police students, they consume staff time in pursuing and punishing offenders, and they devalue the education system.

Plagiarism is more common in students with certain characteristics such as being new to higher education, having poor academic records, and having previously plagiarised. Unfortunately some students see plagiarism as a risk-free way out of difficulties.

Turnitin, an electronic detection tool for plagiarism has been adopted in many institutions. The Plagiarism Advisory Service (PAS), based at Northumbria University, has estimated that a quarter of university students have cheated by lifting material from the internet material.

All members of staff need to be committed to deterring and stopping plagiarism; to instill a sense of morality and pride for the ownership of essays in students; to nominating staff to be in charge of dealing with plagiarism; to keep records of all incidences of plagiarism and what action has been taken against it. In some universities a panel of people dealing with plagiarism interviews students who plagiarise. All these methods can be implemented to reduce plagiarism.

The Quality Assurance Committee (QAC) is discussing with CSC the acquisition of a campus-wide licensed plagiarism-preventing package which lecturers will be able to use. Any members of staff who have experience in this area are requested to get in touch with Professor Charles Farrugia, Chairman of the QAC.

This information is adapted from Website http://education.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=611192&host=16&dir=365 This source was brought to the QAC's attention by Dr Carmel Borg, Dean, Faculty of Education, and from Website www.jisc.ac.uk/printer_friendly.cfm?name=pub_plagiarism