Background to the project
The original idea behind the project developed from the teaching of Professor Lucas Introna and Dr Niall Hayes at Lancaster University Management School. On one of their MSc courses they found that a small number of students had been identified as submitting coursework that contained plagiarised text. When interviewing the students involved, they came to realise that there was no intention to cheat on the part of the students. This prompted them to initiate a small study in 2003.
In collaboration with some colleagues from the Computing Department (Dr Blair and Ms Wood) and supported by the Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CELT), and subsequently from the Management School, they researched the perceptions and practices pertaining to plagiarism among students. This first project was based on a small internal survey and a series of focus groups with students who had been educated in various different places. The research indicated that in many countries collaboration, copying texts and assisting others during exams was considered common place. Meanwhile in the UK, these are considered a serious form of academic malpractice. It emerged that many of international students were simply unfamiliar with the differing expectations and values in UK universities (they had no intention to deceive).
Based on these findings from the small study the bid for the the Student Diversity and Academic Writing project was put together in 2004. Dr Edgar Whitley from the Department of Information Systems at the London School of Economics joined the project and Dr Fiona Duggan became a co-applicant representing the JISCPAS interest in analysing plagiarism detection software. Funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) was awarded in September 2004. Dr Anja Timm, with a background in Social Anthropology and her research interest in higher education institutions was recruited on to the project in the winter.
The Student Diversity and Academic Writing project has been running since January 2005 and will end in December 2007. An application to HEFCE for follow up funding (made in 2006) was successful and this means that certain 'transferability' activities will continue into 2008.
