'Rise' in students cheating
The number of students cheating is on the rise, The Times newspaper claims today.
A total of 6,672 incidents of plagiarism and collusion were recorded in 2003/4 at the 64 universities (around half of all) it made requests to under the Freedom of Information Act. What it doesn't make any mention of is how many were recorded in previous years, so quite how it knows they have risen is not clear.
Despite the fact that the proportion of students cheating could have stayed the same or even fallen in line with increasing student numbers, the article is happy to cite universities' "concern...as students turn to the internet to buy essays and dissertations and pass them off as their own."
No particular examples are given, but one could have been Brunel's vice-chancellor (he of 'no morals' fame), or perhaps the 51% of tutors who, er, ignore plagiarism and collusion. Admittedly the online trade in essays appears to be growing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that proportionately more students are cheating – it could just be that the ones who would have plagiarised books and journals are more tech-savvy.
Regardless, we can all wag fingers at the 707 Westminster University students who plagiarised in 2003/4 – the highest incidence that year, The Times says. Or could it possibly be that tutors there are just better and keener at spotting it?
Slapped wrists too for the five masters students who were permanently excluded from Coventry for cheating. At least none of that nasty sort of business goes on at Oxford or Cambridge, which The Times happily reports had no reported incidents of cheating.
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From The Rundown
Students have no morals, says vice-chancellorHalf of tutors ignore cheating
Growing online trade in essays
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