I would like to share a personal experience from one of my undergraduate courses, where we were tasked with completing a review paper as part of the course requirements. We were informed that plagiarism checks would be conducted to ensure the originality of our work. Upon submission, almost half the class (a total of six groups) were flagged for plagiarism, ranging from minor to major offenses. Consequently, those groups received a grade of 5.0 for that requirement.
This experience made me question whether we had been adequately trained in proper citation and quoting techniques or if we lacked access to resources, such as plagiarism checkers, to verify our submissions beforehand. I firmly believe that the intention to plagiarize was not present among the students. Nonetheless, it was a valuable learning experience for the entire class. It highlighted the importance of ethical research practices and reminded us that even the most skilled scientists are not immune to research misconduct. With advancing technology, it becomes increasingly crucial to hold ourselves accountable and ensure the integrity of the information we present to the scientific community.
AI has been referred to by many as "plagiarism software". This is an emerging issue with the rise of AI technology. I hope to learn more about this in the ChatGPT module.