Plagiarism in Assessments Guidance for Teachers/Assessors

2.1 Teacher/assessor responsibilities

If you are a teacher or assessor entering candidates for a qualification with
internally-assessed or non-examination assessment (NEA) components:

• you must authenticate the work which is submitted for assessment. You must confirm that the work produced is solely that of the candidate concerned. You must not accept work which is not the candidate’s own. Where you have doubts about the authenticity of student work submitted for assessment you must investigate and take appropriate action;
  
• you must ensure that authentication is an integral part of the assessment process, that information is shared with candidates at the appropriate time and that they are aware of the process and stages of authentication. Candidates must understand the requirements before signing a declaration. Failure to sign may not prevent investigation or exempt a candidate from plagiarism or malpractice.

2.2 Preventative measures

In order to prevent plagiarism you:

• must ensure that each candidate is issued with an individual copy of the appropriate JCQ Information for Candidates (https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/information-for-candidates/);
  
• must ensure that each candidate understands the contents of the notice; particularly the meaning of plagiarism and what sanctions may be applied;
  
• should reinforce to a candidate the significance of their signature on the form which states they have understood and followed the requirements for the subject;
  
• could require candidates, at enrolment, to sign a declaration within the learning agreement confirming that they understand what constitutes plagiarism and that engaging in plagiarism is not permitted;
  
• should make clear what is and what is not acceptable in respect of plagiarism and the use of sources, including the use of websites. It is unacceptable to simply state Google, just as it would be unacceptable to state Library rather than the title of the book, name of the author, the chapter and page reference. Candidates must provide details of any web pages from which they are quoting or paraphrasing. Some suggestions on acceptable forms of referencing can be found at the end of this guide.
  
• should teach the conventions of using footnotes and bibliographies to acknowledge sources. There is no one standard way of acknowledging sources, but the use of inverted commas, indented quotations, acknowledgement of the author, line/page number, and/or title of source all indicate that the candidate is using a source. Teachers and candidates should be aware that when acknowledging sources, clarity ensures that there is no suspicion of plagiarism;
  
• must teach candidates about the risks of using AI, how to acknowledge its use and what constitutes malpractice (see further guidance in the JCQ AI Use in Assessments: Protecting the Integrity of Qualifications);
  
• should teach the use of quotation marks when sources are quoted directly (a suggested guideline for the need to put items in quotation marks would be the use of more than six words in unchanged form);
  
• should set reasonable deadlines for submission of work and provide reminders;
  
• where appropriate, should give time for sufficient work to be done in class under direct supervision to allow the teacher to authenticate each candidate’s whole work with confidence;
  
• should examine intermediate stages in the production of work in order to ensure that the work is underway in a planned and timely manner;
  
• should introduce classroom activities that use the level of knowledge/ understanding achieved during the coursework, thereby making the teacher confident that the candidate understands the material;
  
• could ask candidates to make a short verbal presentation to the rest of the group on their work;
  
• should explain the importance of the candidate producing work which is their own and stress to them and to their parents/carers the sanctions for malpractice;
  
• must take care to ensure that work undertaken in previous years’ examinations by other candidates is not submitted as their own by candidates for the current examination. The safe keeping of such earlier work is of great importance, and its issue to candidates for reference purposes should be carefully monitored;
  
• must not accept, without further investigation, work which you suspect has been plagiarised; to do so encourages the spread of this practice.
  

There are three steps in the process for dealing with plagiarism:

• keeping watch
• confirmation
• reporting

3.1 Identifying indicators of plagiarism

There are a number of clues that point to the possibility of plagiarism and you should remain alert to the possibility of spotting these.
You should check a candidate’s work for acknowledgement of sources as the work is being completed.

Varying quality of content is one of the most obvious pointers. Well-written passages containing detailed analyses of relevant facts alternating with poorly-constructed and irrelevant linking passages ought to give rise to suspicion.

Another practice is for candidates to write the introduction and conclusion to an assignment to make it fit the question and then fill in the middle with work which has been lifted from elsewhere.
If the work is not focused on the topic, but presents a well-argued account of a related matter, this could be a sign that it has been used elsewhere. The same applies if parts of the work do not fit well together in developing the response to the assignment.

Particular care should be taken when candidates submit work without completing intermediate stages, as this can be an indication that the work is not the candidate’s own.

Dated expressions and references to past events as being current can also be
indications of work which has been copied from out-of-date sources.

Vocabulary, spelling and punctuation

• Is there a mixture of English and American spellings?
• Is the language unusually advanced or inconsistent with the candidate’s typical level?
• Is the style of punctuation regular and consistent?

Style and tone
Look for differences in the style or the tone of writing. If a candidate uses material from textbooks alongside items from popular websites, the change of tone between the two should be marked.

Look at the level of sophistication of the sentence structure. Is this the sort of language that can be expected from the candidate? Is the use of language consistent or does it vary? Does a change in style reflect a change in authorship at these points?

Presentation
Look at the presentation of the piece. If it is typed, are the size and style of font uniform? What about the use of headers and sub-headers? Are the margins consistent throughout? Does the text employ references, and if so, is the style of referencing consistent? Are there any references, for example, to figures, tables or footnotes, which don’t make sense (because they have not been copied)?

Lack of references in a long, well-written section could indicate that it has not been copied from a website such as Wikipedia or similar general knowledge source.

Look out for quotations that run on beyond the part which has been acknowledged.

3.2 Confirming suspected plagiarism
If you suspect that an assignment has been plagiarised, the next step is to try to locate the source.

The easiest method is to type a four to six word phrase from the text (preferably one with an unusual phrase in it) directly into a search engine such as Google and perform an “exact phrase search”. If the article was copied from the free, visible web there is a good chance this approach will find it, particularly if a few search engines are tried.

Another method is to look through the websites that candidates use, as these are common sources for essays and assignments. Assessors should familiarise themselves with the websites that offer essay distribution or writing services.

If it does not come up through these searches, the piece may have been taken from the “invisible web”; that is, from articles which are not separately indexed to a search engine, although the site itself is. Sites run by newspapers, magazines, online encyclopaedias, subject-specific sites and those sites providing help with essays tend to fall into this category, and would have to be searched individually. However the use of a few well-chosen words in a “find” tool could produce results.

Computer programmes to detect plagiarism have been available commercially for some time. There are two basic types. The first type requires software to be installed on the user’s machine. This compares a candidate’s essay to a defined bank of essays, such as an institution’s own record of previous candidates’ work. The second and more sophisticated approach compares a submitted essay to the whole of the internet.

One such tool is Turnitin which is web-based and thus requires no installation.
The manufacturers claim that all work submitted to their website:

“is checked against three databases of content:

• Both a current and extensively archived copy of the publicly accessible Internet;
• Millions of published works, including the ProQuest commercial database and electronic books;
• Millions of student papers already submitted to Turnitinuk”.
  Source: Turnitin (https://www.turnitin.com)
  

A report is then produced which identifies any text that is found to be unoriginal and links it to its original source.

In addition to the ability to locate original sources, the use of computer-based detection systems is a powerful deterrent to those who otherwise might be tempted to commit plagiarism.

There are also computer detection tools to identify potential AI misuse.

AI chatbots, as large language models, produce content by ‘guessing’ the most likely next word in a sequence. This means that AI-generated content uses the most common combinations of words, unlike humans who use a variety of words in their normal writing. Several programs and services use this difference to statistically analyse written content and determine the likelihood that it was produced by AI:

• Pangram
• Copyleaks
• Turnitin AI writing detection
• GPTZero
• Turnitin Originality

Such tools may assist in identifying content that warrants further investigation.
However, AI-detection tools have limitations and their output should not be relied upon in isolation when determining whether malpractice has occurred.

More information regarding AI use and misuse can be found in the
JCQ AI Use in Assessments guidance (https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/ malpractice/artificial-intelligence/).

If plagiarism is suspected, conducting an oral assessment of the candidate may help a teacher to assess whether the work is that of the candidate.

If an investigation is inconclusive, the work in question could be removed and replaced by alternative work whose authenticity is not in doubt. Alternatively, the candidate could be given another piece of work to complete under controlled conditions in the centre which must be completed by the awarding organisation’s deadline.

3.3 Reporting suspected plagiarism
If your suspicions are confirmed and the candidate has not signed the declaration of authentication, your centre need not report the malpractice to the appropriate awarding organisation. Centres can resolve the matter themselves prior to the signing of the declarations. Teachers must not accept work which is not the candidate’s own. Ultimately, the Head of Centre has the responsibility for ensuring that candidates do not submit plagiarised work.

If plagiarism is detected by the centre and the declaration of authentication has been signed, the case must be reported to the awarding organisation. The procedure is detailed in JCQ Suspected Malpractice Policies and Procedures (www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/malpractice/).

If plagiarism is suspected by an awarding organisation’s moderator or examiner, or if it has been reported by a student or member of the public, full details of the allegation will usually be relayed to the centre. The relevant awarding organisation will liaise with the Head of Centre regarding the next steps of the investigation and how appropriate evidence will be obtained.

The awarding organisation will then consider the case and, if necessary, impose a sanction in line with the sanctions given in the JCQ Suspected Malpractice Policies and Procedures (https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/malpractice/). The sanctions applied to a student committing plagiarism and making a false declaration of authenticity range from a warning regarding future conduct to disqualification and the student being barred from entering for one or more examinations for a set period of time.

Awarding organisations will also take action, which can include the imposition of sanctions, where centre staff are knowingly accepting, or failing to check, inauthentic work for qualification assessments.

4. Guidance on referencing

a) Useful guidance on referencing can be found in the following JCQ documents:

• JCQ Instructions for conducting coursework
  (https://www.jcq.org.uk/ exams-office/coursework/)
  
• JCQ Instructions for conducting non-examination assessments
  (https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/non-examination-assessments/)
  
• JCQ AI Use in Assessments guidance
  (https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/malpractice/artificial-intelligence/)