Hundreds of uni students in Wales caught cheating
HUNDREDS of students have been caught cheating in exams and course work at universities in Wales, with a number thrown off courses and unable to graduate.
Westminster Universities Minister Jo Johnson has called on university and student bodies to do more to deal with the spread of “essay mills” – websites which provide customwritten essays for students to submit as part of their degree.
Universities in Wales said they have strict policies on plagiarism and exam misconduct and warn students about the penalties.
At Cardiff University two students were told they could no longer continue their studies in the last two years – a postgraduate in 2015-16 and an undergraduate in the last academic year 2016-17.
In 2015-16, 79 possible exam unfair practice cases were reported at Cardiff, of which 40 went to a committee of inquiry and students were found proven of cheating in an exam.
There were also 403 cases of academic misconduct in non-exam situations in 2015-16 and 288 in 201617.
Bangor University said it identified 73 cases of plagiarism between 2014 and this year. As a result three students had to leave their courses – one in 2014 and two in 2015.
In other cases, penalties included not being able to get the highest award/class mark or having the mark set at 0%, meaning they either had to resit or were barred from resubmission and had to keep the zero mark.
Aberystwyth University reported 159 cases of “unacceptable academic practice” in 2015-16, and 213 in 201415, the latest figures it has available.
A spokeswoman said the cases were mostly for plagiarism in course work but also included some cases of collusion in course work and breaches of exam regulations.
“Aberystwyth University operates a points-based penalty system to ensure consistent application of penalties. For severe cases of plagiarism, students would receive a mark of zero for a piece of course work or the entire module, and denied an opportunity to resit.
“Repeated cases can result in module marks being cancelled for an entire term, effectively denying students the opportunity to pass their degree course.
“University regulations also allow the exclusion of students in exceptional cases.
“We have very thorough procedures in place to deal with possible causes of unacceptable academic practice and to educate our students on good academic practice.”
Students at Aberystwyth are required to submit course work assignments online through the Turnitin text-matching tool, which helps staff detect and investigate possible cases of plagiarism.
A spokeswoman for Cardiff University said: “The university takes all allegations of unfair practice seriously.
“A range of sanctions are available, including requiring the student to undertake appropriate study skills training and the cancellation of the student’s marks for all or part of the examination paper or other assessment component.
“The most serious penalty available to the committee of inquiry (which considers allegations of cheating in exams) is a recommendation to the Vice-Chancellor that the student be disqualified from any future exams.”
Other universities were unable to provide figures but said they had systems in place to tackle cheating in exams and course work.
A University of South Wales spokesperson said: “We use a system to highlight academic misconduct, and actively encourage both staff and students to use it as a formative assessment tool to understand what constitutes plagiarism.
“Our regulations cover cheating, which includes payment for assignments. Any breach of these regulations will lead to disciplinary action against a student and in serious cases could result in their expulsion from the university.”
A Cardiff Metropolitan University spokesperson said: “Cardiff Met takes the issue of cheating extremely seriously.
“We have a variety of sanctions that can be used, all of which are designed to ensure fairness and to deter all forms of cheating.”
Swansea University said it had robust procedures in place to investigate and determine allegations of academic misconduct.