Plagiarism, procedures and penalties

An article in last week's Evening Standard (Thursday 27^th May) reported that a final year student at the University of Kent at Canterbury was told not to bother with his last exam as he'd been caught submitting copied essays off the web for credit. The article has a bit of a slant against the University as even though the student admits it, the Uni informed him by email (inappropriate, IMO, and ineffective here -- I get 'return receipts' from students up to 6 months after sending the email!) and implies the essays were not submitted recently. The student's parents are understandably pissed but apparently not at their son! I don't get it -- my parents would have been livid if I'd done something that shameful. The lecturer supposedly saying Everybody does this. You're unlucky ... you got caught does not excuse the crime! (But suggests a firmer line needs taking ... as we're doing here and here and here!) The student deserves to have this issue follow him into the workplace. If he's happy to cheat at Uni, where else will he cheat? Or has he learned his lesson?!

However the Uni's approach (as reported in the article) seems poor. As much as I hate to admit it (!) the tortuous procedures in place here (they seem designed to discourage lecturers from prosecuting students) are much better. We'd never email a guilty student to inform them of any penalty! They may get an email as well as a letter inviting them to their initial inquiry but everything else is in writing. And even after they admit the offence, the penalty varies according to the offence (4 penalties, from a weak zero & 2^nd chance up to, eventually, chucking them out) and is not final until ratified by the relevant assessment board, which is chaired by a very senior member of staff. That's not to say I like the damned process but it does seem to cover our butts!

6^th April 2005: from Guardian online The report notes that an increasing number of UK institutions have specialist officers located within the school or department who deal with all cases of plagiarism. If only...