Almost 50 University of Otago students were disciplined for plagiarism in 2007 and last year, figures supplied by the university show.
In 2007, 25 students were found to have copied the work of others in their assignments, and 24 students were found to have done so last year.
Plagiarism was regarded as a form of cheating which gave students an advantage over others, and it was taken seriously, academic services director John Price said.
Penalties available ranged from a warning, through to exclusion from classes.
None of the students dealt with in 2007 or last year was excluded, he said.
Six were given warnings, three were asked to resubmit their work, two received reduced marks for their assignment, 19 received no marks for their assignment, eight received no marks for their assignment and reduced marks for their paper, and 10 received no marks for their paper.
The harshest punishment imposed was no marks for all papers for one semester for one student.
Earlier this month, the university decided to introduce plagiarism detection soft-ware for the first time.
The SafeAssign system will be used to check students' work against other work previously submitted, and hundreds of thousands of papers and reports available on the internet.
It produces a report which either clears the work submitted as original or highlights any matches found, including paraphrasing, and identifies the source of the material for the match.
The program will be available to staff next year and to students and staff from 2011.
Educational institutions had a responsibility to detect plagiarism and create an even playing field for students, Mr Price said.
That included educating students about plagiarism and the need to attribute the work of others used in their assignments, he said.
