College exams are hard work, and there’s always a temptation to cheat. Was it easier when assessments were online?
The Irish Times asked all eight of Ireland’s universities – DCU, Maynooth University, RCSI, Trinity College, UCC, UCD, UL and the University of Galway – and all five technological universities – Atlantic Technological University (ATU), Munster Technological University (MTU), South East Technological University (SETU), TU Dublin and Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) – via the Freedom of Information process, to provide figures and information on cheating or “academic misconduct”.
All, apart from TU Dublin and ATU, gave different levels of detail, with these two technological universities explaining that the data we requested was not centrally collated and, therefore, the relevant records did not exist.
Where do students cheat?
Colleges have very different ways of recording academic misconduct, but most record cheating as either an exam infraction, where the offence is committed in the exam hall, or plagiarism, where the offence is committed during an assignment.
RM Block
How do students cheat during exams?
Cheating during exams is almost always pre-planned, and the means of cheating remain familiar. They’re rarely ingenious or novel. Most commonly, students do what they’ve always done: bring in physical notes to the exam, or try to use their phone or smart watch.
At UCD, 79 students were in trouble for not bringing in their university ID card to exams in the academic year 2022/23, while 80 students committed the same offence the following year. While it’s not the most serious infraction imaginable, students without an ID card may not be able to prove that they’re the person who should be sitting the exam.
You might think that this wouldn’t matter, but it’s not unheard of for a student to send someone else to sit the exam in their stead – someone more knowledgeable, perhaps who has a degree in the subject.
Data from UCD shows that, in the academic year 2023/24, a number of students arranged for someone else to sit an exam under their name or on their behalf. The exact number of students who did this is unknown, as UCD redacted potentially identifying information, but it was at least one student and potentially up to nine.
How common is this form of cheating?
While the data can show us how many students got caught, it can’t indicate how widespread such a practice is. But it is one that comes with high risk.
Breaking the rules
There are other ways to break the rules besides cheating. In TUS Midlands-Midwest, one student was reprimanded for vaping during the exam. In the same university, records show four students got in trouble because they kept writing after time was up.
At TUS, three students were caught talking to each other in the exam hall.
Across the sector, students have been caught for hiding notes in their calculator – or even writing on the device itself.
SETU records detailed information about how some of its students cheat.
“One student had a large wad of notes zipped in their jacket pocket,” a SETU invigilator recorded. “Another had [their] notes in a clear Ziplock bag with their phone and pens under the desk.”
How do students cheat in assignments?
In an age of artificial intelligence (AI), lecturers have expressed concerns about how easy it has become for students to cheat on assignments – and how difficult it can be to detect.
The big breakthrough in AI came towards the end of 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT. At breakneck speed, and as the technology improves, ChatGPT and similar large language models (LLMs) are rapidly transforming education.
But Covid-19 may have been a bigger driver of cheating than LLMs.
DCU, for example, had just 21 cases of plagiarism in 2019, but 29 in 2021 and 40 in 2022, falling to just 10 the following year. UCD had 333 cases in 2020/21, 282 in 21/22 and 110 the following year. UCC saw plagiarism rise from 13 cases in 2019/20 to 124 and 235 in the two subsequent years, before falling back to 56 the following year.
At the University of Galway, 49 students were caught “using online resources” in 2020/21, but there were no instances recorded from 2018/19. A spokesperson for the university confirmed that this relates directly to exams being held online during public health restrictions, with students due back on campus in September 2020, only for this arrangement to be reversed at relatively short notice.
On the basis of the figures provided – and bearing in mind the caveat that no university records the data in exactly the same way – there’s relatively limited evidence to suggest a large spike in students using LLMs to cheat.
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For example, UCD – which holds some of the most detailed records, and where there are at least 17,000 undergraduate students – the number of recorded plagiarism incidents was highest during Covid restrictions, but fell significantly after the arrival of LLMs: 333 cases in 2020/21; 282 in 2021/22; and 110 in 2023/24.
Similarly, at Trinity College, there were 82 “plagiarism or other” cases in 2021/22, 31 in 2022/23, and 160 in 2023/24.
At UCC, plagiarism cases have also fallen – from 235 in 2021/22 to 56, 52 and 79 in the following years. Notably, UCC records that 35 of plagiarism cases in 2023/24 involved the use of AI.
It could be the case, of course, that students are simply getting away with it – it’s not that hard to ask ChatGPT a question and then paraphrase it. But there are two other explanations.
The first is that lecturers are increasingly using other forms of assignment, including group work, presentations and lab work, which make cheating harder.
The second explanation is that students are simply not cheating en masse, as third-level institutions drill into them the drawbacks of cheating and the chances of being caught. There are always obvious signs of cheating with LLMs, including the use of American spelling and the overuse of the em-dash (—), a longer punctuation mark than the en-dash (-). And plagiarism detection tools, although struggling to keep up with AI, can still catch cheats.
It’s also quite likely that most students recognise a degree isn’t that valuable if they don’t have the skills to back it up, so they don’t particularly want to cheat; instead, they may be using LLMs to help with initial research – as they have long since done with sites like Wikipedia – but then ensuring that their work is properly referenced and researched.
AI may be hitting the business model of “essay mills”, which some students have used to get others to write their essay for them. Just one student at SETU was caught for using an essay mill, while MTU said it received no reports of essay mills, but the university provided further context which applies broadly across the sector: “Turnitin (a similarity detection service used for assignments) is used by lecturers in the university. Text detection applications that employ AI technology are used as required by lecturers to help distinguish between content generated by AI tools and human-written content. The Department of Technology Enhanced Learning and the E-Learning Development Services Unit in the university have made an interactive awareness course available via the Canvas Learning Management System on GenAI to staff and students.”
What are the sanctions for cheating?
Although the data provided across the sector is incomplete, it seems that nobody was expelled – an option open for the most serious and/or persistent breaches. Even suspension is rare, and reserved for the most serious cases.
In the academic year 2021/22, one UCD student was hit with a one-year suspension for cheating, while in 2023/24, another was excluded from sitting their exams and ordered to undertake “relevant academic integrity education”.
In most instances, cheating students will have their grade reduced or fail the module or subject, have to write a letter of apology, or engage in an educational integrity course. It’s also common for students to have to submit a fresh assignment, but with their grade capped at 40 or 50 per cent.
