Over recent years the higher education sector has become increasingly aware of and anxious about the apparent increasing incidence of plagiarism.  While not a new phenomena, the apparent increase in plagiarism is often considered to be the result of the increasing use and growth of the Internet.  However, others have pointed to changes to practices within the higher education sector such as the “massification” of education provision; the increased use of coursework in assessment and the importance of grades and increased competition; the failure to ensure students have fully grasped the concepts of plagiarism and academic integrity; and the inability of institutions to detect and deter plagiarism effectively.  Whatever the cause, a great deal of research, investment and engagement has been undertaken in recent years focusing on the defining, detecting and deterring of text based plagiarism and some researchers have identified inconsistencies in approach and practice between staff and institutions.

Yet, despite significant concerns in the visual arts, in comparison with text-based submissions, relatively little work has been undertaken in the area of non-text based plagiarism (Blythman et al, 2007).  This collaborative project, funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), seeks to address this gap by innovatively modelling the use of specialist visual search technology and piloting its application to support learning and teaching in the arts through the identification and detection of incidents of plagiarism in visual submissions.

Starting in May 2011 the project team has undertaken an environmental and user analysis; developed a demonstrator service; and completed a series of pilot workshops with specialist arts institutions.  This interactive workshop will outline the scope, method and outcomes of the project and provide participants with an opportunity to explore the nature of plagiarism in visual media, to investigate and test the demonstrator service and provide the project team with feedback.