THE Leaving Certificate and Bebo, the social networking website, have been blamed for plagiarism by Irish college students.

Perry Share of the Institute of Technology in Sligo will make the claim when he speaks at the International Plagiarism Conference in Newcastle later this week.

"We live in a culture of borrowing. If you look at the music industry or internet sites like Bebo, everything is about reusing material and now students are confused about what is plagiarism and what is not, " Perry said.

Share, who is head of humanities at Sligo IT, believes that rote-learning in secondary schools has led to an increase in plagiarism.

"Teachers are giving out projects and essays to students and telling them to learn it off. It's crazy. You only need to look at last week's [Leaving Cert] maths paper to see how students couldn't cope with a photograph of a pyramid instead of a diagram, " he said.

"Then students come to college, do the same and get in trouble. It's terrible."

Dr Fiona Duggan, from the Plagiarism Advisory Service (PAS) in the UK, agrees that students are "genuinely unsure" of what constitutes plagiarism.

"It is fairly clear-cut if someone is writing out a paragraph straight from a book . . .

they will know that should be cited. But it gets more confusing with the internet and sites like Wikipedia. People just don't know if they are plagiarising or if they can take this information without citing it, " she said.

Duggan has seen a change in attitudes towards plagiarism in recent years. "Since we organised the first conference, there has been a shift from 'what can we do about this cheating' to a recognition that students are often inadvertently cheating, " she said.

Share argues that instead of banning 'information sharing', colleges should look at how to reuse information intelligently.

"We use other people's work throughout our lives. Is Riverdance plagiarised? Or in the business world, is it wrong to take a good idea from someone else's annual report?

No, but it is about the ethics of reuse. You can't just ban it, " he said.

A recent study carried out by Dublin City University (DCU) found that 30%-35% of students admitted to some form of copying, with the internet being their main source of information.

The growing concern over 'borrowing' from electronic media has seen colleges begin to use computer software detection programmes. Specialised software compares students' work with internet sources and searches it for copied text, as well as comparing assignments with a database of student papers held by colleges and universities.

University College Cork is testing one of these software detection programmes at present. Richard Morrisroe, UCC students' union education officer, said increased use of software detection packages is responsible for the increased number of students who have been penalised for plagiarism.

"It is a detection issue, " Morrisroe said. "I don't think there is an increasing number of people actually copying, I just think they are getting caught now."

Morrisroe warns that such systems can be especially harsh on new college students.

"In first year, there should be tutorials for students to learn how to reference properly. We also think students should be allowed to put their work through the software programmes themselves before they hand it in so they can see if it shows up. This will educate students on what plagiarising actually is, " he said.