Introduction

The focus of this article is on views of student plagiarism and guidance in academic writing as a solution to plagiarism. Plagiarism is a controversial issue (Walker 2010) and is generally seen as a growing problem in academia (Park 2003). Understandably, plagiarism detection tools are welcomed by many academics who are responsible for evaluating the quality of student learning. At the same time, plagiarism detection appears to counteract the general shift that has been taking place in academia since the turn of the millennium, that is, the shifting of focus from detection and punishment of undesired behaviors to promotion of desired behaviors (cf. Ferguson et al. 2007). The possible introduction of a plagiarism detection system at a university triggered the question about the nature of plagiarism and the use of plagiarism detection in order to promote desired behaviors rather detecting (and punishing) undesired ones. Our intention was to explore what kinds of instruction are needed to prevent plagiarism and whether teachers believe that plagiarism detection software might be used as a pedagogical tool. This study reports on research that was conducted at a major Finnish research-intensive university where the use of plagiarism detection software was being considered: thus it may offer insights for institutions engaged in similar considerations. Although many institutions of higher education worldwide have adopted plagiarism detection tools, there are still many that are currently considering the use of plagiarism detection software.

In our case, the idea of adopting a plagiarism detection system raised concerns and questions, such as which student papers should be tested for plagiarism and what would the students’ rights be; would the students be allowed to use the tool by themselves, would they need to be informed about the checking of their papers, should the students have access to the reports generated by the system, and ultimately, could a student refuse the checking of his or her paper. The decision was taken to use the system as both a tool for the teacher, and a support for developing students’ academic writing skills. This decision raised concerns about whether a plagiarism detection system would be useful primarily as a control system or whether the teachers could use it for pedagogical purposes as well. We initiated our research in connection with a pilot project testing plagiarism detection software to determine how teachers and students viewed plagiarism and the idea of a plagiarism detection system. We mapped out teachers’ and students’ views of plagiarism and the reasons, as this question might also have important pedagogical implications.

The use of a plagiarism detection system would no doubt identify cases of plagiarism, which would then need to be dealt with appropriately. One part of this was that the university revised its procedural guidelines on student plagiarism. The guidelines, of course, do not address instructional concerns, and we hoped to find suggestions for effective instruction to prevent plagiarism through this research. Furthermore, the introduction of a plagiarism detection system into university policy and practice would no doubt put the spotlight on teaching of academic writing, and for this reason we hoped to find suggestions for developing appropriate instruction.

Macdonald and Carroll (2006) have emphasised the importance of adopting a whole-institution approach to dealing with plagiarism, including assuring student skills and knowledge, developing approaches to curriculum design and assessments that support relevant competence in students, and introducing institutional procedures and regulations that are fair and robust and that recognise the students’ preparedness for academic writing (or the lack of it) at the start of their studies. A holistic approach requires the introduction of instructional solutions, and those solutions are precisely what we aim to shed light on through our study.

The Phenomenon: Student Plagiarism

Student plagiarism has been defined as representing someone else’s work as one’s own and includes sham paraphrasing, verbatim plagiarism and purloining (Walker 2010). It is generally perceived to be a problem within academia, and much of it appears to have to do with the easy access to information via the Internet, students’ active use of the Internet, and their increasingly sophisticated IT skills (e.g. Underwood and Szabo 2003; Szabo and Underwood 2004). While plagiarism typically used to require more effort from the student (going to the library, writing up texts) (Scanlon 2003), now downloading and copy-pasting from easily accessible information sources is too easy and may blur students’ conceptions of the boundaries of academic authorship.

Students recognise plagiarism as a phenomenon, but may not be able to describe how to make a proper citation (Gullifer and Tyson 2010). Students often lack such competencies, particularly at the beginning of their studies (Breen and Maassen 2005). They may view the conventions of academic writing as normative prescriptions, the underlying principles of which are seldom thought about (Löfström 2011). They express frustration over the difficult learning processes associated with academic writing (Gu and Brooks 2008; Löfström 2011). Negative emotions, such as fear and anxiety, are often associated with plagiarism. Students are afraid of committing plagiarism by accident. Avoiding plagiarism is experienced as stressful, and students fear its penalties (Breen and Maassen 2005). Prior research (e.g. Breen and Maassen 2005; Abasi and Graves 2008; Yildirim and Ilin 2009; Eret and Gokmenoglu 2010; Gullifer and Tyson 2010; Löfström 2011) paints the following picture: Students understand that it is important to avoid plagiarism, but that causes stress, and they find they have to prove that the texts they present as their own truly are theirs. Yet citing references is seen mostly as a technical aspect of writing, which nevertheless helps to avoid plagiarism by accident.

In their fear of plagiarism students tend to rely heavily on their sources (Abasi and Graves 2008). The close association of sanctions and punishment with plagiarism might hinder important learning processes, because the chance practice and to make mistakes or errors is also reduced (Angélil-Carter 2000). Yet learning to write has been described as a transitional experience especially for students coming from different cultural backgrounds (Gu and Brooks 2008). Anxiety, and the stress caused by attempts to avoid plagiarism, typically detracts attention from the underlying principles of the proper use of sources and references, i.e. from understanding the cumulative nature of academic knowledge and the recognition of those deserving credit (Abasi and Graves 2008).

There are qualitative differences between novice and advanced students, suggesting that students’ conceptions about academic writing as well as their own writing strategies develop from the reproduction to the extraction of ideas (Breen and Maassen 2005). Yet, the findings have been contradictory, and Walker (2010) found that experienced and internal students plagiarised more than novice and distance students, which suggests that plagiarism is not just about the lack of academic writing skills. Sparks and Hunt (1998) found that the more formal ethics training the research participants had had, the lower was the level of ethical sensitivity that they exhibited. Walker (2010) found that plagiarism increased as awareness about it was raised. These somewhat counter-intuitive findings raise questions about the influences of socialisation and the ethical climate of the learning environment on students’ ethical conduct. Socialisation and the values and norms of a community influence students’ conceptions of what is ethical conduct and what is acceptable behaviour. Sometimes there might be inconsistency between these. The behaviors of faculty members convey the true ethical standards in the community and students quickly pick up what is accepted and what is not (Kitchener 1992). For instance, supervision is an arena for ethical problem solving, the complexities of which are not always evident even to the supervisors themselves (Löfström and Pyhältö 2012). Prior research identifies a variety of ethical issues in supervision, including but not limited to encouragement to commit fraud and authorship issues (Goodyear et al. 1992), which can influence students’ conceptions of the ethics of authorship, writing and research in general.

We considered the views of university students and teachers on plagiarism taking into account their experiences of guidance in academic writing in the context of using plagiarism detection software. The students’ views are here considered from the perspective of their conceptions of what constitutes plagiarism, what are seen as the reasons for plagiarism, their experiences of guidance in academic writing in connection with using a plagiarism detection system and their views of how such a system could support their learning. The teacher perspective focuses on the teachers’ views of the causes of plagiarism and the opportunities that they recognised in the use of plagiarism detection systems to support student learning.

Method

The piloting of plagiarism detection software was initiated in response to the many requests from teachers and administrators in various university departments asking about the possibilities of introducing such software into their practices. Up to this point, there was no one system in use at the institutional level. Some departments or teachers may have used software that was available free of charge or for a fee. However, the requests to the Educational Centre for ICT at the university began to mount, and it became necessary to address these requests in some central way. Before adopting a plagiarism detection system, the Centre launched a pilot project that lasted from February to December 2011. It was decided that the choice to adopt a system would be taken only after the pilot project was carefully carried out. The project teachers were recruited through an e-mail message among all the faculties in the university. The pilot project took place in two phases. Experiences with using different software were collected in the first phase, and the software’s integration into the learning environment was tested in the second phase. Altogether 36 teachers and their 733 students from seven faculties and two adjacent units participated in the pilot project. This means that approximately one per cent of the university’s entire staff and two per cent of the student body were involved. The courses in which the plagiarism detection software was piloted ranged from mass lecture courses with written assignments to relatively small Master’s thesis research seminars.

We designed two questionnaires, one for teachers and one for students. The questionnaires were identical to the extent possible in order to enable comparisons. The questionnaires were made available in Finnish and in English, as international teaching staff and students were also involved in the pilot project. The questionnaires were sent electronically to the students and the teachers at the end of each of the two phases. The questionnaires were structured to include some open-ended items. Response was voluntary, and no identifying data were collected. To encourage student participation, there was a drawing for ten movie tickets among those respondents who left their e-mail address for the purpose. This information was not connected with the research data.

A total of 134 responses was received: 65 % of the teachers (N = 30) and 14 % of the students (N = 104) who received the invitation to participate in the survey responded (Table 1). Data analyses included factor analysis with Varimax rotation, t-tests and analysis of variance with Cohen’s d to indicate effect sizes. The responses to the open-ended questions were analysed through inductive content analysis (cf. Weber 1985) in which we identified categories of themes pertaining to the guidance aspect of plagiarism detection.

Table 1 Distribution of questionnaire respondents among disciplines
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We investigated the students’ conceptions of plagiarism using the forms defined in Walker (2010), i.e. sham paraphrasing, verbatim plagiarism and purloining. The response alternatives were: “don’t know”, “not plagiarism”, “is plagiarism, but not a serious form of it”, “is a somewhat serious form of plagiarism”, and “is a very serious form of plagiarism”. We also asked the students and teachers how common they perceived plagiarism to be in general. There is a paradox in asking people to be honest about their dishonesty, and so such questions are not likely to produce reliable data (Walker 2010). Therefore, we posed the question: What do you think are the reasons students might engage in plagiarism? We also asked the respondents to evaluate the significance of each reason. We presented nine statements based on reasons we had identified in prior research on plagiarism (cf. the typology in Park 2003, 479) and in our discussions with teachers and students in the framework of the pilot project. We believe that the responses, even if they do not tap into the students’ own relationship with plagiarism, do tell something about their perceptions of their study environment. A factor analysis of the nine items suggested a three-factor solution (Table 2). The Eigenvalues and the explanatory power of the three factors are 3.087 and 34 %, 1.385 and 15 %, and 1.252 and 14 %, respectively. While the Cronbach Alphas of the first two factors are good, the reliability of the third factor is weak and should be interpreted with caution.

Table 2 The factor structure of reasons for plagiarism scales
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In the open-ended questions we asked the students how they thought that a plagiarism detection system could be used to support their learning, and we asked both teachers and students whether and how the plagiarism detection systems had been used to support learning during the pilot project. In the content analysis we distinguished four themes that highlighted different aspects of learning support needed for academic writing. The first author did the initial categorisation. The authors’ views coincided to a great extent, and there was no need to negotiate the categorisations further.

Findings

Conceptions of Plagiarism

Students were asked to identify what they view as plagiarism and how serious they considered the various forms of plagiarism to be. All students (N = 104, 100 %) considered representing a whole piece or parts of another student’s work as one’s own to be plagiarism and considered such an act either a serious or a very serious form of plagiarism. Representing another person’s text as one’s own without reference to the original author(s) was considered a serious or a very serious form of plagiarism by 98 % of the students and as a less serious form by 2 %. Representing another student’s work as one’s own with the permission of the student was considered to be a serious or a very serious form of plagiarism by 82 % of the students, while 18 % either did not know, did not consider this to be plagiarism or did not consider it not a serious form of plagiarism. Citing text verbatim with reference to the original author(s), but without quotation marks was considered a serious or a very serious form of plagiarism by 30 % of the students, while 70 % either did not know, did not consider this to be plagiarism or considered it a less serious form of plagiarism. Ninety-five per cent of the students recognised that citing text verbatim with reference to the original author(s) and using quotation marks would not constitute plagiarism, while 5 % considered it some form of plagiarism or did not know whether it constituted plagiarism.

Reasons for Plagiarism

Students and teachers were asked how common they thought plagiarism is. Of the students, 76 % considered it very/quite uncommon, a fifth (21 %) did not know, and only 3 % thought that plagiarism is quite common. None of the students thought that plagiarism is very common. Of the teachers, 77 % thought that plagiarism is uncommon, while as many as 23 % thought that plagiarism is quite common. The difference between the teachers’ and the students’ perception is statistically significant at a p. < .01 level with a medium effect size with the teachers considering plagiarism to be a more common problem than the students [t(55.195) = −3.117, p < .01, d = .619]. The student-response rate was low, so the result of the comparison may not reflect the true situation. The group of students opting to respond to the survey may not be representative of “the average student” at the university in terms of their conceptions or experiences related to student plagiarism.

We designated the three factors resulting from the factor analysis of the items on the Reasons for plagiarism as “intentional”, “contextual” and “unintentional” plagiarism. “Intentional plagiarism” included items in which plagiarism was seen as a consequence of deliberate behaviour that was justified, for instance, by peer behaviour and the greater gains compared to the potential risks. These justifications exhibit an immature attitude to studying and learning. The main goal appears not to be learning and increasing competence, but getting through one’s studies with minimal effort or investment of one’s own time and resources. "Contextual plagiarism" included items about students having too many tasks and commitments, both in their studies as well as in other areas of their lives. In these items, the reasons for plagiarism are in a way intentional, though not as a general strategy, but rather as a response to being overwhelmed. “Unintentional plagiarism” included items reflecting insufficient knowledge and lacking competence. We then compared the students’ responses to the teachers’ and found that they differed statistically significantly on intentional and unintentional plagiarism. The teachers thought that these two reasons for plagiarism are more common than the students thought with a statistical significance level of p. =.000 [t(131) = −3.658, p = .000, d = .769] for intentional plagiarism and p. <.01 [t(132) = −3.054, p < .01, d = .617] for unintentional plagiarism. Both groups identified unintentional plagiarism as the most common reason for plagiarism, with student means for the two items ranging from 3.64 to 3.73 and teacher means ranging from 3.97 to 4.20. Effect sizes are medium to large. Yet, it is again important to keep in mind the low response rate of students, which may not allow for a true comparison of teacher and student responses.

Plagiarism Detection: Control or Learning Support?

We hoped to find out whether the teachers and students viewed plagiarism detection primarily as a control tool or an instructional tool. Fifty-three students responded to the question about whether and how plagiarism detection systems had been used to support learning during the pilot project. Students generally did not recognise that the plagiarism detection tool had been used to guide their academic writing. Forty-one students responded that the system had not been utilised to support learning. Nine students reported that their teacher had given feedback related to the software-generated report, either in groups (f = 3) or individually (f = 6). The following responses emphasise the necessity of interpreting the similarity reports instead of merely reporting similarity percentages:

We got the results after a week, and one could still make changes if one wanted to. I didn’t get information about the exact passages in the text, just the percentage, which was disappointing. (S10)

We looked at what kinds of sentences the system marked. Sometimes it was a matter of something other than plagiarism. (S79).

In one of the pilot groups, the use of the plagiarism detection system influenced the group’s learning goal so much that everyone in the group agreed to strive for what students called a “clean report”:

We discussed the software generated feedback together with our supervisor, and the goal of our group was that all reports were to be “clean”. (S01)

Of the teachers, 14 had not used the plagiarism detection system for teaching purposes other than to check students’ works. Some of these teachers responded that their only intention had been to check student works, not to give feedback or guidance in academic writing. Of these teachers, two had not used the system or the reports generated by it to support student learning, because, as they stated, there was nothing to discuss in the reports. Ten teachers, however, had used the system or its reports to support their students’ learning processes. The forms of guidance included feedback on the use of sources, suggestions on how to modify writing and feedback using the system’s commentary tool along with discussion.

We checked the Master’s thesis manuscripts and, based on the reports, discussed academic writing in the seminar. (T24)

This was precisely my goal. In my opinion it is a good tool for supervising unfinished theses as the student can receive feedback in the middle of the process and avoid unintentional plagiarism in their finished work. (T26)

Plagiarism Detection as Support for Learning

With the large number of students who did not experience that plagiarism detection had been used to support their learning in any way we then investigated whether the students saw that such tools could be used to support their learning. This question was important as the decision had been taken to use the system as both a tool for the teacher and a support for students. Yet if the students would not recognise the instructional uses of plagiarism detection, this would be something requiring the special attention of teachers, educational planners and others involved in the introduction of plagiarism detection at the university. Special effort would have to be put into the introduction of the tool among the student population, and teachers would have to be reminded of how they could use the similarity reports to support students’ learning.

Seventy-five students responded to the question about how a plagiarism detection system could be used to support student learning. The analysis yielded the following four themes: Supporting learning and self-assessment (n = 36), a tool for guidance (n = 27), increasing fairness (n = 10), and does not support learning (n = 10). In addition, four students responded that they did not know how such a tool would support learning.

Supporting Learning and Self-Assessment

Students believed that the use of a plagiarism detection system could support their learning and help them understand academic writing in a more profound way. These ways included help in learning about how to make proper references to the works of others’; how to re-evaluate their own practices in light of the information provided by the plagiarism detection system; and help developing a voice and a written style of expression of their own as they would be forced to extract the core ideas instead of simply reproducing the words of others. The students justified their responses by claiming that the system would encourage them to familiarise themselves more thoroughly with the source materials and be more conscious about how they use others’ works in their own writing. The more careful reading of source materials would help the students make sense of and understand a given topic and this in turn would help them to express the content in their own words. The students thought that the system would reduce plagiarism and encourage them to pay more attention to how they cite references and how they write. The external pressure arising from the use of a plagiarism detection system provided another dimension to the support of learning: the fear of being caught plagiarising was seen to motivate students to make sure that they understood how to use sources and refer to them properly:

Students would have to do considerably more thinking about how to say things in the text so that they wouldn’t plagiarise even accidentally. (S13)

If one is easily caught copying the work of others, it motivates/forces (depending on person) the student to process things for themselves. Thinking is probably a better way of learning than just skimming topics and copying them. (S35)

Tool for Guidance

The theme of guidance included the following points: guidance by the teacher through discussions and the plagiarism detection system as providing of guidance. Teacher guidance was called for in the interpretation of the similarity reports produced by the system. Many students emphasised that the reports needed to be discussed with the teacher in order to avoid misinterpretations; students wanted to clarify things with the teacher so that they would be able to develop their writing and improve their writing skills. Students emphasised the necessity of having access to the full reports, not just a similarity percentage, which could be misleading and might not be helpful in terms of pointing out problems in their writing. Some students also emphasised that if a plagiarism detection system were taken into use, it would force the teachers to teach academic writing more carefully. There were also expectations of the system itself regarding guidance in academic writing:

[The system supports learning] if the feedback is constructive, i.e., if the system really gives constructive feedback, e.g. on structure and originality. (S6)

Increasing Fairness

A large number of students did not directly address the question of whether or not the use of a plagiarism detection would support their learning. Instead, they emphasised that the use of such a system would prevent dishonest students from gaining an unfair advantage in their studies. They argued that it is unfair when dishonest students succeed equally well or better than the honest students. The lack of a plagiarism detection system was even thought to support dishonesty.

Those who do not plagiarise often feel frustrated when other students who do plagiarise obtain equally good results with much less effort. (S2)

If it [plagiarism detection software] was used widely, then one could be sure that other students would not plagiarise their peers’ texts. (S16)

Does not Support Learning

The students who thought that the use of plagiarism detection systems would not support their learning in any way justified their responses by saying that it is more a support for the teacher, is an administrative tool or distracts or irritates students. The introduction of a plagiarism detection system was considered an expression of distrust of the students.

Some considered plagiarism detection only from a student perspective and failed to recognise the help that it might offer to teachers.

Well, it doesn’t help the student for sure. I do know that I’ve written the texts myself; there is no need to ask a system. (S5)

Discussion and Pedagogical Implications

The findings contain an important message for university teachers. The reasons for plagiarism are many, and by recognising these reasons, it is possible to allocate instructional resources where they are most needed and tailor interventions to address the root of the problem. We identified three distinct reasons for plagiarism. In addition to intentional and unintentional forms of plagiarism (e.g. Sutherland-Smith 2005; Gu and Brooks 2008), contextual plagiarism formed its own group of reasons. Similarly, Comas-Forgas and Sureda-Negre (2010) have pointed out that a large number of assignments and poor time management most likely lead students to consider plagiarism. Szabo and Underwood (2004) identified personal and situational factors contributing to student plagiarism, and include both intentional and unintentional reasons to both factors. In our study, there is an intentional element in the contextual reasons as well, but unlike those students with an immature attitude to studying for whom plagiarism provides an easy way to get through, some resort to plagiarism in an attempt to cope with a chaotic situation. The greatest problem may thus lie not in a complicated attitude to studying and learning, but rather in students’ prioritising and management of their commitments.

It appears that neither the students’ skill levels nor the use of plagiarism detection will automatically reduce plagiarism (Walker 2010). What can be done in terms of instruction and pedagogy to deal with plagiarism?

In the case of contextual plagiarism, it is important that students are guided in planning their studies and in timing its various components, recognising and assessing their resources, including their personal resources, the available time and peer support. Students need support in recognising and assessing the various resources at hand and in developing sustainable study strategies. There may be deficiencies in the students’ academic writing skills, but these may not form the immediate or to only target for instructional interventions when the reasons for plagiarism are contextual in nature.

Unintentional plagiarism is best addressed through instruction in academic writing. At the same time, it is important to provide students the opportunities to practise their own voice as writers (Angélil-Carter 2000) in an atmosphere free of anxiety related to accidental plagiarism or fear of sanctions. When students were asked what they viewed as plagiarism, the findings supported the notion that students in general do recognise the phenomenon of plagiarism, but have difficulties distinguishing among the more detailed nuances of plagiarism (cf. Breen and Maassen 2005; Gullifer and Tyson 2010). This suggests that there is a grey area for many students in which they are not sure what is acceptable practice and what is not. It is likely that a great deal of plagiarism takes place in this area, and students need opportunities to practise and gain feedback on their writing in order to deal with this grey area. Among the open-ended responses, students mentioned accidental plagiarism, which has also emerged as a major concern among students in previous studies (cf. Breen and Maassen 2005; Abasi and Graves 2008).

To address intentional plagiarism, it is important that students familiarise themselves with ethical principles and academic integrity (cf. Gullifer and Tyson 2010). Students should be encouraged to reflect on what good learning is, what kind of learner one is and what does it mean to study and learn at a university. Similarly, Freewood et al. (2003) along with Ashworth et al. (2003) (cited in Macdonald and Carroll 2006) have proposed that students need to be engaged with the nature of academic culture, including the value of scholarship and originality. Discussions about learning and university studies are probably best carried on in the very early stages of a curriculum where they can help foster a mature attitude to studying from which students can benefit in all their subsequent studies.

Unintentional plagiarism was thought to be the most common reason for committing the offense. Teachers’ and students’ views of the main reasons students engage in plagiarism were similar, although the teachers considered intentional and unintentional plagiarism to be more prevalent than students. It is possible that the teachers volunteering for the pilot project had observed or suspected plagiarism more often than teachers in general, and this may have resulted in their more negative views about students’ intentions in the statistically significant differences in teacher and student perceptions of the commonality of intentional and unintentional plagiarism and in their assessment of the frequency of plagiarism in general.

Students emphasised fairness as an argument in favour of detecting plagiarism. Even if this was not directly related to supporting their own learning, they strongly felt that the lack of a plagiarism detection system provides dishonest students with an advantage. This is an important message, as the experiences of fairness and justice are likely to influence students’ overall experience of a learning climate (cf. Schulte et al. 2001). Students found other advantages in the motivation to become familiar with the source materials and in discussion about their own writing with the teacher. Many teachers, however, used plagiarism detection only as a control tool. Students emphasised the necessity of having access to the reports, not just a similarity percentage. “Plagiarism percentages” can be confusing, and students may be left with the false impression that plagiarism is allowed as long as it stays below a certain percentage. More fruitful in terms of student learning are the dialogues between the student and the teacher on the student’s problems in academic writing revealed in the system-generated report. It is important to remind the students that academic writing is not merely a technical matter and that the conventions of academic writing are not insisted upon simply for the sake of monitoring and controlling.

If teachers fear losing their reputation, they might be unwilling to deal explicitly with plagiarism. Unlike some of the teachers interviewed in the study of Sutherland-Smith (2005), the teachers in our study were not concerned that if students were caught plagiarising in their class, they would be seen as poor teachers. It is important that teachers recognise that there is a variety of reasons for student plagiarism and that it does not automatically mean that one is a poor teacher or has neglected one’s tasks. On the contrary, the teacher who addresses student plagiarism by providing adequate instruction does a favour both for the student and the academic community.

To conclude, when institutions are considering the introduction of plagiarism detection in their policies and practices, attention inevitably turns not only to the corrective procedures followed in cases of plagiarism, but also to the competencies that students are expected to have and to the teaching of those competencies. Based on our findings, we propose that different interventions are needed to target the different reasons for plagiarism. We believe that these interventions can also work to prevent plagiarism. The students’ needs were especially related to instructional guidance, i.e. a formative purpose related to plagiarism detection. Macdonald and Carroll (2006) have emphasised the need for formative assessment in dealing with plagiarism, and we see that it is precisely this purpose that a plagiarism detection system serves best. Yet this does not happen automatically with the introduction of such a system into institutional policies and practices.