Stella Porto's List: plagiarism, cheating, etc

"Cheating and the Generational Divide
November 17, 2010

The revelation that hundreds of University of Central Florida students in a senior-level business class received an advance version of a mid-term exam has exposed the widening chasm in what different generations expect of each other -- and what they perceive cheating to be.

“To say I’m disappointed is beyond comprehension,” Richard Quinn, instructor in the management department at UCF, told his students last week as he announced that all 600 of them would have to retake their midterm exam in his strategic management course. The discovery that at least 200 of his students received a version of the test prior to the exam shook Quinn deeply, leaving him “physically ill, absolutely disgusted, completely disillusioned, trying to figure out what was the last 20 years for,” he said in a widely distributed Web broadcast of his lecture, which a student posted on YouTube, after appending his or her own captioned commentary (a more complete version of Quinn's remarks is here)."

"In the popular imagination, plagiarism carries exceedingly heavy penalties, often expulsion and perhaps some kind of public shaming ritual. In reality, punishments are usually much lighter. Indeed, in over 20 years studying and working at universities, I have never known a single student who was expelled for plagiarism. It might happen, but not often."

"This paper discusses ethics and student assessment, as applicable to the growing field of distance education. In particular, this paper discusses strategies for minimizing academic dishonesty in online student assessment. Among the strategies discussed are acknowledging the disadvantages of online assessment and overcoming them, designing an effective, cheat-proof online assessment, keeping online courses current, and providing students with an academic dishonesty policy. "

"In discussions among both new and veteran online instructors, some of the most persistently expressed concerns center upon issues of academic honesty. How does one conduct assessments in an online course? How can you be sure that the person taking the test is actually your student? And that they are acting alone, without the book? With the proliferation of online term-paper mills, how can you be sure that the essay or term paper you receive is actually your student’s work?

These are genuine and significant concerns, ones which must be addressed if web-based courses are to be an effective form of delivery. Fortunately, the same technologies which seem to offer new opportunities for cheating also offer new ways to detect and prevent cheating. This article will examine some of the ways that technology and course design can be used to preclude academic dishonesty in online courses. "

"Promoting Academic Integrity

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
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In a recent conversation, a faculty member expressed great dismay at the amount of cheating taking place in higher education and the cavalier attitude of many students toward it. His dismay is well founded. Depending on the study (and there have been many) anywhere between 40 to 60% of students report that they have cheated and they indicate a much higher percentage of their peers have as well. The faculty member I was talking to then went into a detailed description of all the measures he took to prevent cheating.

Faculty should be vigilant about preventing cheating and dealing with cases of academic dishonesty when they occur. But you know, I almost never hear faculty talking about what they are doing to promote academic integrity and for many years now, I’ve wondered if efforts to prevent cheating might not be more successful if we worked equally hard promoting academic integrity.

I don’t think most students understand the role academic integrity plays in the discovery and advancement of knowledge within the academy. For example, the reference at the end of the post reports findings from an interview study in which students responded to queries about plagiarism. Every student interviewed knew it was wrong, but most of them described it as something teachers didn’t want them to do, as if it were some peculiar problem teachers had copying the ideas of others. Even more indicated that they didn’t know how to avoid doing it."

"Donald McCabe’ s 2005 article “Cheating Among College And University Students: A North American Perspective” is often cited for its sobering statistics regarding the prevalence of cheating in higher education.

The numbers are alarming and do require a serious response, but have you ever turned the numbers upside down? For example, if 42 percent of college students admit to working with others on individual assignments, that means 58 percent aren’t getting help from others and those students would like you to do something about the 42 percent. If 38 percent admit to plagiarizing, that means 62 percent aren’t plagiarizing and those students expect you to do something about the 38 percent.

It’s an interesting view presented by Tricia Bertram Gallant, PhD, academic integrity coordinator at the University of California, San Diego, during the recent online seminar Teaching Integrity: Effective Responses to Cheating. The seminar challenged participants to dispel some of the myths around student cheating and rethink their role in establishing a culture of integrity.

“The common theme for today and for all my writing really is about encouraging students, teachers and administrators to not focus on policing, preventing and punishing cheating, which is by far the most typical response, but focus more on the more realistic picture of student cheating, the positive responses of infusing academic integrity back into our daily conversations in the classroom and in our responses to cheating.” "

"What is the Academic Integrity Tutorial?

The Academic Integrity Tutorial is designed to help you learn about academic integrity. The information in this tutorial is applicable for all subject and research areas and any level of study.

After completing this tutorial you will be able to:

Explain the concept of ‘academic integrity’ and identify five different kinds of academic dishonesty.
Identify the key points of York’s Senate Policy on Academic Honesty and the procedures and penalties associated with violating York’s Policy.
Differentiate between what is acceptable use of another’s ideas/words and what is plagiarism.
Identify several reasons why it is essential to document/reference sources of information/ideas.
Recognize t"

"Teaching Academic Honesty in the Classroom



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August 19, 2010


Daniel Fusch, Academic Impressions


The past few weeks have seen a flurry of discussion around cheating and academic dishonesty, a perennial issue made fresh in part by Centenary College's decision to discontinue a program in China due to the high incidence of cheating among the program's students. The incident raised the question of how to clearly communicate (and police) academic honesty, not only among international students but also among domestic students. Given that many cases of inappropriate academic behavior arise from a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes academic work (rather than from an intention to cheat), relying on Turnitin and similar services to "catch" plagiarists is not by itself enough to address the issue.


We asked Tony Bates, president and CEO of Tony Bates Associates Ltd. and a key researcher on teaching and learning in the digital age, to offer a fresh perspective on how colleges can encourage the academic success of their students by addressing expe"

Far From Honorable
October 25, 2011 - 3:00am
By
Steve Kolowich
Much of the urgency around creating a “sense of community” in online courses springs from a desire to keep online students from dropping out. But a recent paper suggests that strengthening a sense of social belonging among online students might help universities fight another problem: cheating.
In a series of experiments, researchers at Ohio University found that students in fully online psychology courses who signed an honor code promising not to cheat broke that pledge at a significantly higher rate than did students in a “blended” course that took place primarily in a classroom.
“The more distant students are, the more disconnected they feel, and the more likely it is that they’ll rationalize cheating,” Frank M. LoSchiavo, one of the authors, conjectured in an interview with Inside Higher Ed.