Coventry amongst universities using ‘FBI-style’ software to detect cheating

Coventry University is amongst a handful of UK universities informally trialling new software that aims to combat cheating.

Using forensic linguistics to analyse the lexicon, grammar, and structure of assignments, the software has been developed by tech company Turnitin and mirrors the techniques used by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in the United States.

Whilst measures to detect plagiarism have been in place for a long time, universities hope that this new software will tackle the problem of essay mills, the use of which has seen a sharp increase in recent years. For example, a recent study by Swansea University found that one in seven university essays worldwide are written by paid ghostwriters.

Turnitin Vice-president Bill Loller explained how the technology is aware of progress made by students. He stated: “We’re not interested in the paper you submitted as a first year versus a fourth year, they’re vastly different, or not worried about how you write for different disciplines.

“How you write for economics can be vastly different from English literature – that’s okay. But if within a genre and within a reasonable amount of time we start to see differences, that’s when we flag something.”

On tackling cheating in university, Dr Irene Glendinning from Coventry University has stated: “It’s like an arms race.”

We knew students were plagiarising so we now have sophisticated tools to detect it, so the next thing was ghostwriting and the tools don’t detect that

– Dr Irene Glendinning

“We knew students were plagiarising so we now have sophisticated tools to detect it, so the next thing was ghostwriting and the tools don’t detect that.”

The move comes a year after universities watchdog Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) announced a crackdown on essay mill websites following an investigation which found hundreds of companies producing work for students to submit as part of their degree.

Warwick’s Vice-chancellor Stuart Croft was amongst 46 university chiefs behind a recent letter to Education Secretary Damien Hinds calling for action be taken against essay mills.

It demands that essay writing services be banned and emphasises how unfair they are for, “honest, hard-working students”. It also stated that legislation should be put in place to ban essay mills advertising on campuses and online.

The University of Warwick classes plagiarism as a “serious offence,” and in the case of cheating, Heads of Department may nullify an assessment or bring the issue to a Senate disciplinary committee, which has the power to enforce more severe penalties.