iParadigms, creators of Turnitin, today announced the results of a new plagiarism study which shows that social and user-generated web sites are the most popular resources for student copying, followed by academic and homework-related sites. Cheat sites and paper mills comprised less than 15 percent of the total resources used and showed the most significant decline over the period examined.
The study findings include:
* Plagiarism is going social: One-third of all content matched in the study is from social networks, content sharing or question-and-answer sites where users contribute and share content.
* Legitimate educational sites are more popular than cheat sites: One-quarter of all matched material is from legitimate educational web sites, almost double the number that comes from paper mills or cheat sites.
* 15 percent of content matches come directly from sites that promote and benefit from academic dishonesty: Paper mills and cheat sites are the third most popular category for matched content.
* Wikipedia is the most popular site for matched content: Wikipedia remains the most popular single source for student-matched content on the Web, comprising seven percent of matches in the months examined.
For a copy of the full report, visit pages.turnitin.com/PlagiarismandtheWebSEC.html
