Preventing plagiarism in engineering education and research

Plagiarism has long ago ceased to be a type of academic misconduct associated with works of fiction and the humanities. Recent years have seen a proliferation of plagiarism and other types of academic misconduct in engineering research and education. Initial studies have indicated a low degree of concern for preventing plagiarism in school. Later, it turned out that lack of awareness of this issue is a more serious problem that affects both students and teachers. This paper introduces a new technical description of plagiarism. From among the many situations generating plagiarism, special attention is given to unintentional plagiarism, theft of ideas and the use of general knowledge. The last two cases are identified as the most common types of plagiarism. Based on their analysis, the paper proposes a methodological framework intended to help avoid plagiarism in engineering research and education.