Cyber-cheating and plagiarism
A staggering number of students admit they plagiarise other people’s work, both online and off. The question is: what should be done about it?
“Whilst the copying, falsification and plagiarism of essays and assignments has long been a prevalent form of academic misconduct amongst undergraduate students, the increasing use of the internet in higher education has raised concern over enhanced levels of online plagiarism and new types of ‘cyber-cheating’.” So reads the abstract to an article by Neil Selwyn. While I do not have access to that article, here is an extract of a blog post by Richard N. Landers which discusses the matter:
“So how bad was it in Selwyn’s sample? 61.9% (757 students) admitted to engaging in online plagiarism. 59% copied a few sentences, 30% copied a few paragraphs, 12% copies a few pages, 4% copied entire documents, and 3% purchased essays. 22.3% admitted to engaging in such behaviors regularly.”
On reading these statistics, the first question that people may ask is whether things are worse now than in pre-internet days. Landers says:
“The study also examined “traditional” plagiarism and found similarly high levels – again, 61.9% of the sample reported some type of plagiarism, though this time from books and articles. I am not wholly convinced that the researchers adequately differentiated “online articles” and “offline articles” (students may consider these to be the same thing), but there is not enough detail reported on their method to be sure either way.”
This doesn’t really answer the question. That said, I don’t think the answer is particularly important. The fact is that 61.9% of students are getting marks which, to varying extents, are not deserved. Or, to put it another way, 38.1% of students are suffering because they choose not to cheat (or, at least, choose not to admit to cheating!). Consequently, in my opinion, the only question that needs to be asked is: what should be done about it?
To my mind, there appears to be only one solution. The way in which students’ abilities are tested and assessed needs to change, with more weight attached to the results of supervised exams and less to the results of course work and assignments. Nothing else would work. Sure, educators could use a service similar to Copyscape to automatically check for plagiarism, but all that really shows is whether or not the student has made enough changes to the documents from which they copied for their work to pass. And, of course, a student can also use those exact same services to establish whether enough changes have been made. We should be testing kids’ ability to use information, not test their ability to find and rework it.
What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!
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The solutions that this author offers are bogus. Only measure a student’s abilities on tests in the classroom…please. In this day and age technology is everywhere, and more and more schools and classroom teachers are encouraging their students to use any scrap of technology the own to their advantage. The only premise I’ve heard with regards to their use is to use them as a tool, not a toy. I believe that the exact opposite of what the author is saying should be the measure of a student’s abilities. Measure what they can create. Not only that…measure what they can create with technology. Gone are the days of the lame poster that a kid holds in their soft little hands, and arrived is the time where kids should be instructed and expected to use technology. Then use it to find info, rework info, understand info, critically analyze info, and present info with an individualized opinion in a way that both displays that understanding and engages an audience of their peers. Yes, standardized testing, dioramas, and other hands on ways of presenting understanding have their place, but you know what…it’s the 21st century man, so let’s get with it!
Avro,
By the way…any boss, especially your boss, who steals one of their emloyees work and passes it off as their own should get kicked in the stones by a soccer goalie and told to “suck it up, it’s life!”
I get the feeling you already are missing a lot of information and using only one little study as a basis. Already in school when I went, they were using websites that students upload their reports to. It checks it against other reports that have been uploaded and does an internet search to check for plagarism.
There are hefty penalties for if you are caught doing it.
plagiarism is a problem, but wait to you get out into the real world and
see how often it goes on. It’s done in business all the time. I had my work copied and not received credit for it. And if you complain, your told to “suck it in”. But, thats life! Remember, when the boss passes your
work off as his, you have a choice, quit, get fired or prepare the next
report and collect a pay check!!!!!!
Yes plagiarism is a problem and it is really unfair to those students who make the effort of writing their papers from scratch, but I disagree with your suggestion of making testing / exam the primary evaluation of student’s knowledge. Most students are not good at writing exams in the classroom as a result of anxiety and the only way for them to make the grades is through a combination of assignments and exams. Furthermore, there are very sophisticated softwares out there to detect plagiarism and most colleges have invested in such softwares. However, all professors must make an effort to ask every student to submit their assignments via that software as well as a hard copy. It also very difficult to reword someone else’s work /paper; at some point the fluency of the paper becomes very distorted and unreadable. Recently, we were asked to submit a marketing paper and most people thought they could beat the software by changing words etc, but they were in for a rude awakening. After they submit their papers to safe assign, three quarters of the class did not get a grade and they had to rewrite their papers with proper citation. The point I am trying to is that a student will get away with plagiarism if the professor and the college allow them to do so. In addition, biasness is so prevalent in the classroom and most professors tend to assign grades to some students solely based on their biasness towards a student whatever the bias maybe. Totally unprofessional, but true! Consequently, the discipline starts with the school’s policies and the professor’s astuteness towards plagiarism and the need for other students to plagiarize.
About 30 years ago I completed a MBA and one of the things we regularily did was to produce written case study analysis. The correct thing to do was to read about the topic and the part of the report called a Biblography listed the references read and refered to in writting the report. I suspect it really does not make much difference if it is a book or an article or some electronic document which is refered to…it should be listed in a Biblography. I think the form of Biblography listing may be somewhat different for an electronic document but it should be referenced in the report.
My undergraduate degree was in Engineering……most graduate Engineers are functionally illiterate as far as writting a sentance as mostly they write in point form. Writting is work and it is important to get organized. Most things such as contract specifications etc are done by taking a past document and modifying it serve in the current situation. It is difficult to adequately seperate the original document and the modifications and seldom in practice done. I suspect a lot of the students do the reading and find it difficult to do adequate footnotes, references and Biblography. That is quite different from outright coppying or “buying” a term paper. Part of the learning process is learning to get organized to do the difficult work of writting. I still struggle with it.
Plagiarism??? No one cares about that in the real world. Hollywood is a perfect example of that.
We live in a society that has instant access to global mass information at our fingertips (literally), where there is no ‘research’ per-se; rather than ‘looking it up’ is the perferred business model, and saying to your “… See, here, look, I told you so.”
Arvo is so correct, and I have several experiences which mirror’s his.
You get rewarded by your cleverness in getting the results. Not in your honesty in doing the work. The above article’s statistics has proven this in schools, and the real world is a reflection of that, and it’s all about making money, and lots of it.
When the rich & famous, some politicians (Ralph K of Alberta), royality (Prince Harry of England, he was in the news for having someone else do his essays), or former world leader’s(George. W. Bush’s memoir. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11761333),
etc are caught red handed in the act of plagiarism no one kicks them out of any school, work or their social circles. But if a regular joe is caught doing that, he or she is ruined by being kicked out of school for academic misconduct, with no school interested in taking them in. They also have to carry the burden of their action every where they go in search of a job. Cheating is wrong and no one should cheat, students hard work, their desire to learn, their inside the class work should be given some respect and their knowledge of their subject by oral presentation work. Tests dont’ work that much because some very good student’s brain go blank when they are under pressure. The best thing is to get to know the students and do what business owners do. Size the student by their level of knoweldge and their character and personalitly. Also, its an unfortunate fact, but those who cheat will always cheat and find a way.
But to punish one and not punish the other because he or she may have higher connections is wrong.
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