QAA Suggestions to Hinder Plagiarism in UK Universities

Regularly, debates about plagiarism in higher education rise to detect its influence on both the universities and students. Of course, there are plagiarism detection systems in the UK universities; however, the essay mill websites marketing novel academically written essays circumvent the detection system.

As a result, universities were urged to block specific websites and use smarter plagiarism detection systems and software to ensure that no student buys an essay and submits it as their own. All universities have policies regarding this issue; most have made plagiarism detection software available to the academic staff and the problem is under continuous deliberation.

On the other hand, The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) chose to look at the issue from a different perspective, making a chain of suggestions that postulated providing aid and support for struggling students, proposing a variety of ways to mitigate the chances of cheating, blocking essay-mill websites, and utilize better software to detect different styles and level of ability between a student's essays.

The universities minister, Jo Johnson, approved of the QAA suggestions saying: “This form of cheating is unacceptable and pernicious. It not only undermines standards in our world-class universities but devalues the hard-earned qualifications of those who don’t cheat … That is why I asked the Quality Assurance Agency to look at this issue and introduce new guidance for students and providers.”

“Paying someone else to write essays is wrong and could damage their career. Education providers should take appropriate action to tackle and prevent this kind of abuse.” the chief executive of the QAA, Douglas Blackstock stated.