The advent of the Internet and the use of online course management software has made plagiarism in written assignments easier for students. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of our students (particularly first and second years) were plagiarising one another's written work, in part or full, especially if the task they are writing up is from a group activity. In addition some students reported cutting and pasting large chunks of (unacknowledged) text from the Internet to include within their reports.

I have introduced two activities to address plagiarism of published work (eg. especially from the Internet) and plagiarism between students (copying one another's work). Firstly I set about providing assignments that engage the students in novel research and in training them to write a scientific manuscript. This engages students in activities which are part of the research culture of the discipline and so they begin to build the skills required for their scientific futures. Many students appreciate this approach as relevant to their career aspirations. Additionally, because the research is new there is nothing on the Internet to copy. Whilst students may work in small teams for the research part of the exercise, they are expected to write up the material on their own. It is important to educate them about being honest in science.

To investigate the level of plagiarism between students and to try to find out why students engage in this activity, in 2003 I began using online plagiarism software (CopyFind). Students hand in their assignments as both a hard copy (for giving feedback on their work) and electronically (through WebCT). Although knowing about this process (students are told how the plagiarism software would be used), in 2003 approximately 10% of the assignments were found to contain copied text. This level has since dropped to less than 1% as the students have become aware of the power of the detection software. Students were interviewed and asked to make a written submission on how they plagiarised the work and their thoughts after some reflection of their actions. The interviews and written submissions indicated to me that several things were going on:

• one student sends his/her written ideas to several friends, who send it on (with their thoughts) to several friends. This leads to an amplification effect.
• chat networks play a major role in students 'sharing' their work. This communal activity, seen by all in the chat room, seems to gain acceptance.
• a group of students might function as a 'network' that is set up to respond to assignments with plagiaristic behaviors
• for some students it is unthinkable to do an assignment themselves
• in 2003 nearly all the students with detected plagiarism thought that the prior warning of plagiarism software was a bluff

It seems that for many students leaving the school system there is an entrenched culture that accepts plagiarism as a way of cheating the assessment on learning tasks.

The end result of my activities is: to redesign undergraduate assignments so that they are based on new research which will help to motivate students: and, to educate the students about plagiarism, and other academic dishonesties. This strategy is now routinely applied in selected study units at the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year level.