The advent of the Internet and the adoption of outcomes-based education (OBE) has increased the risk and incidence of plagiarism, says Andre Roux, director of the Institute of Futures Research, University of Stellenbosch.
Roux says while there is no hard evidence of the increase in plagiarism, he does feel few school and tertiary educators know how to handle the situation.
Web sites such as www.turnitin.com can help educators and students check for plagiarism in an assignment, whether intentional or not.
"I know of one teacher who has forbidden research to be done at home by her pupils, because they often just don`t understand how to sift the information supplied by the Internet. Of course, parents are often the problem here as well, as they often do the research for their children."
He says a major problem with the Internet is that it delivers literally millions of hits on a topic and it is difficult for children to sift through the information and extract what is relevant and true.
"I find it hard, so one can only imagine just how difficult it is for an 11-year-old child."
Not unique
SA`s move to adopt OBE, which emphasises heavy reliance on learners doing their own research, is also part of the problem in that teachers often do not emphasise the importance of referencing work properly, Roux explains.
According to the Shuttleworth Foundation newsletter, plagiarism is not unique to this situation, and other countries that use OBE in schools have faced hard questions on whether allowing course work has opened up a Pandora`s box.
The newsletter quotes Penny Vinjevold, the national education department`s deputy director-general of further education and training, as saying: "There is more opportunity for plagiarism, but teachers must set a task with a twist, something that requires a lot of application. Teachers must take plagiarism seriously. They must give zero if they pick it up... but it`s nothing to panic about. We do our best to eliminate it."
"Properly referencing work must be taught at the schools, but universities often find they have to do this themselves as it is not instilled properly before the students arrive and this leads to all sorts of problems," Roux says.
Another issue is that of the permanence of electronically stored information.
Roux says references should be found long after the assignment had been handed in, and this can be done with hard copy.
"However, what if there is some big clean-out of a reference site? What happens then to trying to check these references long after the assignment was completed?" Roux asks.
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