I think that this concept of resubmission and beating the system belies 
the hugely important and often overlooked institutional aspect of 
plagiarism as an offence. People who have heard me speak, will no I 
hate the P word and prefer copying to be used. They will also have come 
across the speed camera analogy I use, as part of the wider metaphor of 
learning to learn like learning to drive. I think it is more valid now 
than ever, given recent comments.

Firstly, let's consider the fact that repetition and copying are both, 
at times, perfectly valid learning techniques. So is aggregation and 
synthesis. If you see students as potential criminals and the detection 
software as 'catching them' you have a poor attitude, in my opinion. 
Not an unreasonable attitude at times, but a dangerous one considering 
that most students are not trying to deceive. They are trying to learn.

Secondly, a colleague and friend of mine, Phil Davis at Glamorgan, once 
said that reading the plagiarised work of other students at least 
exposes them to the subject matter. He is a real champion of students 
exposing their work to peers; this also has the knock on effect of 
giving implicit feedback as to what is expected of students, and allows 
them to better understand the assessment process. No-one is saying "Oh 
no, if we do peer assessment, students will know how we mark and get 
unfairly high grades!" No-one.

It is the same for revising essays. If a student sees a red section, 
and they rewrite it, they have had to think about it; it has gone 
through their consciousness, just as effectively as having summarised a 
book or paper. They have been exposed to the subject, which mere cut 
and paste would not have done. Of course they could work out that 
changing every third word would break the algorithm used in many 
automatic detection systems, but even then they would have had to read 
the material; there is no auto change word software yet available. 
Maybe there is a market there: ChewItUp (tm) rewrites your essays for 
you...

Finally, the idea that students would mechanically process material to 
avoid detection, only avoids automatic systems, not the common sense of 
academics, who have to make the final decision. To a greater degree, 
this actually leads to several useful skills. However, to see this as a 
threat to education, makes me ponder whether the definition of 
education is being lost. Students are only potential cheats, looking 
for the loop hole, if you choose to see them that way.

The attitude to plagiarism, copying and making of learning into an 
issue of offence is one that I am hoping will be the subject of a 
workshop at the next Plagiarism Conference. It needs an open and frank, 
possibly bloody debate. I could be completely wrong. I'd love to know 
what others think and whether they see this as an interesting/important 
part of the problem to discuss.

Dr. Mike Reddy, JISC PAS Experts Group and Steering Committee

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