A roll-out of the JISC plagiarism detection service with biological sciences students

Joanne Badge

Jon Scott

Alan Cann

Abstract

Two pilot studies led to the adoption of the JISC Plagiarism Detection Software, TurnitinUK, in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Leicester. Successful implementation relied on well established systems and procedures for dealing with plagiarism. The rate of detection of plagiarism increased with the initial introduction of automatic scanning, though recent data suggest that the incidence of plagiarism is now in decline. Our results on the rates of plagiarism detected over the last three academic years suggest that the JISC PDS is an effective means of both detecting and deterring plagiarism. However, self-plagiarism by students now appears to be occurring in a significant number of cases and offers a new challenge to our policies and teaching.

This paper was submitted to the International Integrity & Plagiarism Conference which ran between 2004-2014. The paper was peer reviewed by an independent editorial board and features in the conference proceedings.