University of Malta soars in anti-plagiarist rankings

The University of Malta has employed amongst one of the most advanced anti-plagiarising systems, a study by Coventry University, in the UK has found.

The UK has the most mature system in Europe for promoting academic integrity among students, according to study of universities' plagiarism software, consistency of sanctions, and prevention policies.

"There's no doubt that in the UK we're a lot more advanced than most countries, in most aspects," Irene Glendinning, principal investigator on the Impact of Policies for Plagiarism in Higher Education across Europe project, told the Times Literary Supplement.

The study - based on a voluntary and anonymous survey of about 5,000 students, teachers and senior managers, and on interviews with representatives of national higher education bodies - found Austria and Sweden to have the next most advanced systems, followed by the Republic of Ireland and Malta.

Bulgaria and Spain were tied in last place among 27 European Union nations, both performing poorly on all criteria except their knowledge and understanding of academic integrity. Germany, Italy and France were all ranked in the lower half of the table.

In 2009, the University of Malta resorted to a controversial American software programme, which sources an archive of millions of academic papers and students' assignments from all over the world to catch out plagiarists.

Turnitin detects plagiarism from the internet, by comparing papers and essays from a database of over 22 million papers, and archived journals. However, the essays submitted will also be storied inside the Turnitin database to prevent the use of one student's paper by another student and identify any matching text between papers.

The problem of plagiarism from the internet in Malta was first raised in 2005 by former pro-rector and university ombudsman Charles Farrugia, who appealed to all lecturers who feel "plagued by plagiarism" to share their experiences before university decides on the plan of action.

Farrugia had recounted what he described "the most ludicrous case of plagiarism" when a student admitting being unable to write "anything better" than the thesis he had copied from. "His answer was: 'Why did you bring me here? That thesis was too good, I couldn't write anything better'."

Glendinning said that in Spain students reported that tools to detect plagiarism were rarely used, and only one-third said there were policies for dealing with the problem.

In other countries such as France, some respondents suggested that academic integrity was not an issue that needed to be addressed at the undergraduate stage, she added.

It was surprising how "primitive" systems for dealing with academic integrity were in countries such as Germany and Finland, which had otherwise excellent reputations for education, Glendinning said.

"We found some pockets of good practice there, but most people really are in the Dark Ages in comparison with what's going on in the UK and anglophone countries such as Australia and the US," she said.

The full results of the project, including country breakdowns, will be published by the end of November.