Students are downloading entire papers from the Web, but are teachers tech-savvy enough to know when they've been had? Part one of "CyberCrime's" special report.

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David Ralston, who is pursuing his graduate degree at UC Berkeley, says he would never consider using the Internet to plagiarize. However, he knows it's becoming a popular tool among students.

"The Internet has provided a vaster quantity of resources to students," Ralston insists. "They can plagiarize a wider range. Rather than having to go to the library and search through a number of books, they can lift other people's research papers directly."

This is not a problem isolated to UC Berkeley. Internet plagiarism occurs at schools and universities across the country.

"To not believe that there is a possibility of increased plagiarism with the Internet would be [like] putting our heads in the sand," Houlguin says.

According to student John Radus, the problem is not unique.

"I think it might be an embarrassing thing for people to see that people cheat at Berkeley," Radus says. "Well, you know what? People cheat everywhere."

It's hard to quantify the scope of the problem on a national scale because the Department of Education doesn't track plagiarism. The reason for that is two-fold. First, most schools handle cases internally, and second, plagiarism is not a federal crime.

In fact, some might not consider it a crime at all. But most of those in academia see it differently.

'Serious violation'

"It's a very serious violation of academic rules and regulations," UC Berkeley neurobiology professor David Presti says. "People can be expelled from school for plagiarizing, so in that sense it would be a crime."

Presti claims he has uncovered plenty of plagiarism in his classes, but he is not discouraged by the numbers.

"We need to address digital originality, intellectual property, ethics, and all kinds of things in any classes that are going to have assignments that involve writing [as well as] in all classes," Presti says. "It's a challenge for our educational system -- not something to be disheartened about.

This article is based on original reporting by "CyberCrime" segment producer Jennifer London.

Editor's Note: This story was first published on September 15, 2000.


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