Online assessments are simply open book tests unless the assessments are proctored
Hi Shelly and Fellow Classmates,
I have, unfortunately, encountered academic dishonesty far more frequently in the online environment than in the face to face environment. Perhaps schools with smaller student populations and thus fewer students working on the same assignments encounter plagiarism less frequently, but the online environment seems to provide a more tempting opportunity to plagiarize content.
It would be valuable to collect data regarding what type of cheating is prevalent in the online environment and the traditional environment. It seems that the online environment may have fewer students with friends and roommates in the same course and cheating through someone who is also enrolled in the course. However, seeing content copied and pasted from justanswer.com, yahoo answers and other cheat sites is unfortunately, very common. I believe it is important to uphold academic integrity in either environment as it is critical to the value of degree the student earns.
Eugenia
Cheating is something that we must be mindful of no matter the format of the class. We should be diligent about cheating online in the same way we should be in a traditional ground course.
Hi Lyn,
I think you are correct that students who are not interested in the course topic will cheat more. They do not feel the course is worth their time, and so do not want to spend time on it and therefore take shortcuts.
Hi Bill,
An interesting thing about typos and misspellings, is that these can indicate the material was copied from some specific website. These act as fingerprints that are almost as good as hyperlinks left in the lifted the text.
Stephanie,
Oh yes! Some students simply do not know they have plagiarized! If it is a citing error, another chance is a great learning experience in itself. If the student turned in a whole document of someone else....that is just wrong!
Shelly Crider
Kenneth,
Exactly...cheating hurts students, instructors, college and prospective employers.
Shelly Crider
Grace,
I like how you use your orientation to discuss cheating....could be a good place to discuss expectations of chat times as well.
Shelly Crider
Do you ever give a student a "do - over" chance to improve upon their plagiarism issues? When and under what circumstances would this be appropriate?
I disagree. Cheating is cheating and should not be tolerated. It is true that those who cheat are actually cheating themselves because they are not learning the material. They are also cheating the University because our brand is transferred to someone (degree) who may not have earned the degree.
Plagiarism should be challenged in any environment. Plagiarism cheats the learner and underminmes academic integrity. Everyone loses when anyone cheats.
During orientation, these issues need to be covered so that students know what cheating is and how not to mistakenly cheat! If it is a brand new student, maybe allow them to rewrite the paper (only for some partial credit).
But if it is an experienced student, what would the excuse be? Student got tired and overwhelmed and decided to try to get away with cheating?
I usually deal with them on a case by case basis. If the cheating is blatant, I have a zero tolerance policy - i.e. student resubmitted a friend's paper from the last session and just changed the Title Page.
Cheating is so much easier in the online environment than in traditional classes. All work is done online, so students can easily search for answers online and copy and paste into their discussion post. In traditional classes, the discussion is done face-to-face so this cannot happen. But in online environment, even discussion posts can be plagiarized. Turnitin is a great tool to use to keep cheating in check and ensure that students are writing and citing correctly.
Phyllis,
It does reflect the school and the instructor as well. Good point.
Shelly Crider
Tom,
I love the fact that you list reasons to do your own work and not just the rules of citing.
Shelly Crider
Cheating in the traditional or online environments should be considered very seriously. Not only is the student who cheats avoids the aspect of quality learning, cheating could also damage the reputation of the college or university. When a student who has cheated, significantly, through an academic program and graduates without personally meeting the course learning outcomes, it reflects on the student college or university. The hiring of a student who is not prepared for the employment requirements for a specific discipline may result in the employer not wanting to hire other graduates of the student’s alma mater. In addition, the post graduate student’s professional career and the employer could be at risk. If a graduate thinks that it is permissible to acquire information and use without documentation, this action could be costly to the employer in terms of lawsuits. The first class in online or traditional settings should address the topic of plagiarism, cheating, and the adverse consequences in academic and corporate settings.
As a faculty member, I clearly post a message about academic honesty in all my classes. I spell out the reasons why students should submit their own work or cite any work or idea that they use from other sources. I provide free American Psychology Association (APA) writing instructions to all students who are interested. Most students have taken advantage of the APA instructions to improve their writing and using in text citations. In the institutions where I taught, there are specific sanctions for submitting plagiarized assignments in the Student’s Handbook. Online technology makes cheating easier and faster. Students can share information very rapidly through various devices such as secret codes, instant messaging, emailing, texting, electronic pens, cell phones, social sites, websites, and so on. Even though, the channel of cheating can be different from online and offline the intent is still the same. Cheating is unethical whether it is done online and offline. Before grading papers I normally use a tool such as Turnitin.com which can highlight a student’s work that is plagiarized. Thanks, Tom
I have to say that we should always be concerned about cheating whether in traditional or online environment. Students should be educated on proper citing and referencing requirements.
From my on-ground/online teaching experience I have to say that the inhibition threshold for cheating is lower in the online environment since the students do not fact the instructor directly.
Claire,
Very good point. Having students post an answer in a copy of different ways to make sure they understand the concept at hand can be beneficial.
Shelly Crider
The short answer – no its not okay to cheat. We learn that when we are 4 years old. There is an ethical standard that should be conveyed in all educational experiences.
Cheating is a term that can be defined differently by the individual topic. I instruct visual design courses and web design courses. The issue that is common is ‘found code’. Resources such as Turnitin will not help the instructor understand if the student actually created the visual or wrote the code. This issue is further compounded by the adoption of open source technologies by the industry. So the question is twofold.
1. is it okay to use open source scripts that are available online?
2. How do you know if the student understands the code or is simply copy and pasting?
