Hundreds of cheating cases at Staffordshire University
More than 350 Staffordshire University students have been found guilty of academic misconduct in two years with offences including cheating in exams and buying professional essays.
Out of 364 cases between 2014 and 2016 a total of 56 were of the most serious nature, which automatically means the culprit fails the particular module concerned.
Staffordshire University, which has around 12,000 students, stated the numbers were in line with what other establishments were seeing, but they have since hired Dr Thomas Lancaster, an expert in plagiarism and contract cheating, who is spearheading a wider campaign against unruly students.
In an interview with the Express & Star, he said: "The number of cases has gone down due to better support and education of students. All of the numbers are within reasonable boundaries. It is still a very small per centage of students doing this.
"There is a lot more awareness of plagiarism than there was a few years ago.
"Plagiarism is by far the most common form, exam cheating is another area that happens a lot."
While there are clear consequences for culprits, there is no realistic deterrent to people professionally writing and selling essays to students. Academics and ministers are now lobbying to outlaw the practice.
Dr Lancaster added: "We have got involved in looking at the problems and working with the student body.
"We are trying to get students onside to work with us and want to raise awareness of the consequences.
"Students get very frustrated with others getting marks they don't deserve and maybe even getting jobs they don't deserve.
"There will always be people trying to do it.
"Some students value the award more than others, while some students struggle with their work and look for other ways to complete their degree."
The number of students at the university found guilty of academic conduct in 2014/15 was 231 - 90 minor cases, 99 major, and 42 gross.
In 2015/16 the numbers fell to 133 in total - 55 minor, 64 major and 14 gross.
Depending on the offence the penalty ranges from marks capped to the pass rate or a complete failure of a module with no entitlement to re-assessment.
The university has several categories of misconduct; aiding and abetting, bribery, collusion, commissioning, computer fraud, duplication, false declaration, falsification of data, misconduct in exams and plagiarism.
They were unable to breakdown the nature of the incident in each case.
