In the UAE and many other nations, March is the month of mid-term exams. In the run-up to the spring break, with assignments to be submitted and exams to be revised for, student workloads mount and deadlines loom.
On the whole, students rise to this challenge, and through their efforts, they develop both academically and personally. For whatever reason – be it overwork, an obsession with success, or just sheer laziness – some students will cheat at some point in their academic careers. In an increasingly connected world, where vast archives of information and a variety of unethical services are easily accessible on the internet, this can range from plagiarising essays, buying them, or plain, old-fashioned sneaking notes – or phones – into exams.
Exploring the extent of the problem, the International Centre for Academic Integrity compiled global surveys of cheating spanning the 12 years from 2002 to 2015, including data for 71,300 undergraduate students. They found that 39 per cent reported having cheated on an exam, while 64 per cent said they had cheated on a written assignment. It also appears that, in general, cheats do prosper. A survey conducted by Fordham University in the US found that students who reported cheating had significantly higher grade point averages (3.41 out of 4) than their non-cheating counterparts (2.85 out of 4). The cheats got, on average, B-pluses while the non-cheats got B-minuses.
Academic dishonesty also appears to be worsening, exacerbated by the emergence of websites, known as essay mills, that offer an array of dubious educational writing services. The use of such services has become known as "contract cheating" – in other words, paying a third party to write for you. A study published in the journal Frontiers in Education in 2018, suggested that, globally, up to 15.7 per cent of college students have engaged in this practice, with the rate rising rapidly over the past few decades.
In 2017, the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) reported that more than 100 essay mills were in operation and urged universities to strengthen their policies on academic integrity. The essence of the QAA’s guidance was that, if information technology is facilitating academic dishonesty, then information technology can also be used to combat the problem. This has already started to happen, with far-reaching implications, thanks to the introduction of increasingly sophisticated plagiarism detection applications.
In 2012, Pal Schmitt, resigned as President of Hungary after he was stripped of his doctorate by Semmelweis University in Austria over allegations of plagiarism related to his 1992 doctoral dissertation.
In 2013, Annette Schavan, then Germany's education and research minister, was stripped of her doctoral degree by the University of Düsseldorf after instances of plagiarism were detected in her 1980 dissertation. Ironically, it was titled Person and Conscience.
In 2014, the US Army War College in Pennsylvania rescinded the masters' degree of former US senator John E Walsh for the same reason.
These are the high-profile cases that make the media, but many more don’t. The other common feature of the above examples is that plagiarism was detected many years after the original academic work had been submitted, graded and forgotten about.
Now that academic papers are preserved for posterity and made accessible to vast numbers of people online, evidence of academic malfeasance is more or less impossible to escape.
In this sense, strong parallels are beginning to emerge between academia and the world of sport, in which doping scandals have retroactively exposed a number of champions as cheats. One of the best-known examples of this occurred in 2012, when the cyclist Lance Armstrong was banned for life from competition and stripped of seven Tour de France titles.
In athletics it is reasonably common to hold urine or blood samples for 10 years or more, in the knowledge that technology will advance and be able to retest samples for performance-enhancing substances that are undetectable today. Some universities hold copies of student work for centuries, and now they are easier to find and search than ever.
The already powerful anti-plagiarism software that we have now will only get slicker, quicker and smarter. As regards contract cheating, detecting the authenticity of authorship is not that difficult for a computer. After all, there are already basic algorithms that can correctly attribute the authorship of Beatles songs to either John Lennon or Paul McCartney, based on linguistic analysis alone.
Meanwhile, work in this area carried out at Zayed University and presented at the British Psychological Society Conference in 2017 has explored the use of wearable eye-tracking devices as a deterrent to cheating on closed-book exams.
The need to reverse this dangerous trend of academic dishonesty is clear, but we are getting closer by the day to stamping it out once and for all.
Dr Justin Thomas is a professor of psychology at Zayed University
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Fixture and table
UAE finals day: Friday, April 13 at Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City
- 3pm, UAE Conference: Dubai Tigers v Sharjah Wanderers
- 6.30pm, UAE Premiership: Dubai Exiles v Abu Dhabi Harlequins
UAE Premiership – final standings
- Dubai Exiles
- Abu Dhabi Harlequins
- Jebel Ali Dragons
- Dubai Hurricanes
- Dubai Sports City Eagles
- Abu Dhabi Saracens
THE DETAILS
Deadpool 2
Dir: David Leitch
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Justin Dennison, Zazie Beetz
Four stars
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Episode list:
Ep1: A recovery like no other- the unevenness of the economic recovery
Ep2: PCR and jobs - the future of work - new trends and challenges
Ep3: The recovery and global trade disruptions - globalisation post-pandemic
Ep4: Inflation- services and goods - debt risks
Ep5: Travel and tourism
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- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
ANALYSTS’ TOP PICKS OF SAUDI BANKS IN 2019
Analyst: Aqib Mehboob of Saudi Fransi Capital
Top pick: National Commercial Bank
Reason: It will be at the forefront of project financing for government-led projects
Analyst: Shabbir Malik of EFG-Hermes
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Three ways to get a gratitude glow
By committing to at least one of these daily, you can bring more gratitude into your life, says Ong.
- During your morning skincare routine, name five things you are thankful for about yourself.
- As you finish your skincare routine, look yourself in the eye and speak an affirmation, such as: “I am grateful for every part of me, including my ability to take care of my skin.”
- In the evening, take some deep breaths, notice how your skin feels, and listen for what your skin is grateful for.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Company profile
Date started: 2015
Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki
Based: Dubai
Sector: Online grocery delivery
Staff: 200
Funding: Undisclosed, but investors include the Jabbar Internet Group and Venture Friends
The five pillars of Islam
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
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MATCH INFO
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ELIO
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Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
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In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein
By Fiona Sampson
Profile
Who are the Soroptimists?
The first Soroptimists club was founded in Oakland, California in 1921. The name comes from the Latin word soror which means sister, combined with optima, meaning the best.
The organisation said its name is best interpreted as ‘the best for women’.
Since then the group has grown exponentially around the world and is officially affiliated with the United Nations. The organisation also counts Queen Mathilde of Belgium among its ranks.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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