Technology Sniffs Out Student Plagiarism

With Unsourced Copying On The Rise, New Software Programs Are Being Used To Combat Cut-And-Paste

(AP)  The digital red flag drew James Davids forward in his desk chair.

His computer was telling him that 42 percent of a student's research paper contained wording "similar" to information on the Internet, or to other student papers. It needed a closer look.

Davids, an assistant dean at Regent University, had just begun wading through 35 papers from his graduate-level Constitutional Law II class.

One of his first steps these days is to run some of the papers through a software program designed to detect stolen writings and ideas.

Plagiarism detection programs have become increasingly popular on college campuses now that Internet research has become standard and students have discovered the ease of cutting and pasting information.

The Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University reported that 10 percent of students surveyed in 1999 admitted doing so without properly crediting the source. By 2005, the percentage was almost 40 percent. And 77 percent said they didn't think such cheating was a serious issue.

"It's endemic," Davids said.

A mouse click from Davids eliminated matches on the student paper that used quotation marks — those were legitimate. That dropped the "similar" wording to 13 percent.

Plagiarism on campus grabbed the state's attention in 2001 when a University of Virginia physics professor, acting on a tip, checked student papers using a homemade computer program. The school eventually charged 158 students with plagiarism.

Nineteen months later, 20 students had been found guilty of honor violations and kicked out, another 28 admitted guilt and left the school on their own, and 90 students were exonerated. The rest received lesser punishments or treatment, such as counseling, the university reported.

Until a couple of years ago, Regent professors might have checked suspicious passages using the search engine Google, by poring through professional journals, or not at all.

They since have joined Old Dominion University and Virginia Wesleyan College in using such software to help detect plagiarism. One of the most popular software programs, Turnitin, is used by thousands of colleges and high schools in more than 90 countries, according to its Web site.

Regent pays $2,941 per year for the program.

It doesn't determine plagiarism — that's still for professors to decide. Was the copied work an intentional act or a sloppy one, the more common fault?

But it compares student writings with billions of documents — Internet, professional journals, Turnitin's database of other student papers — and highlights matching passages and provides the sources. Each check can take minutes up to a couple of hours, depending on traffic.

"You put the fear of God into them," Davids said. "'I've got this tool. I'm going to use this tool. So watch out.'"

One of Davids' past students, a lover of long paragraphs, turned in a paper that was suspiciously easier to read than past ones. It reminded Davids of The Chronicle of Higher Education. A check showed an 83 percent match with writing in that journal.

And one student paper scored 100 percent — she had put her name on another student's paper that happened to be in the database. A repeat offender, she was kicked out, said Bruce Winston, dean of the School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship.

"If Turnitin finds it, Turnitin always wins," he tells students. "That was one student out of thousands out of 10 years of doctoral students."

It also works the other way: Winston said a check prevented him from accusing a student who turned in a seemingly too-good-to-be-true paper. Davids, who's working on his doctorate, said he runs his own work through the program to make sure he's not inadvertently breaking attribution rules.

Regent students — even some who didn't realize their professors had such tools — didn't seem to mind. They cited examples of plagiarism at their previous schools — including one where the student didn't bother to change the first-person tense of the stolen writing.

"I've always been taught that your ideas or others' ideas are as much your property as your car," said Chuck Slemp, a dual graduate and law student from Pennington Gap.

Students who take shortcuts, "when they go out in the marketplace, they devalue my degree," said Stephen Raper of Chesapeake, a graduate student.

Still looking at the electronic report on his student's paper, Davids saw that, not surprisingly for a government class, most of the remaining matches were proper names of people or laws. No problems there.

But one sentence still stuck out.

"It's only 13 words," Davids said, "but they're not her words. She wouldn't write that way."

So he'll probably send her the report with a reminder: "Be diligent."

Because someone's watching.

[drfarrell]

The problem, however, still remains that material not posted on the internet can be plagiarized and the software won't pick it up. So, many journal articles won't be posted and that's prime meat for these cheaters.

[bmsbms29]

I am currently a non-traditional student and have seen a lot of cheating. Our school does use TurnItIn plus they do check the students work. But I also see students cheating by passing papers when instructor is not looking (some instructors either don't care or they 'trust' the students!) Students also have cheat sheets hidden in areas around their desks & some have put formulas, etc. on their graph calculators when these formulas they were suppose to learn. Personally - I would NOT want to work with graduates who received their diplomas by cheating! NOR would I want to do business with this type graduate.
Schools may have to start having to tape the classrooms, etc. Young people just haven't learned that cheating is wrong.

Unfortunately a lot of parents think the same way!

[roach9703]

We are an over credentialed society. But, what is the purpose of going to school if you are not going to learn something? A degree does not guarantee a job. Knowledge is important. But maybe we need to look more at people enstead of degrees.

[chipper777]

Many years ago in science and math classes and on state exams we could only use a slide ruler to calculate data. The poorer people had to do calcs. manually with a pencil. Then when the first calculators appeared on market some of us still had slide rulers while others could place data into memory and use it on tests. While I found back then that things weren't always equal for all people, my thinking now is that these days things are moving so fast that not only do you need formulas but how to resolve story problems correctly and really learn the materials. I do feel that in classes for exams teachers or professors should see that every student has exactly same type of tools handed out by school to use on exams and students must learn how to process the data and resolve problems. As a matter of fact I really think that exams should be open book and done in class. reason for this is that by discussion several times on same problems in class everyone can learn together and more people pass classes and can move on in their careers. Smart people should tutor weaker students until all people understand what to do with knowledge and that is wisdom. Some day we are going to run out of doctors and nurses or high tech. science people. It is better that all learn and pass together as a true team and not by cheating or other methods. Team players are the futures best students. It also makes better bonds with students and teachers and future employers.

[chipper777]

I was taught in military that way to learn was by using FITS system (Physical Instructional Training System). The brain picks up millions of messages true and false responses. Best way is to only see truth and it will be remembered as truth by brain. On exams we were told to read the questions completely, underline them and the answers. Then say the answer to ourselves 3 times, highlight the answer, circle the answer, and write the answer down three times to every question. Funny part was there were only 1 answer to each question given to 200 questions. Then after the test was done we went over the test in class and discussed why the answers were correct. Then we got a final exam and the same thing happened again! ONLY CORRECT RESPONSES WENT TO OUR MINDS, SO AT THE END OF THE COURSE WHEN WE GOT A FINAL EXAM, every single person had positive perfect papers! Everyone learned together, worked together, and passed together as a Team Players. All people win!

[hypnotoad72]

Useful to an extent, such as obvious copying and pasting material in the software's data library.

What's the efficacy of words cleverly jumbled around?

How is the computer to know?

Especially with profiling tests; people with skills can't get a job at a store yet the store seems to hire people who have no clue on the products they sell and never will, but will surely get you to buy that product... (then wince that in order to get into their tech area, you need to know the product... and then hear other peoples' opinions and by and large those techs get a bad rating. Even a computer should be able to figure out the system doesn't work. Tell that to the suits.)

But the more we computerize everything, the lesser we make ourselves as human beings. And that's part of the problem behind copying and pasting too. We want a computer to do it all for us. Fast food applied to jobs and living. Bad move...

[younmm23]

Turnitin is really good at finding those "cleverly jumbled around" sentences, or changing a word or two to its synonym. It still knows. Our professors have been using it for years with a high success rate. I have never heard of a student falsely accused of plagiarizing. It has enough tools to weed out false matches, just as described in the article. I'm happy the professors use the tool. It makes sure those of us who do honest work get honest grades.

[bmsbms29]

(RE: We are an over credentialed society. But, what is the purpose of going to school if you are not going to learn something? A degree does not guarantee a job. Knowledge is important. But maybe we need to look more at people enstead of degrees.)

When students go to school they should learn a lot - that's why CHEATING is so wrong. A degree does not guarantee a job BUT you are more likely to get a job (even if not in your major) because you have showed that you can work hard & because you simply know more!!

I worked for over 30 years before going to college. I worked with college graduates & I know from experience that a college degree is helpful not only in your job but simply in everyday life.

Some people are not college material but they need to learn a trade & there are plenty of schools for that.

So Get An Education! You Will Become A Better Person!!

[bmsbms29]

Just Do NOT CHEAT!

Get an education that you have EARNED!

What good is a degree if you got it by cheating - I've known of people who were hired - lasted maybe a year until their employers figured out they did not know what they were doing!!!

[darkfyreaol]

Hopefully this encourages people to be 'more diligent' with their work. Often times people simply forget to add citations for their sources (this can be avoided by writing the sources down WHEN they're found)

[rschunk]

Please recall the words of singer-song writer Tom Lehrer: "Plagerize, plagerize, let no word evade your eyes, but always please call it research."

[random_radar]

"Just Do NOT CHEAT!

Get an education that you have EARNED!

What good is a degree if you got it by cheating - I've known of people who were hired - lasted maybe a year until their employers figured out they did not know what they were doing!!!"

I've known a lot more who moved into management and now make tons of money watching other people do their work. But it is still good advice for those who have a conscience and self-respect. Cheaters may prosper, but those who earned what they have feel good about themselves.