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Student Plagiarism
What Is It?And What Should We, As Academics, Do About It?
Presented by Dr. Thomas Lancasterat Coventry Universityon Monday 19 September 2016
http://thomaslancaster.co.uk
[email protected]@DrLancaster
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Workshop QuestionsWhat is student plagiarism – and how do the ways in which students plagiarise differ across academic disciplines?Why is it important to take student plagiarism seriously?What can be done to prevent students from cheating and plagiarising?How can plagiarism detection software be used as part of a robust academic integrity process?What other types of threats to academic integrity are emerging alongside student plagiarism?
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Your Involvement Is Much Encouraged!
Twitter Please tweet observations, comments, quotes, photos, discussion topics@DrLancaster@covcampus
Live Please join in the discussion, ask questions and contribute stories
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My BackgroundActive researcher in student cheating and plagiarism since 2000PhD in this field (“Effective and Efficient Plagiarism Detection”) successfully completed in 2003Regular speaker and consultant on student plagiarism, academic cheating and related issuesHave wider teaching and learning interests in student employability, professional online presences, social media marketing, entrepreneurshipSenior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Working with Codio 2016
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A Few Of My Publications On Student Plagiarism
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2015). The Implications of Plagiarism and Contract Cheating for the Assessment of Database Modules. 13th International Workshop on Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases (TLAD 2015), Birmingham, UK, July 2015.
Lancaster, T. (2013), The Use Of Text Matching Tools For The Prevention And Detection Of Student Plagiarism; in Plagiarism Phenomenon In Europe: Research Contributes To Prevention, Dias, P. and Bastos, A. (editors): Braga : Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural da Faculdade de Filosofia da Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2009). Automated Essay Spinning – An Initial Investigation; 10th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Information and Computer Sciences, University of Kent, August 2009.
Clarke, R. and Lancaster, T. (2006). Eliminating the Successor to Plagiarism? Identifying the Usage Of Contract Cheating Sites. 2nd Plagiarism: Prevention, Practice and Policy Conference 2006 - organised by JISC Plagiarism Advisory Service, Newcastle, UK, June 2006.
Lancaster, T. and Culwin, F. (2005), Classifications of Plagiarism Detection Engines. In ITALICS 4(2). http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/italics/Vol4-2/Plagiarism%20-%20revised%20paper.htm.
Lancaster, T. and Tetlow, M. (2005), Does Automated Anti-Plagiarism Have to be Complex? Evaluating More Appropriate Software Metrics for Finding Collusion, 22nd ASCILITE Conference (pp. 520-529). Brisbane, Australia, December 2005.
Lancaster, T. and Culwin, F. (2004). Using Freely Available Tools to Produce a Partially Automated Plagiarism Detection Process. 21st ASCILITE Conference, Perth, Australia, December 2004.
Lancaster T. and Culwin F. (2004), A Comparison of Source Code Plagiarism Detection Engines. Journal of Computer Science Education 14.2.Lancaster T. and Culwin F. (2004), A Visual Argument for Plagiarism Detection using Word Pairs; 1st Plagiarism: Prevention, Practice and Policy
Conference - organised by JISC Plagiarism Advisory Service, Newcastle, UK, June 2004.Culwin F. and Lancaster T. (2001), Visualising Intra-Corpal Plagiarism. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information Visualisation,
London, UK, August 2001.Culwin F. and Lancaster T. (2001), Plagiarism Issues for Higher Education. Vine 31(2), pp. 36-41.Culwin F. and Lancaster T. (2001), Plagiarism Prevention, Deterrence and Detection. Higher Education Academy.Culwin F., MacLeod A. and Lancaster T. (2001), Source Code Plagiarism in UK HE Computing Schools, 2nd Annual Conference of the LTSN Centre for
Information and Computer Sciences, University Of North London, August 2001.Lancaster T. and Culwin F. (2001), Towards an Error Free Plagiarism Detection Process. Proceedings Of The 6th Annual Conference On Innovation
And Technology In Computer Science Education, Canterbury, UK, August 2001.Culwin F. and Lancaster T. (2000), A Review of Electronic Services for Plagiarism Detection in Student Submissions. 1st Annual Conference of
the LTSN Centre for Information and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, August 2000.Plus my PhD thesis – and a whole load of publications on contract cheating
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http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster
A selection of my contract cheating talks available on my SlideShare account(the slides from today’s workshop are also available on SlideShare)
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Should We Be Worried About Student Cheating And Plagiarism?
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Poster advertising coursework production services,found somewhere in Coventry
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Thousands of UK nursing students caught cheating on courses Stephanie Jones-Berry20 July 2016https://rcni.com/nursing-standard/newsroom/news/thousands-uk-nursing-students-caught-cheating-courses-61161
“Plagiarism expert Thomas Lancaster told the Times that nursing essays by the ‘high hundreds or low thousands’ were sold to students through companies each year in the UK.”
“Channel 4 Dispatches investigated the multi-million pound industry where university students pay companies to write their coursework.
Dr Thomas Lancaster, Britain’s leading expert on academic cheating says: ‘The vast majority of students of course are completely honest but I’ve seen estimates of £200 million a year going through these [essay writing] sites.’”
Channel 4 Dispatcheshttp://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/dispatches-investigation-reveals-extent-of-student-plagiarism
Dispatches – Channel 4
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“A Council of Deans of Health spokesperson told Nursing Standard the numbers represented a small minority of the 70,000 nursing students in UK universities.
The spokesperson said: ‘Although any instance of plagiarism is a cause for concern, these figures over three years represent a tiny minority of students, fewer than 1% per year.
‘The vast majority of students work hard, are honest and are a credit to their future profession.
‘While it is obviously worrying if websites are deliberately targeting nursing students, these numbers are also a sign that universities take plagiarism seriously and are willing to tackle it.’”
Thousands of UK nursing students caught cheating on courses Stephanie Jones-Berry20 July 2016https://rcni.com/nursing-standard/newsroom/news/thousands-uk-nursing-students-caught-cheating-courses-61161
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Discussion Questions
Do academics take plagiarism seriously?
Do universities take plagiarism seriously?
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Discussion Question
What is student plagiarism and what does
this look like in your academic discipline?
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Examples of Plagiarism
Ashford University presentation(captured from Twitter photograph)
Source code collusion(demonstrated inside Codio)
Graphic design plagiarismhttp://edtech2.boisestate.edu/matthewklaber/502/scavenger.html
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A (General) Definition of Plagiarism Is…
Taking the words or ideas of another and using them
without acknowledgement
This general definition is based loosely on many others,including my previous published research
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Trying to source the general definition of plagiarism in Google
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contract cheating using an essay mill
essay spinning (a.k.a. back translation) using Google Translate
services that claim to fool Turnitin
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Why Use Turnitin?To support students
with developing their academic writing
To discourage students from cheating
(fear of being caught)
To demonstrate a commitment to
maintaining academic standards
To provide consistency and fairness across the
board
To build up a database of student work for
international protection
To protect the value of qualifications for honest students
To catch students who do not cheat well
enough!
These are just a few possible reasons – there are many more!
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Software Used As Part Of A Robust Plagiarism Detection Process
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collection analysis
confirmation
investigation
Four-Stage Plagiarism Detection Process
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Application to Turnitin
Turnitin shows similarity not plagiarismNeed to investigate high and low matchesSmall similarity matches on Turnitin can represent crucial plagiarismSmall similarity matches on Turnitin can identify contract cheating
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Discussion Question
What similarity score on Turnitin requires formal investigation?
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Discussion Question
When aiming to preserve academic
integrity, what makes a good assessment?
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(Some Possible) Examples of Good Practice When Setting Assessments
Original assessments, without model answers
available online
Work with students to design assessment tasks
Introduce localised knowledge into
assessments
Require students to reflect on the process of
assessment
Assess within a simulated work
environment, requiring active engagement
Educate students on academic integrity and the value of completing
their own work
Introduce a supervised element to assessment
Assess the process, not just the end product
Assess using mediums that appeal to students,
such as social media, online video and blogs
These are common examples from the literature – but be wary of the potential for outsourcing these
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Academics have a duty to take reasonable measures
to remove any temptations for students
to cheat
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Be Active In The Promotion Of Academic Integrity To Students
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International Day of Action Against
Contract CheatingOctober 19, 2016
http://contractcheating.weebly.com
