Online Cheating
A New Twist to an Old Problem - Part 2

On-line cheating troubles educators. Easy access to materials and simple text manipulation can make cutting corners or even outright plagiarism a possible outcome for the typical assignment. This article is the second of three installments examining strategies for dealing with on-line academic misconduct. This article deals with "higher-tech" techniques for detecting on-line cheating, which can be utilized after suspicions have been raised about the legitimacy of a paper. Information on using the initial low-tech screening techniques is found in Part 1. The next and final installment will focus on developing methods to address students' underlying values and behaviors.

The most straightforward method of detecting online plagiarism is to use one or more of the popular Web-based search engines such as Alta Vista, Google, or HotBot and simply search for keywords from the suspect paper. A cautionary note: If you choose too general of words or phrases to search, you will quickly become frustrated because of the sheer volume of possible sites you must sort through. For example, in a student development theories class, a search for Kohlberg or Moral Development or even "Authority and Social-Order Maintaining Orientation" will yield an overwhelming number of possible links. Therefore, when you perform a search, type in a unique phrase with obscure words to help narrow the corresponding "hits" or search results. The best keywords to search are often the ones that tipped you off that the paper in question might be plagiarized.

Since no single search engine covers the entire Web, you may need to use more than one. Since your student may have initially used a search engine to locate the paper or source, start with the ones your campus uses. Ask your information technology office which particular search engines are most often used in the labs or by students connected in the residence halls. What ever your search tactic, be creative and patient. In the end, however, you must decide how much time and energy you will personally spend tracking down ill-gotten papers.

As a matter of fact, you need not perform the search yourself. There are a number of websites focused on plagiarism detection. However, many sites are commercial and therefore some sort of fee payment or licensing agreement is required. Below is a partial list and brief description of plagiarism detection sites. The list is meant to be informational and not an endorsement. You will need to evaluate the appropriateness of any given site to meet your specific needs.

Plagiarism.org

This is a proprietary, fee-based plagiarism detection software and paper mill monitoring organization. An instructor registers his/her class with Plagiarism.org. Each instructor then requests that his/her students upload their term papers or manuscripts to the TurnItIn.com web site and the papers are screened. The fact that a course is registered with plagiarism.org may deter cheating for fear of detection.

Essay Verification Engine Home Page

Eve2 (Essay Verification Engine) processes essays in plain text format (TXT) and returns links to Web pages from which a student may have plagiarized. It’s marketing material states that "the program has been developed to be powerful enough to find plagiarized material while not overwhelming the professor with false links." A 15-day free trail of Eve2.2 is available.

Plagiarism.com

This organization produces three different software programs to help deter and detect plagiarism.

Glatt Plagiarism Teaching Program (GPTeach)

A tutorial program that provides computer assisted instruction on what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it. Includes definitions of direct and indirect plagiarism, when and how to provide attribution, and a mastery test of concepts.

Glatt Plagiarism Screening Program (GPSP)

This is touted as a highly sophisticated screening program to detect plagiarism. The procedure assumes that each person has an individual style of writing, (i.e., writing styles are as unique as fingerprints). Furthermore, a person knows and can remember her/his own writing style far more accurately than anyone else. Basically the program asks the student to rewrite portions of the paper in question and compares the rewrite to the original. If the student wrote the original, then the two will be statistically similar.

Glatt Plagiarism Self-Detection Program (GPSD)

This is a screening program to help detect inadvertent instances of plagiarism during the writing process.

Findsame.com

FindSame claims to be a sophisticated search engine that looks for content, not keywords. You submit an entire document, and FindSame returns a list of Web pages that contain any fragment of that document longer than about one line of text.

Given the dynamic nature of the Web, on-line methods for detecting plagiarism will continue to evolve and new ones will be established. However, so too will the methods that allow for cheating to flourish. Two different scenarios help illustrate ongoing challenges of relying too heavily on web-based plagiarism detection.

The first challenge to general on-line detection is the explosive growth of proprietary digital databases that are not found on the Web and therefore would not be searchable by a search engine or the aforementioned detection sites (except the GPSP which does not rely on finding the source). For example, at my institution of fewer than 5000 students, our library provides licensed access to more than 7000 journals and newspapers most of which are not accessible on-line. So, in addition to conducting a general Web search, you may need to search the library’s databases to unearth the true source of a plagiarized paper. Complicating the issue of licensed databases is the fact that a source could be housed at a public library or any other library (such as consortia institutions) to which the student may have access.

The second challenge is scanning devices. For years students have been able to scan pages of a book or other printed resources. The scanned material could be quickly manipulated and passed off as one’s own work. Back when scanners were relatively scarce and not overly accurate (for example "nn" might scan as "m"), this type of cheating was limited. However, the technology is improving and becoming cheaper and more mobile (scanners capable of holding thousands of pages are now not much larger than a highlighter and these devises can be purchased for starting at $100). In fact, in at least one case, a hand-held scanning device was being marketed as a method to cut corners: The C-Pen was advertised at www.nostudytime.com. (As of March, the site was no longer functioning, but the not so subtle point had been made: a scanning device could be taken into the library where an entire passage or even entire paper could be scanned. With the press of a button, that passage or paper could be uploaded onto a student’s computer and would be quite difficult to trace by current on-line detection methods).

To be sure, technology advances and student creativity will always result in some cheating that goes undetected. Prevention, therefore, is the better solution and will be the topic for the next article.