Tutors fight a nonstop battle with plagiarism, worsened by the escalating volume of information freely available on the Web at the push of a button. This constant struggle is felt by producers of plagiarism checkers like plagiarismchecker.net, which are permanently being designed to deal with new threats and strategies being used to cheat. It appears that those few students who can’t or do not want to carry out their papers honestly have always got a new trick up their sleeve to get around university plagiarism detection software. So what’s the latest trick to deceive plagiarism checkers such as plagiarismchecker.net and Turnitin?
Sneaky pupils have been acquiring assignments written in another language, running them through a free translator like Google Translate, and passing off the work as their own. This works especially well for foreign language pupils'’ coursework but could be utilized in any subject as long as the pupil is sensible enough to translate their search into their target language to begin with. Even though the free translators produce some fairly unusual translations, it is easy enough for them to tidy up the outcome. Is this a problem plagiarism checkers can handle?
Languages do not translate word for word to other languages – the word order is usually rearranged from language-to-language. The scanner would also have to break-down the paper, translate it into however many languages are to be checked, and then put those scans against the internet, as well as scanning for plagiarism in the document’s language. The procedure would be complicated and lengthy. The answer for this definitely won’t be easy.
So what can be achieved to overcome this new kind of cheating? Rather than attempting to detect plagiarism, maybe tutors should be looking at the underlying cause. Many pupils turn to cheating simply because they are not able to complete their papers themselves. This might be for several different reasons. A common reason is that they are an international pupil who has been accepted onto a course for a higher course fee, and as a consequence the entry requirements for that course have been relaxed or waived completely. It is attractive for both the University and the Government to accept these students, given that they pay more and introduce more funds into the country. But there is hardly any additional help once they arrive – with universities typically stretched already in their resources and not able to provide further teaching to support those students get past the language barrier.
Other students simply do not have an understanding of their course and struggle, not knowing who to talk to. Lecturers are hard pressed for time and spread too thinly, and unable to give them the time they need to get by. Larger than predicted classes typically leave pupils hesitant to speak up when they are falling behind.
Where there’s no additional tutelage presented, there’s a further cost in time, resources and consideration to set up learning support in the first place. So the bottom line is that some pupils won't be supported as much as they need to be and it is usually those pupils who turn to cheating. Should we focus on trying to discover these students? Or should we center on preventing the problem by addressing it before they cheat? You decide.
Helpful links:
- JISC – plagiarism resources and advice from the Joint Information Systems Committee.
- http://www.plagiarismchecker.net/ – free plagiarism checking software and articles, resources and lesson plans on avoiding plagiarism.
- PlagiarismAdvice.org – JISC’s specific plagiarism advice website.
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