This fall, simply copying other writers' texts and submitting them as your own work becomes a thing of the past. The UT is about to introduce a filter that compares a student's work to existing texts.
In high school it happens routinely, but at the university level it is also not uncommon: duplicating the work of others as a shortcut to writing a paper. State Secretary Rutte proposes making the punishment more severe, but the UT is focusing on improving the method of detection. It will introduce a plagiarism scanner, Ephorus, this fall. This program will compare submitted texts to existing texts, both from the internet and from the work of other students.
Ellen Peters, from ITBE's Education & ITC department, explains, `A request came from the department of Communication Science to introduce a plagiarism scanner. It was decided to expand the system to cover the entire university.' When the first assignments are submitted in November, TCW teachers will get a chance to check the work for unauthorized copying. `Depending on their evaluation, the system may be expanded to cover the entire university.'
Ephorus, a commercial software product, compares the submitted work to public publications on the internet. It is also possible to compare assignments to the work of other students, ruling out copying from fellow students. `The system will analyse the text and summarize the results. Green means that nothing was copied, orange signifies that a number of similarities to other work have been found and red indicates that a lot has been copied,' Peters explains. `After that, it is up to the teacher to see whether any unauthorized copying has taken place. Of course, the author could cite another work and add a proper reference.'
Jos Bartels, a teacher at Applied Communication Science, has caught a number of plagiarists. `In all cases, the students were approached about my findings, quickly admitted the fraud and got a one.' Still, it is not always this simple. `There are situations where the problem lies with the citation list.' When the filter is introduced, Bartels will probably use it. `When used at random, it sounds like a useful tool. Still, the student is responsible for his own actions. This is not kindergarten and people should know better at the university level.' He does not think there is more plagiarism by communication students than in other programs. `It is mostly in the type of curriculum, which is very project-centred here. We use cases for several years, which does make committing fraud easier.'
With the purchase of Ephorus, the UT joins the ranks of a large number of educational institutes who use it already. Unique to the UT is the integration into a virtual learning environment. Peters: `This is the first time we are connecting another system directly to TeleTop and we are waiting to see whether our servers can take the load. We may only run the detection system at night.'
Communication student Maarten Koster is involved with education on behalf of Communiqué, the association of communication students. `I welcome the new system. You often hear about students borrowing reports from an older student. In principle, there is nothing wrong with that, but obviously students should do their own work.' Maarten supposes that the new system will demand a `casualty' from now on. `Of course, the rules are clear and the students are forewarned.'
Trans. Jeroen Latour
