Information Literacy Education and Plagiarism Issues: Inputs From International Graduate Students

Plagiarism is an important issue for academic institutions to deal with in Canada and other parts of the world, and this issue is becoming more serious because of the increasing number of international students and easy access to online resources. This paper reports a study conducted in a mid-sized university in Canada with the intention to have an in-depth understanding of how international graduate students perceive plagiarism, and what measures universities could employ to help students, especially international graduate students, avoid plagiarism. Research data were collected through focus group discussions and findings indicate that by providing proper information literacy education could be one of the effective solutions. Based on an extensive review of relevant literature and input of research participants, some suggestions are presented for university administrators and faculty members.