Prácticas y causas del ciberplagio en personas estudiantes universitarias peruanas

Abstract

The influence of information technologies in higher education has facilitated access to information and has led to cases of cyberplagiarism. The purpose of this study was to identify the practices and causes of cyberplagiarism among university students, analysing the differences according to gender, age, type of university and field of study. A total of 584 students from a province in central Peru were asked to complete a questionnaire. The results show that the main forms of cyberplagiarism are submitting work with fragments copied from websites and online resources, the inappropriate use of paraphrasing without respecting intellectual property and the reproduction of information without citing sources. The main causes are attributed to both students (lack of time and lack of knowledge of citation rules) and teachers (excessive homework and lack of rigour in assessment). The analysis by variables shows significant differences in terms of age, with students aged between 20 and 22 being the most frequent victims of cyberplagiarism. These results suggest the need to address the root causes of academic plagiarism and to implement preventive and corrective measures at university level to promote information ethics and academic integrity.