###### Abstract  
Academic plagiarism has remained a major concern for higher education institutions, as it hampers not only the quality of the teaching-learning process and research, but also the overall educational institution. This issue appears to be even more serious in online and distance education institutions. As a result, a qualitative study was conducted on an online university in Pakistan to investigate the determinants of academic plagiarism and to find ways to address this issue. The students were given an open-ended questionnaire to reflect their opinions on the awareness and understanding of plagiarism, its determinants, and ways to address it. The findings revealed that most of the 267 online university students had a poor awareness and understanding of plagiarism. Major reasons for students' plagiarism turned out to be a lack of a proactive approach to create awareness, an omission of citation conventions from course content, untrained teachers, a lack of strict penalties and their proper implementation, poor time management, a fear of failure, a lack of confidence, laziness, and a culture of plagiarism. The study proposes the Awareness, Support, and Prevention model (AS&P model) to address this issue in higher education institutions. plagiarism; ethics; academic dishonesty; online education; higher education; AS&P model; Pakistan +
Footnote †: journal: Applied  
13 October 2021  
17 December 2021  
**Publisher's Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. **  
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educational institutions are forced to allocate a substantial amount of time, effort, and resources to address it [12]. Students' lack of awareness and understanding of plagiarism is another important reason. [PERSON] found that many students did not know the correct citation conventions that could lead them to unintentional plagiarism [13]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] echoed this, saying that the students who lacked clarity about plagiarism and its consequences were more likely to commit it [14]. The literature also mentions many other reasons for plagiarism. Some of them are a lack of awareness, language issues, a tight schedule and deadlines, teachers' attitudes, high competition and expectations, a fear of failure, and peers' influence [13; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21]. Different types of pressures have also been pointed out as contributing factors [22; 23; 24]. [PERSON] et al. [25] mentioned students' desire to obtain high marks, exam pressure, and stiff peer competition as the most important reasons. Time-related issues are also quite significant, as students often have to complete assignments and other tasks in a limited amount of time [2]. Another reason for plagiarism is the difficulty of tasks. Weak preventive and disciplinary actions and/or a lack of policy enforcement may also tempt the students to plagiarize. [PERSON] [16] (p. 6) supported this by saying, \"cheating in self-defence may appear rational in a highly competitive atmosphere, especially where students believe there are few operative punishments\". Plagiarism is also a serious issue in Pakistan [26; 27; 28]. Previous studies have revealed that most of the students are either unaware about it [29] or have a poor understanding [30]. [PERSON] et al. [29] carried out a study investigating Pakistani university students' awareness and perceptions about plagiarism. They collected data from 25,742 students from 35 universities in Pakistan. The findings revealed that 94% of the participants were not aware of the plagiarism policy of the HEC (Higher Education Commission). Another study found that many students did not know about their own university's policies about it [30]. The education and training of the students about plagiarism and citation conventions are also generally overlooked. [PERSON] et al. found that students' lack of a proper education and training about plagiarism and an inadequate skillset were two of the most significant factors [8].