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17 février 2013

Do students understand plagiarism?

The Guardian homeBy Rebecca Ratcliffe. Instances of plagiarism appear to be on the rise. Are universities offering students enough advice about cheating? In a world of Wikipedia and internet-based essay-writing companies, it's never been easier for students to plagiarise their work. But as German education minister, Annette Schavan, found out today, it's also never been easier to get caught. While there are no hard stats on the number of students cheating at university, a recent survey of 80 institutions suggests such behaviour may be on the rise – in 2009-10 more than 17,000 incidents of cheating were recorded, up 50% in four years. Read more...
20 janvier 2013

Plagiarism problems on campus: where have I heard that before?

Click here for THE homepageBy Paul Jump. An essay-writing company has strongly denied that there is any inconsistency in its owner writing a campus novel that satirises the falling standards and toleration of cheating he claims to be rife at "modern" British universities.
The eponymous hero of P.J.Vanston's 2010 novel, Crump, is an academic at "Thames Metropolitan University" whose morale gradually ebbs away in the face of the grade inflation, toleration of cheating and obsession with international student recruitment that he finds there. The novel has sold nearly 1,000 copies. Read more...
12 janvier 2013

Regulation on academic fraud hopes to reduce plagiarism

http://enews.ksu.edu.sa/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/UWN.jpgBy Yojana Sharma. A new Ministry of Education regulation to punish academic fraud came into effect on 1 January, to clamp down on plagiarism and fabricating research data, as well as buying, selling or organising trade in academic degree theses, including all forms of ‘ghostwriting’ or buying of materials produced by essay mills.
According to the regulation, institutions can withhold graduate, postgraduate or doctoral degrees if plagiarism or fraud is committed in the writing of dissertations. Degrees already awarded can be revoked and the students in question will be banned from applying for further degrees within three years, according to the official China Daily newspaper. In addition the students, tutors and other college officials involved can be suspended, removed from their post or expelled from the university as punishment. An earlier draft of the regulation, published when it was put out for consultation last July, also stipulated that institutions with “too many” fraud cases may have their licence to grant degrees revoked by the authorities.Read more...
31 décembre 2012

Nous, professeurs, voulons en finir avec le plagiat à l'université!

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/themes/header/images/logo-nobs.pngPar Francois Garçon. Plus de 200 universitaires ont signé une pétition contre le plagiat chez les chercheurs. François Garçon, maître de conférences à l'université Paris 1 Panthéon - Sorbonne, soutient cette cause. La lutte contre le plagiat doit devenir une priorité du ministre de l'Enseignement supérieur car cette pratique est trop courante, selon lui. L’université Paris-8 présente plusieurs traits distinctifs qui la singularisent parmi les 85 universités françaises.
En premier lieu, un certain nombre de personnes se sont obstinées à la nommer Vincennes, en souvenir du bois où des algecos avaient été installés à la va-vite en 1968. Ensuite, cette université est probablement l’une où la probabilité de se faire rouer de coups entre les grilles du bâtiment et le métro est la plus élevée du pays. Dans son rapport d’évaluation sur l’établissement, l’AERES rend hommage à l’enseignement à distance qui, pour cet établissement, permet d’atténuer "les problèmes de sécurité des lieux." Suite de l'article...
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/themes/header/images/logo-nobs.png De réir Boy Francois bhfuil. Níos mó ná 200 lucht acadúil sínithe achainí i gcoinne bradaíl i measc taighdeoirí. François Garçon, léachtóir in Ollscoil Pháras 1 Pantheon - Sorbonne, tacaíonn an chúis. Ní mór don troid in aghaidh bradaíl a bheith mar thosaíocht ag an Aire Ardoideachais mar go bhfuil an cleachtas ró-coitianta, a dúirt sé. Níos mó...
31 décembre 2012

Plagiate bleiben in Unibibliotheken stehen

http://www.epapercatalog.com/images/zeit-online-epaper.jpgWer abschreibt, verliert seinen Titel – so lautet die Regel deutscher Unis. In den Bibliotheken bleiben die Arbeiten stehen. Mit gutem Grund, sagen Bibliothekare.
Unter der Signatur PL 625 G985 steht im Lesesaal der Rechtswissenschaftlichen Bibliothek der Humboldt-Universität ein unscheinbarer Band zum Thema Verfassung und Verfassungsvertrag: konstitutionelle Entwicklungsstufen in den USA und der EU. Der Autor ist Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. Das Buch ist für jedermann greifbar. Einen Hinweis darauf, dass dem ehemaligen deutschen Verteidigungsminister 2011 der Doktortitel entzogen wurde, weil seine Dissertation von Plagiaten durchsetzt ist, findet sich nicht in dem Band. Denkbar, dass ein Jura-Student in einigen Jahren ahnungslos zu dem Buch greift, um daraus zu zitieren.
Fakultäten und ihre Promotionskommissionen betreiben einen großen Aufwand, um Plagiatoren zu überführen. In den Bibliotheken findet dies offenbar keine Entsprechung. Der Sinn solcher Verfahren liegt darin, verletzte wissenschaftliche Standards wiederherzustellen und gewissermaßen die faulen Eier aus dem System zu entfernen. Unter Berufung auf diesen hehren Anspruch befasst sich etwa die Universität Düsseldorf noch nach mehr als 30 Jahren mit der Dissertation von Bundesministerin Annette Schavan, die sich nun um ihren Doktortitel Sorgen machen muss. Mehr...
7 septembre 2012

A plague of plagiarism

Following academic and non-academic news from around the world, one could be forgiven for thinking that plagiarising one’s way through a PhD programme has to be one of the easiest things to do and even a pre-requisite for a political career in education. Now, the over-representation of this particular topic in the media could just be due to the widespread availability of plagiarism software in recent years, but the degrees and their acquisition by personas of public interest, politicians especially, is too much of a salient topic to pass on. That is not to say that there is no value in the journalistic investigation of the abuse of academic standards as it certainly contributes to shaming both the institutions in question and the individuals involved. It actually does not go far enough.
The plethora of high-level cases that have surfaced within the last two years indicate that not everyone is equal when it comes to writing their doctoral thesis even in the academe, a place where the influence of politics and money is presumed to be traditionally non-existent despite the fact that most institutions are publicly funded. To get a glimpse of how pervasive this phenomenon is in Europe, one can start with the then German minister of defence Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, which surfaced in March 2011, closely followed by two German members of the European Parliament (Silvana Koch-Mehrin and Jorgo Chatzimarkakis) and the Turkish education minister Ömer Dinçer appointed in July 2011 despite being stripped of his professor title in 2005. The list certainly does not get shorter in 2012 - in April, Pal Schmitt, the Hungarian president was forced to resign, the Romanian education minister Ioan Mang also resigned in May, while the Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta is still denying one of the most blatant cases of copy and paste plagiarism. To make this inconclusive list even more intriguing, the former EU Commissioner for Education and Culture, Jan Figel is currently facing an investigation for presenting a book he co-authored earlier as a substitute for his PhD thesis.
The easy argument could be that these are so-called ‘cold cases’ from a time when there was no plagiarism-detection software around, but this would only serve to brush the problem under the carpet. Although using tools for matching text is by many standards an efficient solution, it does not allow for the detection of the theft of ideas and is highly dependent on the database the work is being compared against. In a sense, this is only a patch-work solution. What is needed is a genuine debate about the problem in academia as well as a thorough investigation of the definitions and meaning of plagiarism across cultures. Yet even with the media spotlight cast on the many investigations of flagrant disregard for academic standards, there is a dearth of initiatives focusing on corruption or integrity in academia in Europe.
One exception is a project led by a consortium of universities and sponsored under the Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme called Impact of Policies for Plagiarism in Higher Education across Europe (IPPHEAE). The project currently surveys a variety of actors across higher education institutions trying to establish and evaluate academic integrity measures nowadays employed in Europe. Dr Irene Glendinning, one of the coordinators, revealed that preliminary results across all EU countries indicate that over 40% of students so far surveyed have admitted to “accidental or deliberate” plagiarism and that the attitudes of administrators and professors towards using disciplinary or supportive measures vary greatly from institution to institution. The project is open to institutional participation until the end of December 2012 with final results expected by autumn 2013.

IPPHEAE

24 août 2012

Coursera Adds Honor-Code Prompt in Response to Reports of Plagiarism

http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/icons/wired-campus-nameplate.gifBy Jeffrey R. Young. Leaders of Coursera, an upstart company offering free online courses by professors at well-known universities, this week added a feature designed to curb incidents of student plagiarism on homework assignments.
The move comes just days after an article in The Chronicle reported that many students were suspected of cheating on homework in Coursera’s Massive Open Online Courses, even though the classes, known as MOOC’s, offer no academic credit. The step is a small one, but it was carried out with the start-up company’s signature swiftness. Students in Coursera’s courses must now renew their commitment to its academic honor code every time they submit an essay assignment for grading by peers. Specifically, they must check a box next to this sentence: “In accordance with the Honor Code, I certify that my answers here are my own work, and that I have appropriately acknowledged all external sources (if any) that were used in this work.”
Only a few courses that are now under way include essay assignments, so just three courses are affected (though tens of thousands of students are enrolled in each one). Officials say they may add the honor-code prompt to other types of assignments in the future. Students in all Coursera courses already agree to its honor code when they sign up for classes.
“A large part of the plagiarism arises from lack of understanding of the expected standards of behavior in U.S. academic institutions, especially among students who have not been trained in such institutions,” said Daphne Koller, a co-founder of the company and a Stanford University professor, in an e-mail interview. “We believe that this language will be quite helpful.”
The company has said that it will investigate how widespread are reports of plagiarism on assignments, though Ms. Koller said she suspects it resembles the level of plagiarism in traditional on-campus courses. She cited one indication from an earlier Coursera course, taught by the Princeton University sociology professor Mitchell Duneier: About 2,500 midterms were graded by hand by teaching assistants, who estimated that about 5 percent contained suspected plagiarism. Ms. Koller stressed that that is a “rough estimate,” but added that “it doesn’t seem that high.”
Indeed, surveys conducted by the Center for Academic Integrity have found that as much as 43 percent of undergraduates on traditional campuses reported engaging in “unauthorized collaboration” on homework.
19 août 2012

Plagiarism controversy raises questions over academic integrity

 

http://enews.ksu.edu.sa/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/UWN.jpgBySuluck Lamubol. Controversy over plagiarism in the PhD thesis of Supachai Lorlowhakarn, director of Thailand’s National Innovation Agency, or NIA, has highlighted concerns over academic integrity and a widespread culture of plagiarism. Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University revoked the PhD – for the first time in the institution’s history.
On 21 June 2012, after a year-long investigation, the Chulalongkorn University council withdraw Supachai’s PhD in science, in a move that stunned the academic community in Thailand.
In response, Supachai threatened to file a lawsuit against Chulalongkorn’s executive board and the council for abuse of power. He insisted that he had ownership rights to the disputed research used in the PhD, as he was the main author of the work.
The investigation came after Thailand-based agricultural researcher, Wyn Ellis, claimed that Supachai had plagiarised most of his research, word for word, for his thesis.

18 août 2012

Dozens of Plagiarism Incidents Are Reported in Coursera's Free Online Courses

http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/sub-promo-art.pngBy Jeffrey R. Young. Students taking free online courses offered by the startup company Coursera have reported dozens of incidents of plagiarism, even though the courses bear no academic credit. This week a professor leading one of the so-called Massive Open Online Courses posted a plea to his 39,000 students to stop plagiarizing, and Coursera's leaders say they will review the issue and consider adding plagiarism-detection software in the future. In recent weeks, students in at least three Coursera humanities courses have complained of plagiarized assignments by other students. The courses use peer grading, so each student is asked to grade and offer comments on the work of fellow students.

9 août 2012

Slovakia - A national system to prevent plagiarism is working

http://enews.ksu.edu.sa/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/UWN.jpgBy Julius Kravjar. Today there are 39 higher education institutions and 250,000 students in Slovakia, which has a population of 5.4 million. This is a nearly fourfold increase in admissions since 1989 – the year of political earthquakes in Central and Eastern Europe – when there were 13 institutions and 63,000 students in the country.
This, together with low awareness of copyright and intellectual property rights plus internet penetration which has risen from zero to 79.2% over the period up to 2011, has made Slovakia a fertile ground for a rise in plagiarism. In 2008 only two higher education institutions were using plagiarism detection systems. The situation was serious and required a solution. That year the Slovak Rectors' Conference asked the Ministry of Education to coordinate activities related to the acquisition of a plagiarism detection system and recommended that higher education institutions amend their regulations to ensure that plagiarism was penalised. The Ministry of Education analysed the proposal and decided to launch a systematic fight against plagiarism. A goal was set: by 2010 it would be obligatory for all Slovak institutions to use the national central repository for theses and dissertations (NCRTD) and the national plagiarism detection system (NPDS).
How innovative is it?
The collection and processing of all bachelor, masters and other theses and doctoral dissertations produced at Slovak higher education institutions is concentrated in one place – the NCRTD. Before the defence of the thesis, the higher education institution has to forward the thesis in electronic form to the central repository. The thesis undergoes a check for originality. Incoming theses and dissertations are compared to others in the central repository and to selected internet resources. The originality check protocol is returned to the higher education institution, stating whether the thesis is original or plagiarised. The protocol is one of the sources used by the examining committee in deciding whether a piece of work is original. The thesis and relevant meta data are kept in the central repository for a period of 70 years from the date of registration. Higher education institutions pay no fee for the service. The system’s acquisition costs were covered by the Ministry of Education, which also pays for the operating costs.
The findings after two years
Both systems – NCRTD and NPDS – have been in operation since April 2010. There are 214,000 theses and dissertations in the NCRTD after two years. The majority of theses and dissertations are in the Slovak language (92.8%), followed by English, Czech, Hungarian (all less than 2%) and German (less than 1%).
For dissertations only, 91.2% are in Slovak, 6.4% in English and 1.7% in German. The central repository contains a small percentage of theses in other languages: Russian, Ukrainian, French, Spanish, Italian and Swedish. Analysis shows that the existence of the NCRTD and NPDS acts preventively, and not just in the student community. The public is also able to verify any suspicion of plagiarism, for instance.
Libor Vozár, president of the Slovak Rectors' Conference, said: "The launch of the system had mainly psychological effects – students are more responsible in writing their work and more careful in their use of resources.”
The implementation of the system has also been praised by the rector of the University of Economics in Bratislava, Rudolf Sivák, who said that it had a particularly positive effect on students' attitudes. “Theses are being written more independently, they are of higher quality and there is also an increase in the citation of sources,” he stated.
To sum up
Technology is just one of several dimensions in the fight against plagiarism. There is still a long way to go in order to raise ethical and moral awareness of plagiarism to a higher level. We have to minimise ethical and moral malpractice related to the writing of theses and dissertations by providing appropriate regulations and policies. There are gaps in the educational process, in legislation and in regulations and policies. The elimination of these gaps can significantly contribute to a non-plagiarism culture. The nationwide implementation of the NCRTD and NPDS in everyday practice is very likely a unique solution in Europe and perhaps in the world.
The ‘Slovak model’ can serve as one example of how to fight plagiarism on a national level. To date, we have no information about any other similar models being trialled. But we are aware of the fact that many paths can lead to the same, remarkable ends.
* Julius Kravjar is project manager of the Centrum vedecko-technických informácií Slovenskej republiky (CVTI SR) – the Slovak Centre for Scientific and Technical Information – SCSTI, an institution directly managed by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport. It is in charge of the NCRTD and NPDS system.
See also: La fraude aux examens dans l'enseignement supérieur, Plagiat - Habitudes de documentation et de travail sur Internet chez les étudiants, Fraud in international education, Doktortitel zu verkaufen, Pécresse veut lutter contre la fraude à l'université, Toward a Rational Response to Plagiarism, Plagiat de la recherche, Software Catches (and Also Helps) Young Plagiarists, L’étudiante de Rennes 2 avait piraté le système informatique pour augmenter ses notes, New Partners in the Plagiarism-Detection Business, Un site Internet chinois vend de faux diplômes français avant de disparaître de la toile, Universities need to tell students the rules about plagiarism, says adjudicator, Le plagiat, fléau intellectuel.
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