Plagiarism: A case study of quality improvement in a taught postgraduate programme

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

Informing students about plagiarism and the use of plagiarism-detecting software is not sufficient to change students’ writing practice. An interactive seminar, involving examples and reflection, with a clear explanation of the consequences, has been shown to produce improvement in both the overall plagiarism scores and incidence of plagiarism. Using control charts of plagiarism scores provides an easy way to interpret individual results and enables comparison over time.

Table 1.  Average percentage text match in assignments from years 2006 to 2009

		Average percentage text match and (N) for each assignment title
		2006		2007		2008		2009
Start of academic year in which students enrolled	Assignment title	Match (%)	N	Match (%)	N	Match (%)	N	Match (%)	N
2008	CA	28.5	39	37.4	47	20.8	35	18.1	47
	EH	24.9	18	25.4	22	10.3	12
	HE	17.2	12	22.7	16	8.1	14	10.3	18
	HI	30.3	41	28.0	45	23.6	35	20.8	53
	HP	23.2	21	23.8	29	14.4	24	10.4	42
	M	10.1	17	13.3	23	7.8	22	2.9	66
	PHDC	26.7	27	41.4	17	12.4	7	11.6	14
	Project	18.6	16	19.4	39	14.6	27	16.1	44
	Soc			29.1	9	10.2	10	12.4	8
2009	AS			14.1	12	18.4	10	18.6	28
	MBHTA			33.1	8	29.7	6	17.8	10
	Micro			25.3	4	16.7	3	7.7	11
	P&P			21.6	8	19.5	18	11.7	16
	QRM					23.8	11	12.4	24

Figure 1. Control chart of percentage text match in CA assignments from 2006 to 2009 (UCL, upper confidence limit (3 SD) and LCL, lower confidence limit (3 SD)).

Figure 2. Control chart of percentage text match in HI assignments from 2006 to 2009 (UCL, upper confidence limit (3 SD) and LCL, lower confidence limit (3SD)).

Figure 3. Control chart of percentage text match in P&P assignments from 2007 to 2009 (UCL, upper confidence limit (3 SD) and LCL, lower confidence limit (3SD)).