On Hi Tech Cheats.

As we slide towards the beginning of a new academic year an interesting article by Moira Sharkey, can be seen in today's Western Mail.

It reports that 1,600 students have been caught cheating at Welsh Universities over the last three years. Most were guilty of plagiarism, some guilty of cheating in exams.

According to the article, over the last three years among Welsh Universities the University of Glamorgan has disciplined the most students. A statistic rightly defended by the University as they take "cheating seriously and work hard to catch the culprits"

As is ever the case, the statistics are incomplete as Welsh Universities have different methodologies and systems for publishing annual records but they do show that Welsh Universities are engaging with and beating plagiarists.

Many students enter University unaware of how academic work is assessed in Higher Education and are often ill prepared for the vast gulf that exists between sixth form and undergraduate life.

Ben Gray (of NUS Wales) comments on this in the article

“NUS Wales recognises that there are huge differences in the way that
higher education is conducted and assessed compared with secondary
education and as such these are issues that student unions across Wales
are assisting institutions in helping students understand the system.”

While NUS Wales should be commended for assisting students understand the University way of thinking, work needs to be done to ensure that schools understand what Higher Education expects and that Universities are perhaps a little more aware of their student's shortcomings.

Many sixth formers (digital natives?) are ill prepared for the rigour of academic essay writing and the associated referencing processes, as they have passed through a school system where the cut and paste mentality of project and course work has been encouraged and endorsed by the actions of their parents, teachers and peers. This is not totally the fault of the schools or the teachers. It is a way of thinking that has been encouraged by the system. Now that course work is being downgraded schools need to do much more to prepare students for University life and Universities need to do more to integrate undergraduates in academic life.

If Higher Education is seen to be actively confronting and disciplining those guilty of cheating, not only will the numbers of those cheating be reduced but public confidence in the quality of Higher Eduction qualifications will be restored.

The figures should be published openly and shared with the current and prospective student
communities, so that it can be seen that Universities deal with cheats. It is quite strange to me that the figures have come to lightas the result of an enquiry from Chris Franks AM.

Perhaps they should be published annually by the WAG, published in University prospectuses
or on University Web sites. They should most certainly be shared with new students during Fresher's weeks.

Of course catching the cheats is one thing, deciding what to do with them is another.

A first year undergraduate caught plagiarising is quite likely to have plagiarised unwittingly or unknowingly. A third year undergraduate or a Master's degree student caught plagiarising is guilty of completely different kind of cheating.

Can you remember hearing of anyone being "sent down" ?

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On Cheating!

Good.


Now; if they can do it in sport (and it's taken them long enough), why can't we do it in education?

The Return of the Burnt Pyjama Story

Following the revelations of last March, it is good to read that UCAS are rising to the challenge created by plagiarised personal statements.

Next year all university admission forms will be examined using plagiarism detection software.

According to the BBC

""The new system, Copycatch, will compare every application submitted for entry next year with thousands posted on websites and 1.5 million from previous years."

If three sentences or more - 10% of the statement - appear to have been copied, the form will be passed to Ucas staff for further scrutiny.

They might then pass the case on to the individual institutions to which a student has applied for a decision on further action."

Hopefully universities will rise to the challenge and confront those guilty of fabricating their personal statements. Schools will also have to take care in the way they offer advice, and remind their pupils of the perils of copying from the Net or any other published source. Websites offering advice on how to apply to University will also need to consider what to do with their exemplar material.

On GCSEs and a cure for Plagiarism (perhaps!)

Its good to read that GCSE home course work will be scrapped, as the powers that be catch up with what the rest of us have known for a long long time.

• Some parents' have been doing their children's coursework.
• Some teachers have known that parents have been doing coursework and have been unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

• Some children have been copying and pasting from the Internet (without acknowledging the original source).
• Some parents have been copying and pasting from the Internet (without acknowledging the original source).
• Some teachers have known that children and their parents have been copying and pasting from the Internet (without acknowledging the original source) and have been unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Now, from 2009 coursework will be done in school under supervision, where pupils working on projects alone or in groups will be monitored by teachers with access to printed resources, the Internet and other sources of information being controlled.
The subjects affected by the new measures are, business studies, classical subjects, economics, English literature, modern foreign languages, history, geography, social sciences and religious studies.

Furthermore "coursework or controlled assessment" will be set and moderated by the exam boards, and about time! This is almost a level playing field.

But there is still further work to be done.

Children and teachers in the primary and secondary school systems will need training in how to acknowledge or "cite" the use of someone else's work, particularly when using materials found on the Internet. As the ways we access, sample and mash up digital resources increase it is vital that the present generation of digital natives need to be taught how to reference their sources.

Only then can the problem of plagiarism in Higher Education be properly addressed.

On Google, Essay Writing and Plagiarism

Plagiarists take note.

Google has added professional essay writing companies to its blacklist of "product and services for which it will not accept advertising".

According to the BBC "From next month, Google will no longer take adverts from companies which sell essays and dissertations - and the internet company has written to advertisers to tell them about the policy"

As you might expect essay writing companies are upset as much of their trade comes from Google. The ban has been "warmly welcomed" by University authorities.

The owners of the essay writing companies believe that students buy their bespoke essays so that they might have access to model answers to guide their own work!

Ha!

I wonder where the adverts will appear next.

On Ucas, Plagiarism and Pyjamas

The BBC carried an interesting story yesterday that brings together someof the issues facing those of us interested in Higher Education and Web 2.o.

Ucas commissioned research from CFL software development, a company who describe themselves as "specialists in finding similarities between documents and the detection and prevention of collusion and plagiarism"

CFL were asked to analyse the application forms of 50,000 prospective Oxbridge students of veterinary science, medicine and dentistry. The results are fascinating but I'm not sure what they tell us or what is to be done.

5% of these forms carried personal statements containing material copied / material from the web; that's 2500 forms! Of those nearly 800 drew on exemplar material to be found on a free advisory website, which carries advice on "Writing a Personal Statement"

Within this guidance can be found the following sentences.

"From looking at example personal statements you have probably found some language which you like or think works well. The first thing to remember is don't directly copy any of it - not even a single sentence! The reason is, copying statements is plagiarism, and if an admissions tutor sees a statement they recognise they will probably reject you instantly. You should also not copy single sentences for the same reason, sentences which stick out in your mind, may stick out in the examiners also. It is ok to find a sentence or paragraph which is saying what you want to say and adapt it to fit yourself though."

Despite that "CFL found :-

• 370 sentences contained a statement beginning: "a fascination for how the human body works..."
• 234 contained a statement relating a dramatic incident involving "burning a hole in pyjamas at age eight"
• 175 contained a statement which involved "an elderly or infirm grandfather"."

You can read the originals here!

It appears that Ucas does not intend to take any action against the applicants caught copying. One can only hope that university admission tutors are aware of this work and can make their own judgements when reviewing this years' applicants for places at Oxbridge Schools of medical, veterinary and dental science!

Higher Education admission tutors, prospective students and parents can learn from this story. Children in pyjamas should not be allowed to play with chemicals or surf the net unsupervised!

CFL point to the same story being reported by the Evening Standard and the Telegraph.