The case in summary: Sandra Borch (Sp) resigned as Minister of Research and Higher Education after revelations about plagiarism in her master’s thesis in jurisprudence from 2014 at UiT – Norway’s Arctic University. According to a review by E24, 21.9 percent of Borch’s assignment was copied from six other assignments. Aftenposten found that the total extent was around 28 percent, including text copied from a report without credit. Senior lecturer Liv Cathrine Krogh at the University of Southeast Norway points out that plagiarism control systems are not watertight, and that there are challenges associated with discovering content that is not available on open websites. Dag Svanæs, professor at NTNU, pointed out that the tools for plagiarism control have improved over time, which makes it more difficult to cheat. UiT used the plagiarism control tool Ephorus in 2014 when Borch submitted his thesis. The tool was replaced with Ouriginal in 2015, but the effect of this switch on the control of Borch’s task is unknown. Krogh emphasized the importance of functioning plagiarism controls, as it is impossible for the examiners to have read everything that has been published. The existing systems capture a lot, but not necessarily everything. The summary has been carried out by an AI service based on ChatGPT and has been edited editorially by news’s journalists. – The system is not waterproof. This is what Senior Lecturer at the Department of Language and Literature at the University of South-East Norway, Liv Cathrine Krogh, tells news. Krogh has a good knowledge of the controls that are supposed to reveal cheating. Since 2010, she has censored a number of assignments in upper secondary education, and in the last two years has censored assignments from higher education. Sandra Borch (Sp) was one of the government’s most popular ministers as Minister of Research and Higher Education. A week and a half ago it became known that parts of the master’s thesis in jurisprudence from 2014 had been copied from other assignments. It was delivered at the University of Tromsø – Norway’s Arctic University. Almost a third plagiarism According to E24’s review, 21.9 percent of Borch’s assignment is copied from six other assignments. Aftenposten has calculated that the total extent could be around 28 per cent. Senior lecturer in Norwegian didactics at the Department of Language and Literature at the University of South-Eastern Norway, and chairman of the National Association for Norwegian Education, Liv Cathrine Krogh. Photo: Helle K. Hagen – It is clear that it surprises me a little, when there is around 20 percent of a task, and it is not discovered. It is a bit surprising, but it is the student’s responsibility, says Krogh. E24’s review revealed that Borch had additionally copied text from a report, without crediting it. Minister of Health and Care Ingvild Kjerkol delivered a task with over 60 text similarities to Nord University in 2021. Both UiT and Nord University will review the tasks after the media reports. news has asked Nord University and the University of Tromsø to be interviewed about their routines for checking plagiarism, and to explain why the textual similarities were not discovered. Nord University has not responded to our inquiry, but UiT replies: – UiT had a tool for plagiarism control in 2014. The system UiT used was called Ephorus. Master’s theses were then checked against previous exam answers from students at UiT as well as available and searchable data on the internet. Acting director of the department for research, education and dissemination, Julia Holte Sempler, writes in an email to news, via UiT’s press office. – However, the HE sector did not have a common database for storing and sharing exam answers at that time. Dag Svanæs is a professor at the Department of Computer Technology and Informatics at NTNU. Photo: Kai T. Dragland/NTNU Difficult to detect NTNU professor Dag Svanæs at the Department of Computer Technology and Informatics is not surprised that plagiarism can now be detected, which could not be detected before. – As supervisors for master’s theses, we have received much better tools in recent years that carry out automatic plagiarism checks, says Svanæs. He has no doubt that it is far more difficult for students to cheat now than before. – It is more difficult precisely because there are these tools that do it automatically, says Svanæs, who points out that a plagiarism check is interpreted by someone anyway. He is not surprised if plagiarism is now uncovered that has not previously been uncovered. – If you start going through old tasks, you can find things. It’s obvious. But how extensive there is and what, I have no idea. Although it has become easier to detect plagiarism, it is still not everything that the plagiarism check is able to catch. – It is assumed that there are sources that are available online, on open websites. It is also a pitfall, because not all sources that can be used are available online, says Krogh. Among other things, Krogh mentions that content in books and on websites with a payment solution may be more difficult to detect in a plagiarism check. Decisive When Borch submitted his master’s thesis at UiT Norway’s Arctic University in 2014, the university used a tool called Ephorus for plagiarism control. – This system was replaced by Ouriginal in 2015, says head of the study administration section at UiT, Kjersti Dahle, to news. UiT clarifies that Ephorus was in use until 2018, when they switched to a new system over a longer period. Acting department director at UiT, Julia Holte Sempler, says it is difficult to compare the current system with Ephorus, as the technology and the amount of information is generally greater. – A concrete difference is that in the current system we have access to the databases between the institutions that use the same programme. This makes it possible to uncover textual similarities between exam answers delivered at different institutions, even if they are not published, she writes. Sempler states that all answers are automatically sent via the text recognition check Ouriginal. Nord University states that since 2013 they have used Ephorus, Urkund and Ouriginal, with the latter being the system the school uses today. news has not succeeded in getting an answer to when the university switched between the various systems. RESIGNED: Sandra Borch (Sp) resigned as minister on Friday. How could it happen that an assignment with over 20 percent plagiarism was not detected? Photo: Rodrigo Freitas / NTB Senior lecturer Krogh has no doubts about the importance of plagiarism systems working in a good way. – We are completely dependent on these plagiarism checks, because we haven’t read everything in the entire world, she says, before continuing: – These are a bit different, and catch a lot, but not necessarily everything. – Are there major differences between the programs used? – Both yes and no. In the upper secondary exam, we ordered a plagiarism check on suspicion, while during the training we put on a plagiarism check ourselves when we took in written works.
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Therefore, Sandra Borch’s task was not picked up – news Troms and Finnmark
