Thursday, August 1, 2013

Plagiarism is out there

Every school has a plagiarism problem; especially, when using publisher issued material such as test banks and case studies without changing them before assigning to students. I can see this going unnoticed if the instructor is not aware of the instance. Also, we have some measures of prevention such as MyLabs and we can increase the use of TurnItIn type software. 
 
Students also don't think that copying and pasting is plagiarism and wrong. In an extreme case, a student here turned in a copied page of the textbook with some highlights and notes on the side pointing at the textbook text with Answer to #1, Answer to #2. Technically, they are providing the answers to the questions as instructed (Answer Case Study Questions 1-4), but not in their original voice. That's a difficult concept to communicate sometimes (critical thinking). In another case, I've a student argue that the paper was their own because they bought it.
 
In the end, we need training in discovering this and more assuring support for faculty when they discover this. I'd say that I see or find a case of plagiarism in each course I've taught/teach. Some are coaching moments for the student and some are extreme as the examples above. We need awareness for students as well.
 
 

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