Examining Plagiarism in UK Universities: Solutions for Ethical Management

In this research report we will discuss about ethical management  and below are the summaries point:- This research report evaluates the extent of plagiarism in UK universities and explores possible solutions to eradicate this unethical behavior. Plagiarism, a form of cheating and academic offense, involves students hiring third-party agencies to write their assignments, claiming the work as their own. The report highlights the prevalence of plagiarism in UK universities and discusses the importance of implementing measures to address this issue effectively.

Running head: ETHICAL MANAGEMENT
Ethical Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Content
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................3
2 Plagiarism Cases witnessed across UK Universities..............................................................4
Discussion and Conclusion........................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Topic- Evaluate the extent of plagiarism in UK universities and discuss the possible
solutions to eradicate this unethical behaviour
Introduction
This research report presents an evaluation of the extent of plagiarism in students’
papers in UK universities. Plagiarism is a type of cheating and academic offence in which
students hires the help of a third party agency to write assignment for them for specified
momentary value and after submitting the paper claims to prove that as their own. In
addition, providers of such counterfeited work claims that papers they produce are 100% free
from plagiarism but decidedly, it is a misleading claim. Purpose of this report is to evaluate
the degree of plagiarism in UK universities and find suitable solutions to prevent such
counterfeited work. There are certain terms that are used to explain particular types of
plagiarism with the inclusion of contract cheating, paid plagiarism, turn in fraud and
academic fraud.
It has been identified that all universities tend to have policies on this problem and to
this stop relentless menace, universities have started using plagiarism detection software.
However, the issue of plagiarism is under the constant discussion. Nevertheless, this is a case
of being observed to do something instead of confronting the issue. It is certain that
plagiarism is not a technical issue but it is rather a shame on academic culture. It is
particularly identified that every now and then, there is an outburst of concern regarding the
occurrence of plagiarism in higher education in UK. Teh and Paull (2013, p.285) mentioned
that recent Freedom of Information request which looked across UK providers discovered
that academic references were found to be high as 50,000 student cases over three
consecutive years. The issue is taking its toll on students, while some universities are trying
to become more vigilant towards students’ habit of counterfeiting the work. This report

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identifies this ongoing issue and develops suitable solutions against the cases discussed in the
following.
Literature Review
According to Kokkinaki, Demoliou and Iakovidou (2015, p3), passing off someone
else’s’ work s one’s own is plagiarism; thereby decidedly, it is serious academic conduct,
whether or not one intends to do so does not make sense. Consequently, the ones caught
plagiarizing usually encounter the penalties such as having to re-submit the assignments or in
a more serious cases, they end up dealing with suspension and expulsion. Halupa and
Bolliger (2013, p.298) commented that UK’s government proposed suitable measures both on
students who plagiarise as well as the online service providers. Singh and Remenyi (2016,
p.6) mentioned that in UK, third party services are a large business but in the recent time, UK
governments issues a guidance on how universities could beat contract cheating. It has been
identified that universities are urged to custom writing service sites and defect their
promotion and set up adjudication panels for those alleged of academic misconduct.
However, this is way more complicated process than it is actually reported because at
such point myriad of approaches should be taken in direct relation to the sites being used.
Ehrich et al. (2016, p.235) mentioned more old and enriched agencies probably have an army
of people who could have written the paper prior to the issue and hence commission goes to
them. Teh and Paull (2013, p.284) mentioned evading plagiarism is not just about the
references given in the content are correct or forging enough words, examiner could observe
the style of paraphrasing. It is more about deploying academic skills to make the work as well
as it should be. When it comes to developing the solutions for plagiarized work, Stuhmcke,
Booth and Wangmann (2016, p.283) mentioned that plagiarism is often considered as a
significant breach of academic integrity and it is a set of principles of intellectual honesty

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based on which all parties of academic organizations should acknowledge their debt to
individual who create the ideas. In addition to this, it is worth mentioning that passing off
another’s work as one’s own is not only poor scholarship but also means that the individual is
failed to compete the learning process. Usoof, Hudson, and Lindgren (2014, p.55) also added
the fact that plagiarism is unethical as well as can have serious outcomes for future career.
Nonetheless, apart from these known issues, there is a state of confusion with the
back-up of references in the content, as one might feel that inclusion of citations for every
significant or informative point could disrupt the flow of paper and make it more unauthentic
bit this might sometimes be inevitable. Halupa and Bolliger (2013, p.299) claims that
university students by applying food citations practices from the begging, could manage to
avoid errors like close form of paraphrasing or inappropriate quotation. Authors of this study
have also highlighted the fact that not all incidents of plagiarism could occur due to deliberate
intention; this means, students sometimes could forget to take down citations details or could
not genuinely know referees conventions. However, such excuses could offer no assured
protection against the charge of plagiarism. In fact, in case where plagiarism is seen to have
been neither deliberate nor reckless, there could still be penalty of poor academic practices.
2 Plagiarism Cases witnessed across UK Universities
It has been identified that Russell Group Universities which is a group of 24 leading
institutions with the inclusion of Oxford and Cambridge demonstrates the number of
academic misconduct cases which is surged by 40%, from 2,450 to 3721 between years 2014-
15 and 2017-18 (Idiegbeyan-Ose, Nkiko and Osinulu, 2016, p.265). A Leeds University
spoke-person they also observed many cases of gathering information about the academic
misconduct. Leeds University has recorded one of the biggest increases in reports of
cheating (Singh and Remenyi 2016, p8). It has been identified that cases more than doubled

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from 181 to 433 in last three years. A spoke-person for Leeds University said that they had a
clear as well as robust procedures in place to deal with cases of academic misconduct that
have been evaluated and reviewed on a regular basis. This figure appears as government
concern which further associated with contact cheating where students employed third party
writers to complete their assignment. These two incidents did not cease to take its toll on
universities, as Russell Group Universities recorded details of contract cheating separately
and most have not updated their academic misconduct process in the last year. In this context,
Halupa and Bolliger (2013, p.294) mentioned that with increasing level of debt and greater
costs associated with research, students are now under the constant pressure from different
directions because it is quite easy to observe how the so called contract cheating agencies
could prey upon the vulnerabilities of students.
According to Pecorari and Petrić (2014, p.265), the scale of practice of
commissioning plagiarized papers could be difficult to quantify and the studies so far been
limited to academics and journalists at a relatively small number of cases. Nonetheless, such
findings cannot be broken down to observe how may are the result of students’ submitting
papers. However, Idiegbeyan-Ose, Nkiko and Osinulu (2016, p.256) mentioned that the
numbers might denote how many students were caught; the number of students who commit
to such counterfeit and are not discovered will be greater. According to Bretag (2013, p.23)
Thomas Lancaster known as an associate dean at Staffordshire University as well as one of
UK’s leading experts on plagiarism said that students must have to take responsibilities as
well because students arrive and they are adapted to the bad habit and further expert also
added the fact that some students tend to skip lecture and modules. Hu and Lei (2015, p.235)
mentioned that media reports have been generated as the custom academic paper writing
services stepping up their advertising and access to custom paper writing organizations is
usually through the internet and social network. It has also been identified that UK’s

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universities are observed to be in the midst of a plagiarism epidemic as per the media
investigation and consequently, almost 50,000 students were caught cheating in the last three
years.
Discussion and Conclusion
Affirmation
The action which would be taken to apply policies of against plagiarism and academic
malpractice must ensure the inclusion of plagiarism detection software in university degree
courses. This means higher education course should not incorporate plagiarism detection
software for all its cases. Faculties are instructed to use their own experience and knowledge
of learners to trace the occurrence of plagiarism and then cooperate with the university link
tutors to set penalty for the same. University should manage and use similarity-detection tools
on two programs and students in the university should be communicated about the
repercussion of plagiarism when admitting them to university. In addition to this, course
lecture should sign a declaration part of the course assessment sheet.
Action should be applied to identify and resolve the cause of high academic misconduct
cases among global students
At induction or any appropriate time of the course, students should be provided with oral and
written information on expected academic conduct. Academic Regulation and Course guide
should hold the information on penalties for academic misconduct. In addition, to this resolve
this issue, University should acknowledge this element through its analysis of academic
misconduct. University can develop a workgroup to improvise the process such as support
training made for leaners and faculties.

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References
Bretag, T., 2013. Challenges in addressing plagiarism in education. PLoS medicine, 10(12),
p.e1001574.
Ehrich, J., Howard, S.J., Mu, C. and Bokosmaty, S., 2016. A comparison of Chinese and
Australian university students' attitudes towards plagiarism. Studies in Higher
Education, 41(2), pp.231-246.
Halupa, C. and Bolliger, D.U., 2013. Faculty perceptions of student self plagiarism: An
exploratory multi-university study. Journal of Academic Ethics, 11(4), pp.297-310.
Hu, G. and Lei, J., 2015. Chinese university students’ perceptions of plagiarism. Ethics &
Behavior, 25(3), pp.233-255.
Idiegbeyan-Ose, J., Nkiko, C. and Osinulu, I., 2016. Awareness and Perception of Plagiarism
of Postgraduate Students in Selected Universities in Ogun State, Nigeria. Library Philosophy
and Practice.2(3), p.233-298
Kokkinaki, A.I., Demoliou, C. and Iakovidou, M., 2015. Students’ perceptions of plagiarism
and relevant policies in Cyprus. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 11(1), p.3.
Pecorari, D. and Petrić, B., 2014. Plagiarism in second-language writing. Language
Teaching, 47(3), pp.269-302.
Singh, S. and Remenyi, D., 2016. Plagiarism and ghostwriting: The rise in academic
misconduct. South African Journal of Science, 112(5-6), pp.1-7.
Stuhmcke, A., Booth, T. and Wangmann, J., 2016. The illusory dichotomy of
plagiarism. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(7), pp.982-995.

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Teh, E.C. and Paull, M., 2013. Reducing the prevalence of plagiarism: A model for staff,
students and universities. Issues in Educational Research, 23(2), pp.283-298.
Usoof, H., Hudson, B. and Lindgren, E., 2014. Plagiarism: Catalysts and not so simple
solutions. In Cases on professional distance education degree programs and practices:
Successes, challenges, and issues (pp. 49-85). IGI Global.

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