Addressing the Inherent Biases in Automated Systems: On Detecting 'Plagiarism'.
Submitting Institution
Lancaster UniversityUnit of Assessment
Business and Management StudiesSummary Impact Type
SocietalResearch Subject Area(s)
Education: Specialist Studies In Education
Summary of the impact
Over a decade's research by Introna and Hayes has investigated the biases
inherent in
automated systems. As part of this research they showed that the design
and use of plagiarism
detection systems (PDS), used by Higher Education Institutions
(HEIs) worldwide, may be
unfair due to their embedded values and assumptions. A series of reports,
workshops and
supporting resources, using these insights, have transformed writing
support and teaching
practices at no less than 32 HEIs nationally and internationally,
affecting lecturers, support staff
and student union representatives. As a result, at least 10 HEIs have
developed less punitive
policy frameworks and taken a more developmental approach, leading to a
much fairer
treatment of plagiarism cases.
Underpinning research
The underpinning research of this impact case is part of an ongoing
research project started
more than a decade ago. The essence of this project was to demonstrate
that technologies are
not neutral machines/tools but are relatively `frozen cultures'. They
embody, in their design,
certain beliefs, values and interests. Furthermore, technology `use' is
not a neutral taking-up of
tools but rather a cultural and political issue in which some parties'
interests prevail (often at
the expense of others). The early part of the programme focused on search
engine technology,
which demonstrated that internet search engines, and their algorithms,
systematically favour
certain types of sites and content over others. The project also
considered the rise in automatic
facial recognition systems and also demonstrated that the design and
operation of automatic
teller machines (ATMs) systematically excluded the interests of certain
users — i.e. that they
assumed that the user is able-bodied. This larger programme established
the theoretical
framework and methodology to study PDS, the focus of this impact case.
The rapid rise in the use of PDS such as Turnitin in HEIs offered the
opportunity to examine
the political and ethical implications of PDS and how their algorithms
work to detect what was
assumed to be plagiarism. Work undertaken by Professor Lucas Introna and
Dr Niall Hayes at
LUMS, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE),
and has been
published and highly cited in top journals. These include Ethics and
Behaviour (2005) and
Information and Organisation (2011). This research demonstrated
that the algorithms that
underpin PDS did not detect plagiarism as such but only detected certain
types of copied text.
The fundamental problem with PDS is that certain types of copying are
detected and other
types are not detected. Students who retain a sufficient number of
consecutive characters will
be detected by the system's algorithm. Often these students will be those
who are copying
words from a source in the system's database but are constructing their
own ideas through a
complex patchwork of copied words. There is little intention to cheat in
such cases. When there
is an intention to cheat, students with limited linguistic ability in
English will be readily detected.
However, students who have the linguistic ability to copy ideas but who
break up the number of
consecutive characters copied, for example every fourth word, will not be
detected, even
though they have based their ideas and their text on a number of sources.
Thus the algorithm
does not necessarily identify those who set out to cheat. It detects those
who retain a sufficient
number of consecutive characters for the algorithm to identify it as
copied text. Of the ones
who are cheating, PDS disproportionately identifies those who lack
linguistic ability (non-native
speakers) over those who are writing in their first language.
Furthermore, the research found that there were many culturally specific
educational reasons
why there might be copied text in a student's work. It demonstrated that
the use of the
technology discriminates against students who come from educational
contexts in which there
were different expectations of what academic writing involves, i.e.
international students. This
has had a significant impact on the way HEIs deal with cases of
plagiarism, especially in
relation to international students.
As part of the project the research team produced a website, based on the
plagiarism project,
entitled Student Diversity and
Academic Writing (SDAW) to disseminate information to a global
audience. This detailed their empirical work in Greece, India and China,
the aims of the project
and initial findings. The Director of Services and Research at the UK
Council for International
Student Affairs (UKCISA) endorses the website, stating that it `is one
of the resources to which
I refer enquirers on this topic. It is referenced by the Teaching
International Students databank
on the Higher Education Academy website (a project which UKCISA
co-led).' The team also
organised and held a conference entitled `International Students, Academic
Writing and
Plagiarism' which brought together key stakeholders in this area to debate
the topic. Videos
and slides from the presentations were made available on the SDAW website.
References to the research
The research has been published in the following books and international,
peer reviewed
journals:
1. Introna, L.D. and Hayes, N. (2011) `On Sociomaterial Imbrications:
What plagiarism
detection systems reveal and why it matters', Information &
Organisation, 21(2): 107-122.
2. Introna, L. D. and Hayes, N. (2008) `International Students and
Plagiarism Detection
Systems: Detecting plagiarism, copying or learning?' In Roberts, T.
(ed.) `Student
Plagiarism in an Online World: Problems and Solutions', New York,
pp. 108-123.
3. Hayes, N. and Introna, L. D. (2005) `Cultural Values, Plagiarism, and
Fairness: When
Plagiarism Gets in the Way of Learning', Ethics and Behaviour,
15(3): 213-231
4. Hayes, N. and Introna, L. D. (2005) `Systems for the production of
plagiarists? The
implications arising from the use of plagiarism detection systems in UK
universities for
Asian learners' Journal of Academic Ethics, 3(1): 55-73.
Grant:
£215,000 HEFCE grant, `Plagiarism, Computers and Values' (Dr Niall Hayes,
Professor Lucas
Introna and Dr Edgar Whitley, LSE), awarded in 2004. Project activities
began in January 2005
and concluded in December 2007. Additional funding for a transferability
phase for further work
was awarded in 2006, and this work took place during 2008.
Details of the impact
Globally, HEIs have become increasingly concerned with the prevalence of
plagiarism in
academic writing, and in particular in assessments. Plagiarism was
perceived to be more
common among international students. One seemingly simple solution to the
problem was to
check all assessments electronically, using PDS. It was assumed that these
systems would
subject all students to the same rigorous process of checking, i.e. that
they would be fair. The
research demonstrated that this was not the case. It revealed that,
because of the assumptions
embedded in the algorithms, these systems discriminate against certain
students. These
systems should therefore be used with caution and only as part of a
comprehensive framework
to deal with plagiarism. A THE article suggested, based on the
research, that, `In fact, the
reason such students are branded as cheats is that universities have
flawed ideas about
plagiarism. Plagiarism is not a simple phenomenon. It is not a
straightforward choice between
cheating and not cheating. A number of complex conditions shape the
writing practices of
students.' These insights were disseminated through 20 workshops and
presentations at HEIs
and at HE policy forums in the UK, Europe, China and the USA.
Local impact:
Sessions, incorporating the research, have been held for several years,
training academic staff
at Lancaster University on the Associate Teacher Programme (ATP) and
Certificate of
Academic Practice (CAP), courses accredited by the Higher Education
Academy. Also, student
academic writing practices have been influenced through workshops and
working closely with
faculty student learning advisors, based on the recommendations from this
research.
Impact on policy:
The work has been influential in shaping policy at various national and
international HEIs such
as Nottingham
Trent University, University
of Northumbria, University
of Sydney and Simon
Fraser
University. Southern Illinois University, for example, actively drew
upon it to formulate
their institutional
policy for dealing with plagiarism. They encourage staff to
appreciate `that
students from non-Western cultures may have different concepts of
authorship and little or no
training in how to use sources and therefore may need extra help in
avoiding plagiarism' and
that they should `expect some `patchwriting' (developmental
plagiarism) that is unintended, and
allow time for revision of patchwritten texts'. These are
recommendations that come directly
from the Lancaster research. At the London School of Economics the
research was described
by members of a working group on the use of Turnitin for PhD theses as
being `very helpful in
forming a sensible policy for LSE in this area.'
Impact on training for staff and support for students:
The research has been adopted by various international HEIs to train their
staff to be sensitive
to the complex, culturally specific practices that are implicated when
students write for
academic purposes. At the University of Sunderland, for example, it was
used to develop
workshops for staff to show them the limits of PDS and how knowledge of
these systems can
be used support strategies for developing `deep' learning approaches. The
work has been
used nationally in university staff training workshops at The LSE, York, Leeds,
Wolverhampton,
Kingston
and Bradford and also internationally at Penn
State University, University
of San Diego,
Wisconsin,
Syracuse,
Sydney,
Guelph
and Simon Fraser University. An external
advisor to the Plagiarism Advice Service, at the time of the project,
stated that `The work by
Hayes and Introna has changed how I think about student plagiarism ...
The SDAW outcomes,
used generically, have made a difference to how I designed and delivered
workshops and
presentations on teaching international students since 2008 (amounting
to c. 50 events in c. 10
countries to c. 2000 people.' This advisor suggested that the
findings could have ongoing
impact in the form of a handbook for practitioner use. This is now under
development.
The research has enabled student unions to provide more effective support
for students who
were accused of plagiarism. The students union of Concordia University, in
Montreal, used the
research as part of their `Academic
Fairness Campaign' (in 2010/11) for a more nuanced way
of dealing with students identified as plagiarists by detecting systems.
Drawing on its findings,
they suggested that universities `should endeavour to: Create
teachable moments out of
seemingly bad situations. If an international student, especially a new
student, is suspected of
plagiarism, do not automatically assume intent to be dishonest...
Adopting an educative
approach to plagiarism is preferable to one based solely on punishment.'
This campaign is just
one example of how this work has helped students to get fair treatment.
An Executive Member of the UK Council for Graduate Education and member
of the project
steering group, based at Royal Holloway, University of London, confirms
that there was little
research at the time that, `explored either how difficult it may be
for students from overseas
(China, India, Greece) to make sense of doing a UK Masters programme ...
nor had previous
work integrated academic writing, student educational biographies and
use of Turnitin'. She
invited the research team to speak at Bristol University (her former
institution) and Royal
Holloway, to share the project findings. A member of the National Advisory
Board of the
Academic Integrity Standards Project funded by the Australian Office for
Learning and
Teaching since 2010 corroborates the impact of Introna and Hayes' research
and that it,
`contributes to ongoing dialogues among university lecturers,
program/course coordinators and
university executives about how to better understand and use pedagogic
means to address the
underlying issues that contribute to instances of plagiarism. I and
others in this field in Australia
contribute regularly to national dialogues on these issues... In
addition, I contribute to university
dialogues with colleagues and faculty management, presenting seminars
and workshops that
draw on the work of Introna and Hayes to advise on pedagogic approaches
... for supporting
international students to develop competence in academic writing.'
Overall the work at LUMS has been instrumental in shifting the debate on
plagiarism from one
of `detecting and punishing' to a more nuanced understanding of the
complex cultural and
technological conditions that shape writing practices. The research has
been disseminated and
debated worldwide by institutions, students and interested parties via
social media and has
underpinned further academic research in the field. In sum: the project
has, through its
innovative research and dissemination strategies, transformed writing
support and teaching
practices in at least 32 HEIs, nationally and internationally. The actual
impact is most certainly
significantly more since this impact case only focused on impact that was
formally recorded.
Sources to corroborate the impact
Media:
- The Independent, 11th March 2012, `45,000
caught cheating at Britain's universities'. This
article demonstrates the reach and significance of this research,
stating that an
approximate 45,000 students per year are deemed to have `cheated' in
British universities
and that this `trend is on the rise'.
- Times Higher Education, 29th January 2009, `A
cheat, moi? That's unfair' - discusses the
misconception that copied text is plagiarism, often re-affirmed by
`flawed software'.
References in institutional policies and guidance:
- The Association of Information Systems drew on this research to
develop their `Code of
Research Conduct'.
- Universities Scotland used the research to develop their `Equality
Toolkit'.
- The Asian Pacific Forum for Educational Integrity lists the research
as a resource.
- A list is available on request of national and international HEIs that
have incorporated the
research findings into their policies, and education-related
institutions that use the research
as a resource for students and media (newspapers, blogs, etc.).
Testimonials:
- Professor of Higher Education Management and Executive Member of the
UK Council for
Graduate Education, Royal Holloway, University of London and member of
the project
steering group — confirms the originality of the approach taken to
researching plagiarism
and her invitation to present the findings at Royal Holloway and Bristol
University.
- Evaluator of the SDAW project and Independent Consultant, Oxford
Centre for Staff and
Learning Development. Formerly External Advisor to the Plagiarism Advice
Service, 2003-
2008 - corroborates that this research has changed how she consults on
plagiarism
globally, to c.2000 people.
- Director of Services & Research, UK Council for International
Student Affairs —
corroborates that the project findings are used for UKCISA's national
training programme.
- Associate Professor of Educational Studies, Australian Catholic
University and member of
the National Advisory Board of the Academic Integrity Standards Project
funded by the
Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (2010-2013) - corroborates
the claims of the
research and the impact on Australian educational policy and discourse
on plagiarism.