Essay Cheat

The Mirror (London, England) June 21, 2007 UNIVERSITIES CHALLENGED; EXCLUSIVE Probe uncovers huge rise in cheating students; News Pg. 7 864 words by ANDREW GREGORY HUNDREDS of students have been caught cheating at university, the Daily Mirror can reveal. The University of Ulster, the largest in Ireland, has seen a 900 per cent rise in plagiarism since 2001. And investigators at Queen's University, Belfast, nabbed nearly 100 rogue students trying to trick their tutors in just one year. The figures, obtained by the Daily Mirror under the Freedom of Information Act, come just weeks after internet giant Google said it would ban firms selling essays online. Prof Drummond Bone, the president of Universities UK, welcomed themove and said: "Making life harder for these cynical web 'essay mills' is a step in the right direction." One student was investigated by university chiefs last month afterallegedly attacking a tutor who caught him cheating in an exam. The University of Ulster student was found with material to help pass the paper but was not kicked out. He was due to graduate this summer but will have to resit the examin September. In the past two years, 110 rogue students have been caught cheating at the University of Ulster. A spokesman said: "Plagiarism is a serious offence against academic integrity and is a disciplinary offence in UU examination regulations. "The penalties, depending on the gravity of the offence, include exclusion from the university for repeated offences of this type. "In recognition of the growing problem of plagiarism, the University of Ulster introduced on Jan 1 2007 a new policy framework ot address the issue. The university has also introduced anti-plagiarism software TurnItIn which students and staff can use to detect plagiarism." In the past two years, 160 shamed students have been caught defrauding tutors at Queen's. Three of them, a Maths and Physics student, a Medicine and Dentistry student and a Theology student, have since lodged appeals. Politics, International Studies and Philosophy students have been caught out more than other students. Tutors have found 44 bluffing students from the department since 2005. No students studying Biomedical Sciences or Pharmacy were found tobe cheating. But students reading every other subject at Queen's University Belfast - including English, Geography, History, Economics, Nursing and Psychology - have been caught out. A recent survey found more than half of university students believe their tutors would not spot work taken from the internet. Queen's University Belfast Students Union education vice-presidentMichael Forde said: "Some students think that they will get away with it. "And some will have left it to the last minute and ended up copying chunks out of books or off the internet." Queen's declined to reveal details of cheating cases before 2005. A statement said: "To collate further details in response to your request would have exceeded the 'appropriate limit' as defined in theFreedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004." Dr Fiona Duggan, head of advice and information at the national plagiarism advisory service, JISCPAS, said: "There are cases where students are just not referencing correctly. "But then if they buy an essay off the internet and hand it in without changing the content at all, they will be caught cheating. "Sometimes they are taking information off the internet but often it is other students helping them. "Friends think they are doing them a favour if a student says theyare stuck on some work." Dr Duggan said tutors were becoming better at spotting copied workin submitted essays or coursework. She added: "Most lecturers go to Google. They can check a student's work and see if information has come off the internet. "Often students are caught out because the writing style changes. "They use American spellings or talk about something that sounds like it happened recently but actually happened years ago." A Queen's University spokeswoman said: "The presentation of the work of others as the writer's own is an academic offence. "The university is aware that some essay-writing services claim tooffer a service that cannot be detected by plagiarism detection software. "There are other indicators that a paper may have been written by a third party, including reference to publications that are not available at Queen's, the academic standard and content of the work in relation to other examples from the student or the class, and stylistic variations compared to the student's other work." Cheating students face a range of different penalties from writtenwarnings to a mark of zero for the module. Some are made to resit the module but can only get a maximum of the pass mark. TOP 10 METHODS OF CONNING AT COLLEGE * TEXT notes to a mobile phone * BUY essays off the internet * SCRIBBLE notes on the arms or hands * PAY a student to sit the exam * HAND in coursework by former students * STEAL paragraphs from books * COPY work from other students * HIDE notes on chewing gum paper * BID for dissertations on eBay * BRIBE a student to write the essay andrew.gregory@mirror.co.uk CAPTION(S): INVESTIGATION: Queen's University in Belfast caught scamming students; WORRY: University of Ulster, Jordanstown; WARNING: Dr Fiona Duggan and Michael Forde have urged students not to copy from net June 22, 2007 ENGLISH ACC-NO: 165341326 Newspaper JOURNAL-CODE: 0DDA ASAP Copyright 2007 Gale Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved ASAP Copyright 2007 MGN LTD