Automatic paraphrasing toolsan unexpected consequence of addressing student plagiarism and the impact of COVID in distance education settings

  1. Comas Forgas, Rubén 1
  2. Lancaster, Thomas 2
  3. Curiel Marín, Elvira 3
  4. Touza Garma, Carmen 4
  1. 1 University of the Balearic Islands and Stockholm University
  2. 2 Imperial College of London
  3. 3 Universidad de Granada
    info

    Universidad de Granada

    Granada, España

    ROR https://ror.org/04njjy449

  4. 4 Universitat de les Illes Balears
    info

    Universitat de les Illes Balears

    Palma, España

    ROR https://ror.org/03e10x626

Revue:
Práxis Educativa

ISSN: 1809-4031

Année de publication: 2023

Titre de la publication: Publicação contínua

Número: 18

Type: Article

DOI: 10.5212/PRAXEDUC.V.18.21679.020 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDialnet editor

D'autres publications dans: Práxis Educativa

Objectifs de Développement Durable

Résumé

Text matching tools employed to detect plagiarism are widely used in universities, but their availability may have pushed students to find ways to evade detection. One such method is the use of automatic paraphrasing software, where assignments can be rewritten with little effort required by students. This paper uses the search engine analytics methodology with data from SEMrush and Google Trends to estimate the level of interest in online automatic paraphrasing tools, focusing on the period 2016 to 2020 and the four countries: the USA, UK, Canada and Australia. The results show a concerning trend, with the number of searches for such tools growing during the period, especially during COVID-19, and notable increases observed during the months where assessment periods take place in universities. The method employed in this study opens up a new avenue of analysis to enrich and supplement the existing knowledge in the field of academic integrity research. The data obtained demonstrates that faculty should be alert for student use of automatic paraphrasing tools and that academic integrity interventions need to be in place across the sector to address this problem.