Copywrong
An increasing number of university students allow themselves to be tempted by the rapidly growing amount of knowledge available on the Internet, and stoop to copying others' work for their own university papers. The problem is manifest in the United States and in Great Britain, whereas Scandinavia is only just now realising the true and growing scope of the problem, according to Jude Carroll from Oxford Brookes University.
By Camilla Mehlsen (cme@dpu.dk)
"The other day I heard a man on the train complain about how expensive it was to keep his son in the university. He told that it had become even more expensive, because he now had to pay £200 for every paper his son had to purchase."
Jude Carroll sounds neither outraged, nor surprised, as she tells the story about the father on the train. She has studied plagiarising for several years now at the Oxford Brookes University in England, and she knows how frequently students turn to the Internet for inspiration, plagiarise from their fellow students, or even pay to have others write their papers. According to one survey conducted by the Centre for Academic Integrity, some 80 pct. of the university students admit to cheating at least once.
At the Oxford Brookes University, Jude Carroll has found that a growing number of students now buy papers outright from professional ghost writers. Oxbridge Essays is one such online company where students can buy essays and even treatises at undergraduate, graduate and even post-graduate level at prices ranging from £80 and up. According to the website, a PhD-application graded 'upper class' comprises some 25.000 words and can be produced in 15 days for the neat sum of £10.625.
Growing market
Oxbridge Essays is two years old, which makes it one of the more established suppliers in the market. Jude Carroll says: "Three years ago, there were hardly any of these companies in Great Britain. Now, it is a growth industry netting about £200 million annually."
It is difficult to give an accurate assessment of the actual occurrence of plagiarism, since the official numbers most likely are inaccurate, because it can be difficult to address the issue. "Take Sweden, for instance. There, you have to go to court in order to convict someone of plagiarism, and such a case can drag out for years. Most will go to great lengths to avoid that. Therefore the official figure for plagiarism is deceptively low," Jude Carroll says.
One thing is certain, though: Plagiarism is a growing problem, even outside the U.S. and Great Britain, and this is finally dawning on the universities. "Scandinavia is starting to recognise the problem. Norway, Sweden and Denmark are all considering how to deal with this issue," Jude Carroll says.
Information extravaganza
According to Jude Carroll, there are three main reasons why universities see more and more plagiarism:
Firstly, you have the increased student mobility, which makes the student corpus less homogenous. Some students bring along a culture and an approach to studying that looks upon plagiarism with more leniency.
Secondly, the amount of information available on the Internet has multiplied. There is a wealth of information readily available in particular in English, and students who have good English skills have easy access to all this knowledge.
Thirdly, universities admit students with very different backgrounds and educational levels, because of the gradual democratisation of tertiary education. "You not only have students with the competencies you want them to have, you have a highly disparate group on your hands," says Jude Carroll.
This is also the reason why many students have a hard time adjusting to academic culture. "In school, the children learn to find the right answer, but the minute they set foot at a university, they are in a completely different setting where the rules are completely different," Jude Carroll says. The consequence is that some people find it difficult to keep up. "The students who struggle the most are also the most likely to plagiarise. They see it as a pragmatic way to solve a problem."
Cut & Paste
According to Jude Carroll, the most frequently used type of plagiarism is the 'cut&paste'-method. Students find relevant information on the Internet, and copy it into a paper with no reference, no listing of source. The second-most frequent type is when students adapt others' work, but lack the necessary understanding to do it correctly, and they again neglect to name the source. These two types of plagiarism comprise about two thirds of the occurrences at Oxford Brookes University, where much is done to fight this problem.
Plagiarism has not yet become a regular occurrence in Scandinavian universities. When plagiarism is detected, it causes quite a stir. "In Sweden, they consider plagiarism cheating, but a lot of the plagiarism that occurs is not intentional. The students have quite a different attitude towards the use of information freely available on the Internet, and they do not necessarily consider it cheating when they compile bits and pieces from various websites and rewrite it in their own words without listing the proper references."
The Google generation
The new students could be termed the 'Google generation'. They are very adept at finding information, and they see nothing wrong in copying parts of other people's work, because they have very little knowledge about intellectual property, copyrights and academic standards for use of other researchers' knowledge. The concept of copyright is not a universal standard:
"The notion of somebody owning an idea is very culturally specific, and not at all a given thing. It is a very Western notion. The reason plagiarism is such a problem for students is not, in my opinion, due to issues of ownership. The point is that unless you work hard, you won't learn anything. The point with essay writing is not to produce an essay but to make the student learn something. The students, however, find it difficult to understand that they earn credits for their own learning," Jude Carroll says.
Knowledge in practice
If the aim is to eradicate plagiarism, a number of measures need to be taken. "There is no panacea. Complex problems call for complex solutions." Briefly put, Jude Carroll thinks that universities need to teach the student academic writing, teachers have to give the students different types of tasks, and the educational system must have policies in place to facilitate a fast response to any transgressions.
The kind of tasks students are given has not changed with the technological revolution. "We have failed to change the nature of the tasks to take into account the existence of Google. Many teachers and lecturers keep asking people to write the same sort of papers as always."
One consequence of the emergence of the Internet is that universities have to force students to use their knowledge in very specific and unique situations, says Jude Carroll. "The students should no longer have to demonstrate their knowledge. We have to ask questions that are local, current and specific. Instead of having students analyse Shakespeare as thousands have done before them, ask them to correlate an element in Shakespeare's narrative with some current event or a local political discussion."
Furthermore, universities should require that students keep their drafts. If plagiarism is suspected, a draft – or its absence – can be important.
The two tribes in universities
When Jude Carroll began her analysis of plagiarism in 1999, very little research had been done in the field. The reason why she became interested in this field was that she realised that students and faculty are as two tribes with different rules and different interpretations – and that one tribe does not understand the other.
"Teachers forget that students are not just younger members of their own tribe. You can't blame students for having a different approach to and attitude towards the Internet. The teachers have to teach students how to be a member of the teacher tribe. They have to demonstrate why learning matters. And that takes time." But if students understand that learning is the objective, and that the Good Paper is not, we have come far in getting rid of plagiarism, Jude Carroll believes.
Plagiarism: Somebody else's problem
One might think that teachers have a fairly well-developed sense of what constitutes plagiarism and how widespread it is. A recent survey among university employees, however, has shown that there is a vast difference between the actual plagiarism and the staff's interpretation of what goes on. Teachers tend to think, for instance, that plagiarism is a much larger problem on a national scale than in their own department. One teacher did, however, admit that the percentage of student who plagiarise "?is impossible to assess. I would imagine it is much larger than any administrator would feel comfortable about."
"What is the percentage of student who plagiarise, you think?"
- In your class: 11 pct.
- In your institute: 18 pct.
- At campus: 27 pct.
- Nationally: 29 pct.
Source:
Jean Liddell and Valerie Fong: Faculty Perceptions of Plagiarism, Journal of College and Character, vol. 2, 2007.
Start off right
American and British students are frequent visitors to essay sites where they can purchase papers for further education. Do a search, for instance, for
? Oxbridge Essays
? MarkMyEssay
? Degree Essays UK
About Jude CarrollJude Carroll is Vice director of the Assessment Standards Knowledge Exchange (ASKe), Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and a teacher at Oxford Brookes University. She holds an M.A. in Adult- and Further education and is a member of the Higher Education Academy in York. Author of, among other things, 'A Handbook for Deterring Plagiarism in Higher Education'.
Visit Jude Carroll's website.
Jude Carroll
Oxbridge Irony
"Gaining a degree from Oxford or Cambridge has for centuries been regarded by British and international students as the pinnacle of academic achievement. Considering this superlative excellence, it is with immense pride that Oxbridge Essays has contracted several hundred Experts from Oxford and Cambridge to produce academic work for students across the UK and throughout the world."
-Oxbridge Essays website