Cheaters never prosper, and through everything from high-tech software to Google searches, many faculty members are trying to make sure that mantra stays true.

With the growth of the Internet and increased access to the information in recent decades, it is becoming much easier for students to plagiarize and much easier for instructors to track down cheaters.

It may become even simpler if the pilot program for Turnitin software goes well for faculty. About 10 faculty members are testing software that allows them to track plagiarizers more efficiently.

The program requires students to submit their papers to an online resource. Turnitin then returns a customized "originality report," according to the company's Web site. The report, based on searches of billions of current and archived Web pages, millions of student papers submitted to the company, and databases of journal articles.

Joy Morrison, the head of faculty development and the person behind the project, said she advises professors to mention plagiarism in their syllabi and inform classes that they know about online paper mills. Morrison said she catches many students by methods as simple as doing a Google search of key phrases in a paper.

"It's important to be very careful when confronting students," she said. "Nothing is worse than accusing a student when they haven't done it.Your relationship with that student is over. You can never recover after that."

Morrison teaches distance education classes for students around the state, the nation and the world. If she suspects a student is cheating, she contacts them first, she said. She informs them of her suspicions then gives them several weeks to decide if they want to rewrite the paper.

Though Morrison emphasizes the importance of not ruining the relationship with the student by falsely accusing them, she said letting them getting away with plagiarism is harmful.

"You're condoning it if you're not condemning it," she said.

Discouraging plagiarizers may be more complicated than catching them once. A 21-year-old anthropology student, who the Sun Star is granting anonymity to so she can talk freely, said she got caught cheating and still occasionally uses others' work without citing it in her papers.

During her freshman year, the woman was running late on an assignment and started to panic. She Googled the class material, then cut and pasted from reviews she found online and handed them in as her own.

She said her professor made a general statement to the class and reminded them not to cheat or plagiarize. She said she knew she had been caught when he didn't hand back her paper.

"I felt a little guilt," she said. "After that, I found a different review and just kind of switched the words around and used the thesaurus in Word to make it seen different. I got my paper back with 'better' written at the top."

While most cases of plagiarism at UAF are students in writing classes copying material from the Internet for simple writing assignments, some cases are more severe.

In fall 2006, a student in David Porter's upper division business course plagiarized his final project. Porter said the student copied his report off the Internet and was discovered through a Google search performed by a member on the community panel, which came to review the projects.

UAF student Joey Klutsch, who was in the class, said after the student presented his project, Porter confronted him.

"He told him it looked like he had copied the report word for word," Klutsch said. "The kid started backing up, then he just passed out."

Another student, Colin Bair, confirmed the account. Porter wouldn't comment on repercussions the student suffered, but Klutsch and Bair said the student still attends class at UAF.

Porter, speaking in general, said the disciplinary actions after an offense are largely up to the professor. He is more lenient with students in lower level classes because they may not be as well informed about what plagiarism is. Upperclassmen know what they are doing and are more likely to fail a course if they copy their paper, he said.

"The farther up you are in the academic world, the more draconian the penalties," Porter said.

Porter said he believes it is important to individuals who put information out there to know they are protected from plagiarists.

"If I can't put ideas out there and know that they won't be plagiarized," he said, "then the entire academic enterprise caves in."