Plagiarism in Kosovo: a case study of two public universities

Abstract

This article presents the current legislative and educative measures in place for plagiarism prevention in Kosovo, especially in the case of student work, and provides an analysis of the effectiveness of such measures. Two public universities are used as case studiesthe University of Haxhi Zeka and the University of Kadri Zekaand the research is based on the legal and policy documents enacted by the two universities, as well as many reports, scientific articles on plagiarism and HEI official websites. The issue of plagiarism has only recently become a priority in Kosovo, with many factors hindering advancement and development in this area.

Plagiarism Defined?

“…Accordingly, external resources and teaching practices are a s important as policies when it comes to understanding how plagiarism is defined in a particular context, be that the culture of higher education in a certain country, or simply one department of a university. This finding corroborates ongoing recommendations in research linking policy and pedagogical interventions to counter plagiarism in higher education (e.g., Shala, Dukagjin & Morganella, 2018).…”

Addressing contract cheating in Kosovo and international practices

“…Kosovo's HEIs have sanctions in place for plagiarism, and support the right of authorship; however, contract cheating is only superficially regulated in their legal documents, which include statutes, internal academic regulations, code of ethics, as well as the Law on Higher Education (Shala et al 2018, AAB College 2020, UBT College 2020, University of Mitrovica Isa Boletini 2019, University of Mitrovica Isa Boletini 2020, University of Applied Science 2019, University of Prizren 2020, University of Haxhi Zeka 2019, University of Gjakova 2020, University of Kadri Zeka 2020). Compared to western countries' HEIs (Newton 2018;Medway et al 2018;Bretag et al 2019), Kosovo's HEIs lack detailed legal definition of the term contract cheating, and lack specific administrative and technical mechanisms that may detect and prevent contract cheating, making it difficult to prohibit these illegal practices (Shala et al 2018).…”

“…Kosovo's HEIs have sanctions in place for plagiarism, and support the right of authorship; however, contract cheating is only superficially regulated in their legal documents, which include statutes, internal academic regulations, code of ethics, as well as the Law on Higher Education (Shala et al 2018, AAB College 2020, UBT College 2020, University of Mitrovica Isa Boletini 2019, University of Mitrovica Isa Boletini 2020, University of Applied Science 2019, University of Prizren 2020, University of Haxhi Zeka 2019, University of Gjakova 2020, University of Kadri Zeka 2020). Compared to western countries' HEIs (Newton 2018;Medway et al 2018;Bretag et al 2019), Kosovo's HEIs lack detailed legal definition of the term contract cheating, and lack specific administrative and technical mechanisms that may detect and prevent contract cheating, making it difficult to prohibit these illegal practices (Shala et al 2018). The legislation and code of ethics that do exist only consider and provide mechanisms to address plagiarism cases (Shala et al 2018), and contract cheating is only indirectly prohibited by the internal academic regulation regarding cheating in general (Shala et al 2018, AAB College 2020, UBT College 2020, University of Mitrovica Isa Boletini 2019, University of Mitrovica Isa Boletini 2020, University of Applied Science 2019, University of Prizren 2020, University of Haxhi Zeka 2019, University of Gjakova 2020, University of Kadri Zeka 2020).…”

“…Compared to western countries' HEIs (Newton 2018;Medway et al 2018;Bretag et al 2019), Kosovo's HEIs lack detailed legal definition of the term contract cheating, and lack specific administrative and technical mechanisms that may detect and prevent contract cheating, making it difficult to prohibit these illegal practices (Shala et al 2018). The legislation and code of ethics that do exist only consider and provide mechanisms to address plagiarism cases (Shala et al 2018), and contract cheating is only indirectly prohibited by the internal academic regulation regarding cheating in general (Shala et al 2018, AAB College 2020, UBT College 2020, University of Mitrovica Isa Boletini 2019, University of Mitrovica Isa Boletini 2020, University of Applied Science 2019, University of Prizren 2020, University of Haxhi Zeka 2019, University of Gjakova 2020, University of Kadri Zeka 2020).…”

“…Since then, they have started to implement new assessment methods for evaluating students' work, such as written exams, research papers, etc. However, these institutions do not yet have the basic infrastructure in place to support these new ways of assessing, such as using detection plagiarism software, establishing institutional storage of student's written work, or national storage of theses (Shala et al 2018), etc. The authors believe that Kosovan HEIs should also use more face-to-face assessment methods.…”