Friday, July 9, 1999 Published at 13:38 GMT 14:38 UK
University in Net cheating probe
Edinburgh University has launched an inquiry
An investigation is being conducted into essays submitted by first year computing science students which university staff believe may have been plagiarised.
There are concerns students on the four year course used Websites containing standard essay answers, and e-mail, for the purpose of cheating.
An Edinburgh University spokeswoman said staff were carrying out an urgent investigation into the allegations.
The inquiry is understood to be focusing on unsupervised essays based on practical work and almost half of the students on the course have been told they will not receive their marks until the inquiry is completed.
The spokeswoman said: "Queries have been raised by the examiners in relation to some 90 students in first year computing science. In the meantime marks are being withheld.
"As to the more general issue of plagiarism, there is no evidence this is a more serious and widespread problem at the university."
There is growing concern among teachers and lecturers that students are accessing sites which provide ready-made academic material they are able to recycle as their own.
Others like cyberessays.com ask students to submit their papers to the site to increase the database.
However, technology is also being used to catch the cheats with the development of software which detects plagiarism by analysing sentence structure, vocabulary, phrases and syntax.
The Association of University Teachers said the Edinburgh investigation underlines the importance of exams in assessing students' performance.
Its spokesman, Alan Walker, said: "This is obviously serious. You do not want a culture of cheating to take place within the university.
"On the other hand this is a small amount of work in the whole gamut which actually goes towards the final degree."