Plagiarism in an electronic age

Summary of the session presented by Fiona Duggan (Academy/JISC Academic Integrity Service) at the UKCLE seminar on e-assessment held on 31 January 2008.

Although not a new problem, the nature of plagiarism is changing in this electronic age. Both staff and students in higher education struggle to reach a consensus on a definition of plagiarism and the application of any definition in practice. In addition, in an era where technology facilitates collaborative models of resource creation, new students are frequently baffled by the emphasis placed upon citation in the academic context. Moreover, the pressure of external commitments and inadequate time management can encourage students to view ‘cut and paste’ plagiarism as an appropriate response to looming deadlines. Indeed, the emergence of e-commerce sites providing example coursework deliberately targeted at students is a particularly current concern within higher education.

A number of responses to the problems noted above have been proposed, the most common of which relate to one or more of three distinct approaches:

• ‘policing’ the problem – using technological solutions to highlight ‘cut and paste’ plagiarism
• recasting the problem to one of inappropriate assessment and assessment design that encourages timesaving responses rather than independent learning
• changing the culture within higher education to enable students to understand the underlying concept of attribution so that plagiarism becomes an unacceptable response

Appropriate assessment is one of the key elements of an holistic approach to dealing effectively with student plagiarism. E-assessment offers real opportunities for higher education practitioners to reduce the opportunities for students to plagiarise and improve the standard of student work. Providing students with personalised or randomised problems is no longer too time consuming to be practical. Assessing the process as well as the outcome, which will significantly reduce plagiarism associated with inadequate time management, becomes viable with the use of e-portfolios, online discussion groups, bulletin boards, etc. In addition, employing detection technologies as teaching and learning tools rather than punitive measures can help to improve students understanding of the issues and mechanics of citation.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010