Does AI mean more university students plagiarize their work?

It is a common problem that people use other people’s ideas, words and creations without acknowledgment. Plagiarism occurs everywhere, from restaurant menus to political speeches and music.

In the academic world, plagiarism is viewed as a serious breach of the integrity of academics and students.

It is easy to find media articles claiming that plagiarism is increasing among university students. These claims have intensified with the advent of generative AI, which can quickly produce large amounts of text that students can copy and paste into their assignments.

But while AI certainly poses a number of challenges to academic integrity, is plagiarism increasing as much as we think?

My team’s new research, which tracked students at a university over 20 years, suggests that value may even be falling.

What are we comparing?

It can be difficult to determine accurate plagiarism rates. Before the advent of artificial intelligence, many claims about increasing plagiarism among students were based on cherry-picking results from…