Anti-plagiarism tech catches cheaters

University admissions body Ucas is using automated detection technology to spot plagiarised applications from students.

Ucas ran a trial of the CopyCatch software from CFL Software on 50,000 university applications last year because of rising numbers of students bootlegging material for the personal statement section of the form.

Although Ucas has its own guide to writing a personal statement, many students are ripping examples off the Web. For example, a search on Google for 'Ucas sample personal statement' throws up more than 93,000 results.

Around five per cent -- 2,500 -- of applications were found to have used material from Web sources such as Google, ranging from a couple of sentences to the entire personal statement.

An Ucas spokesman told CNET.co.uk's sister site silicon.com: "It was a very successful trial."

The technology will now be used on all the half-a-million university applications Ucas receives this year for students looking to start their courses in September 2008. The organisation has also sent letters to schools warning about the new plagiarism detection tactics.

The Ucas spokesman said: "The system will flag up when a personal statement has more than 10 per cent similarity to another statement or the material from our library."

Those forms flagged up by the software will then be passed to the Ucas verification unit, which deals with fraudulent applications. The unit will manually review the personal statement and decide whether to notify the university or college the student has applied to. The student is also notified of this action.

The Ucas spokesman said: "It then falls on the university to make a decision."