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Students, lecturers: who are the plagiarists? Has the Internet revolutionized cheating? How can we combat this phenomenon, which over the last five years has taken on exponential dimensions.

An estimated 10,000 students a year are subjected to disciplinary action across Australia's universities, most of them for plagiarism allegations.

New international guidelines and a voluntary code on research integrity are being drawn up as a result of consultations at the Second World Conference on Scientific Integrity held in Singapore in July. The initiative is intended to combat rising incidences of scientific fraud, plagiarism and other research falsification and serve as a "guide for professionally responsible research practices throughout the world".

The frontier in the battle to defeat student cheating may be here at the testing center of the University of Central Florida. As the eternal temptation of students to cheat has gone high-tech – not just on exams, but also by cutting and pasting from the Internet and sharing of homework online like music files – educators have responded with their own efforts to crack down.

Even in the country's best universities, plagiarism and falsified data are preventing the country from developing advanced science, says a world-renowned mathematics professor.

The University of Tokyo will overhaul its thesis examination process and throw the book at anyone found to have plagiarized other people's work, according to the university President. The tighter screening and tougher penalties come after the university last month effectively dismissed a Turkish assistant professor and revoked his doctorate after finding he had falsified his academic credentials and plagiarized major portions of his doctoral thesis.

Universities are failing to crack down on plagiarism despite an unprecedented education ministry circular sent to them a year ago making them responsible for investigating and dealing with rampant cheating.

Polish university students are using Wikipedia and "crib sheet" websites as the main source for their master's thesis, a new survey reveals.

Universities face constant scrutiny about their plagiarism management strategies, policies and procedures. A resounding theme, usually media inspired, is that plagiarism is rife, unstoppable and university processes are ineffectual in its wake. However, revisiting the origins of plagiarism and exploring its legal evolution reveals that legal discourse is the foundation for many plagiarism management policies and processes around the world. Interestingly, criminal justice aims are also reflected in university plagiarism management strategies.

More than 600 University of Otago students were disciplined last year for criminal or disorderly behaviour and dishonesty. Their offending included electronically altering exam results, falsifying documents, plagiarism, stealing other students' work or possessions, setting couches on fire, assault, trespass, wilful damage and offensive behaviour.