One in six students at British universities say they have copied from friends and one in ten admits to looking for essays online, according a survey published yesterday.

The poll of more than 1,000 students across Britain found that male students were more likely to copy work from friends than females, with 21 percent of men admitting to cheating in this way compared to 14 percent of women.

The study covered 119 higher education institutions and was conducted for the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES).

Its publication follows an admission by a senior Oxford University professor that plagiarism was ?becoming a serious problem? even among the country?s most able students.

Professor Alan Grafen, one of Oxford?s disciplinary officers, said ten students had been investigated over the last year and that ?most have been found guilty?.

?Hard though it may be to believe, students type word-for-word, and increasingly copy-and-paste from the internet, and submit essays containing whole pages of this verbatim material,? he wrote in the university?s Oxford Magazine.

But he denied that cheating was rife at Oxford. ?Ten cases out of 17,660 students is not many,? he said in a statement after his comments were widely reported.

Professor Jean Underwood, a plagiarism expert at Nottingham Trent University, told the THES that copying academic work would only be brought under control when the majority saw it as a serious problem, ?rather like drink driving?.