The Plagiarism Tariff (Inside Higher Ed)
Academics in the United Kingdom have drawn up a national tariff covering penalties for student plagiarism, which could be adopted as a worldwide system for dealing with offenders.
Studies in this area have found high levels of inconsistency in the penalties universities employ to punish students who are found guilty of copying, with wide variations between, and even within, institutions.
Now researchers from the advisory service plagiarismadvice.org have created a points-based system designed to act as a sector-wide “benchmark.” Setting out a range of penalties from informal warnings to expulsion, it allows staff to calculate a score for the seriousness of the offense and use this to select an appropriate penalty.
Universities will be able to compare the tariff against their own systems, which researchers hope will lead to greater consistency in the penalties applied across the sector.
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Example…: A second-year student has cut and pasted two paragraphs of material taken from the internet and used without attribution in the main body of a 2,000-word essay. The student’s record shows a formal warning for a similar incident in a previous formative assignment. … The recommended penalty options are:
• Assignment awarded 0 percent: resubmission required, with the mark capped or reduced
• Assignment awarded 0 percent: no opportunity to resubmit.
Example…: A final-year student has submitted work obtained from a ghostwriting service as a dissertation. The student’s record indicates plagiarism on two previous occasions. … The guidance’s recommended penalty options are:
• Module awarded 0 percent: no opportunity to resit and credit lost
• Award classification reduced
• Qualification reduced
• Expelled from institution, but with credits retained
• Expelled from institution with credits withdrawn.
In 2006, Baroness Deech, the former independent adjudicator for higher education in the U.K., warned that universities were leaving themselves vulnerable to legal action as a result of their inconsistent handling of plagiarism cases….
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