Can the problem of plagiarism in Macedonia be fixed with software?

Today (May 9, 2011)  Minister of education Nikola Todorov announced that the Ministry has commissioned new software to detect and fight plagiarism at Macedonian universities. I discussed the issue of plagiarism in Macedonia in another post. Here I would like to comment on the Minister's approach to the problem.

First, there has not been a public announcement or discussion about the nature of this software, such as who is developing it, what standards will be used, etc. As an aside, I am familiar with many information technology projects in Macedonia that received wide media coverage, and at the end they never saw the light of day, or the end result was totally useless. My personal opinion is that this new software will suffer the same fate, mainly as a result of the government's total ignorance of the root causes of the problem.

Here is how the Minister describes the project. The system will work with texts written in Macedonian, Albanian, English and other languages. So far so good. All scholarly works in the possession of the Ministry of Education will be archived in the system. The system will also include all student seminar papers, final graduation papers, masters theses, dissertations, textbooks, and all other scholarly research papers and projects. The system will become functional in six months! GOOD LUCK!

First, let me address the technological hurdle. I assume that whoever received the grant to design this system has convinced the Minister that they can duplicate Turnitin, the most well known plagiarism detection system. Is the Minister really so naive to believe that duplication of Turnititin is possible based on the available experience and resources in Macedonia? Here are some statistics from Turnitin:

• 150+ million archived student papers
• 90,000+ journals, periodicals & books
• 1+ million active instructors
• 14+ billion web pages crawled
• 10,000 educational institutions
• 20+ million licensed students
• 126 countries

All of this can be duplicated in just six months and at the cost of only twenty-thousand euros?

There are three forms of plagiarism prevalent in Macedonia: copying form previously published texts, paying someone to write the paper, and submitting an entire work (paper, thesis, dissertation, etc.) that has already been submitted by someone else. Although plagiarism of the second and third type is quite rare in most western country, it is quite prevalent in Macedonia. I think probably the Minister's aim was to fix the problem with the third type of plagiarism, which does nor require enormous technological knowhow. However, is the Minister really aware of what kind of resources are needed to archive ALL electronic media? Is he really not aware of the kind of resources available for such projects to Google and Turnitin? Twenty-thousand euros just ain't gonna do it!

Let's assume that the initial archive will consist only of texts in the possession of the Ministry of Education, and the archive will be continuously built up with new texts (seminar papers, scholarly papers, etc.). As far as I know, currently there is no legal basis in Macedonia to require authors to submit their works to this plagiarism detection system. Although this Minister would probably have no qualms about proposing such an amendment to the current law on higher education, even though such a law will most likely be in conflict with the law on copyrights. Let's suppose such a law is passed. Is the Minister not aware of the practical hurdles in archiving such documents?

The Ministry of Education probably has some good statistics on the number of theses, dissertations and scholarly papers published in Macedonia and has figured that it won't take much of an effort to archive them. But let's talk about student seminar and graduation papers. I don't know how many students are enrolled in universities in Macedonia, but 80,000 is probably a conservative figure. Let's say each semester about 20,000 are required to write a seminar or a graduation paper. 

1. How will the submission of their papers be handled practically?
2. Will each professor be legally required to require students to submit their paper?
3. Will there be a fine for professors who don't obey?
4. Will there be a fine for students who don't obey?
5. Who will be in charge of controlling students and professors to make sure they have obeyed, and what kind of resources are needed to do so? Will each faculty need to hire an individual responsible for controlling and maintaining the paper submission process?
6. Will there be seminars and workshops for students and professors where they can get instructions on how to submit papers?

As envisioned, this software will probably be quite capable of discovering exact, or almost exact copies of papers in its database. At my home institutions, as well as at other universities in the US plagiarism also includes:

1. Quoting another person's actual words, complete sentences or paragraphs, or an entire piece of written work without acknowledgment of the source; 
2. Using another person's ideas, opinions, or theory, even if it is completely paraphrased in one's own words without acknowledgment of the source;
3. Borrowing facts, statistics, or other illustrative materials that are not clearly common knowledge without acknowledgment of the source

More complete definition of plagiarism can be found on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism). I'm just not convinced that a twenty-thousand euro software can be capable of detecting all of these types of plagiarism.

Here are few more important questions.

1. What happens when an individual has submitted and is discovered that he has plagiarized a thesis or dissertation? Is he simply told to go back and write another one? And what if it is discovered that the second, and third, and fourth versions have been plagiarized as well?
2. What happens if it is discovered that a professor had plagiarized a paper, thesis or dissertation 5, 10, or 20 years earlier?
3. What happens to a student who has plagiarized a seminar paper? I noted in a previous post that I had the experience at a Macedonian faculty where ALL students in a seminar had plagiarized their seminar papers. Remember, according to the system of student assessment in Macedonian universities, students don't "fail" a course, they pass or fail exams, which they can retake as often as they please until they pass them. There is no legal procedure where a professor can say to a student, "Your paper is plagiarized, you fail the course, you must repeat the entire course." There is also no legal way for a faculty to punish repeat offenders by dis-enrolling them from the faculty for a period of time. So, students risk very little if they plagiarize, and at the end the risk is really worth it.

In his announcement Minister Todorov also says, "With the development of this software this decades long problem in higher education should stop." Minister Todorov and all educator in Macedonia should be aware that plagiarism is not a problem only in institutions of higher education in Macedonia, but for decades it has been part of Macedonian educational culture. It's prevalent from pre-school, first grade, and so on. If there is an easier way to write a paper, and if the person responsible for assigning and controlling the written project doesn't really care much, and if there are really no significant consequences, then why bother putting in the effort to write something original. My personal opinion is that all this is a result of the fact that generally speaking in Macedonian culture there is very little respect for knowledge and self-improvement. Parents, who should be most responsible for educating and enlightening their children, are also most responsible for promoting a culture of favoritism, cheating, and plagiarism.

My point above is to point to the fact that, contrary to the Minister's statement, plagiarism is not a problem only in institutions of higher education. The seeds of plagiarism are planted by the parents, and teachers in primary and secondary schools don't make much of an effort to weed out the problem. This is the reason why by the time a student enters the university the problem is really too large to handle with a 20,000 euro software. 

So, do you really want to fix the problem with plagiarism in higher education? 

1. Start fixing the problem with the parents.
2. Start fixing the problem from pre-school and first grade. Educate teachers on how to recognize plagiarism. Don't require individual teachers to be responsible for punishing offenders. That will most likely lead to bribery. Rather have each school organize a committee consisting of teachers, director, parents, etc., decide on the punishment. Make it clear at the beginning of every school year what the rules and consequences for cheating and plagiarism are and really stick by them.
3. Have the Minister assign someone at the Ministry of Education to gather documents form US universities on how they handle issues with plagiarism. You'd be surprised how well the rules work. I can tell you this from my own personal experience. I teach literature courses where students are required to write papers, and almost every semester I get one or two students who have plagiarized their papers. But after the plagiarism is discovered, and the student's parents (who are paying tens of thousands of dollars for their education) find out, and the student is forbidden to attend classes during the following semester, you can be certain that, that student will never plagiarize a paper again.

Plagiarism at universities can be rooted out within one year if professors and administrators really want to put in the effort. With the help of Google it takes me no more than five minutes to detect if a text has been plagiarized from some online resources, which is the most prevalent way that students plagiarize. Universities must have very strong and enforcible policies against plagiarism. Students should NEVER be given a second chance to write a paper in place of one that has been plagiarized. The minimum punishment should be repeating a course in which plagiarism has occurred. The next level should be dis-enrolling the student for one semester and for one year. The highest level of punishment should be dis-enrolling the student from the university forever. Plagiarizing a thesis or dissertation should require the highest level of punishment. The student should be dis-enrolled from the university forever, and the offence should be noted in the student's records. After one of these happens to one or two students, you can be sure that it won't take too long for others to realize that plagiarizing is just not worth the effort.

Finally, Minister Todorov should be commended for recognizing the problem and for trying to do something about it. I have yet to read any practical and successful solutions proposed by educators or by educational institutions. It is just unfortunate that the minister is attempting to solve this problem in a way that is certain to lead to failure. Rather than focusing all resources in detecting plagiarism, more effort should be put in making sure that it doesn't take place, or at least is reduced substantially.