Cheating allegations at some top universities have more than doubled since the introduction of online exams, research has found.
Plagiarism cases at universities have risen on average from 157 in 2019 to 353 last year, according to responses from 21 members of the Russell Group to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests.
Cases of academic misconduct, which includes collusion, have risen from 201 to 464 over the same period, FoI responses obtained by The Times showed.
The University of Glasgow recorded one of the biggest rises in alleged cheating, with 1,300 suspected cases of plagiarism in the last academic year – up from 209 before the pandemic. The university is responding by redesigning exams and improving students’ understanding of good academic practice.
Other top institutions to have reported a rise in suspected cheating include the University of Oxford, where investigations related to academic misconduct rose from 35 in 2018-19, to 77 in 2020-21.
The university said that its students were asked to sign up to an honour code for open-book and closed-book online exams. The code requires students to confirm that the submitted work is entirely their own.
The law firm Kingsley Napley warned last year that remote exams, which have continued since the pandemic at many universities, are driving a surge in cheating accusations as students are tempted to pay for answers and use WhatsApp groups to share information.
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