You are the instructor of an online class. You are tasked with creating a policy on academic dishonesty in your courses. The faculty in this journal article believed that students who collaborated without instructor permission or who used a paper from a previous class to fulfill an assignment are both academically dishonest. Give your detailed opinion on why you agree or disagree with the statement.
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33 comments:
Zak, the article touches on an excellent point which I hadn’t thought of before. Not only is it easier to be academically dishonest when taking an online course, but it is also lighter on the cheater’s conscience. Yes, it is the responsibility of the instructor to teach academic standards to the learner. However, beyond outlining all the rules of academic dishonesty (which are usually just a template published by the program office and used by all instructors) in the course syllabus, what can be done? Passing assignment papers and other essay type deliverables through a database such as Turnitin.com is effective but what about cheating on online tests or having someone else do the work altogether? How can that prevented? It has always been a difficult task to catch a student who really wants to be dishonest and it has become so much harder. Bottom line is that the students are only cheating themselves out of a good education.
Sami,
One effective way of hindering cheating on online exams is to restrict access to registered IP addresses. Usually in a CMS, an instructor can allow only the IP address that is registered to a particular student. This scenario will make it more difficult to login from multiple workstations or devices. Is this foolproof? No, of course not, but it does serve as a deterrent. Another method is to scramble exam questions or create alternate exam databases for each student. This process will certainly require more planning but it may help send a message to students that you do not tolerate dishonesty and cheating.
In a post to Becky's discussion I mentioned a professor that is adept at online pedagogy. He told me that he likes to use text books that come outfitted with a database of questions. He then usually has over 150 questions to choose from for his exams and he has BlackBoard scramble the questions. I think both are good ideas. Coming up with your own 150 questions for each exam would really be time consuming.
I require a lot of short essays throughout the semester. Through these assignments I get a strong feel for how the student writes. If he then turned in one that was out of voice for his writing, I would question him and send his paper through a cheat review program. One neat thing, since education students are so anxious to express their own ideas, I have found very few instances of plagiarism.
Zac,
I think that if the instructor mentions in their syllabus that collaboration outside of class is not allowed, then any instance of collaboration would be considered cheating. Using a paper from a previous class would also fall in the same category as it is not a true representation of a student's understanding of subject matter, not to mention plagiarism.
Matt
The student shall cite all sources that contributed significantly to the content of any assignment, including personal assistance of classmates and papers completed for other coursework. Any source that is not publicly available must be submitted with the assignment. Failure to comply with this policy will be considered plagiarism. The penalty for the first offense is a zero score on the assignment and a failing grade for the course on the second.
Zac,
I would hesitate to agree that collaboration without informing the instructor is academic dishonest. Collaborative learning I think is one of the biggest merits of online learning community. I can't risk to discourage collaboration.
I learned from a senior professor how to mitigate the risk of sharing assignments. In his courses, a substantial part (25% to 35%) of the final exam are questions about the assignments. If the students did not work on the assignments themselves, they will have a high chance to fail the exam.
~Steve
Steve,
I like that idea of the exam that focuses on actual project participation. You can actually find those students that did not do the work and allowed others to provide them the answers.
Matt
Hello, Zac
I believe that anytime one engages in a practice that has not been approved, it constitutes dishonesty. Some people, however, would argue that student collaboration or the use of one paper for multiple classes does not constitute dishonesty simply because students were not told that they could not engage in these practices. Academic dishonesty is closely tied to maturity; as students gain maturity, their sense of academic responsibility and their approach to questionable situations changes. More mature students would ask if they could collaborate or use work for different subjects. So, what happens when students don't ask? Then, it's up to the teacher to clearly establish the rules of the game. Once the rules are established, no one can claim ignorance nor argue that the practices cited do not constitute academic dishonesty.
Felix
Zak, you have certainly made me think. If I write a paper and that paper can be used again in another class, is it really cheating? That really stands out at me. I am definitely a keeper of everything and if I have something from the past that I can use again, why not? I didn't steal it - I created it. Now, if the professor specifically states that I cannot use a previous paper, then of course I won't use it, but this certainly makes me wonder.
Beth
Felix and all,
I would like to think as one gets more mature (older that is) that their views about cheating mature. However at my institution I understand that a parent handed their paper (completed in a previous semester) to their child for submission. I'm not offering a solution just a realization that other adults have not developed a respect for education that we have.
Gerald
Zac, DrDonna and all,
Combining Zac's comments about how to structure the final exam (focused on the assignment) and DrDonna's (recognizing a students writing pattern) together with emphasis on citation (mine) I think this might be the most reliable methods to detect cheating short of a proctored exam.
Gerald
Vito and all,
I have used your idea about the test banks but have found the quality of questions to be lacking. Have you found the same thing? Is one publisher better for question quality?
Gerald
Gerald,
The parent comment shows us that some people will go to any extreme to get something done. Relying on your parents to submit a paper in college is just downright scary and dishonest.
One of the most important parts of college is to become an independent person, although some never achieve a level of independence.
Matt
Everyone,
There is no excuse for using another person’s work. However, Instructors need to identify what is permissible and what is not. If an instructor does not want students to collaborate, it should be in the syllabus.
Gerald,
I find test bank questions weak or not specific enough for the contenct I am teaching.
Hi all,
Not all professors in my institution like the idea to include assignment questions in the final exam. Questions about assignments have to be open-ended; students must have proficient English skill, and the marking of the exam requires judgment. The professor I mentioned teach Human-Computer Interaction and I am trained in social science. It makes sense for us to have open-ended questions. For instructors teaching technical courses, they might prefer multiple choices.
~Steve
Hello again,
I used to have a test bank in one of my course but I found it very difficult to maintain. Maintaining a test bank is like maintaining three or four exams.
~Steve
Steve,
Having a test bank does sound difficult to manage. All it takes is a professor to keep the same questions for a few years without updating the test bank and you are back to the cheating issue again.
Matt
Zac and All,
Unfortunately cheating is something that I am afraid will always be with us and accept it as part of the human predicament. All of us could probably say at some point in our life we were dishonest at something.
That being said, as teachers we should do everything in our power to place in the mind of the student what is honest and dishonest in our classes. Personally, I would be hesitant to say collaboration on an assignment is being dishonest. For many, this is one of the best ways they learn. However, if a teacher specifically said this is unacceptable, then for that class it becomes unacceptable. Now a paper written in one class for a grade then used it to get a grade in another class; I would have to think about that one some more.
One thing I do in my classes is constantly remind students about the issue of academic integrity and "what the rules are". I do not just say this once at the beginning of the course and then forget about it. I want that seed planted in their mind many times over the course of the semester. Hopefully, by doing this, I can cause a change in attitude and heart by constantly reminding them this is important to me; I want it to be important to you also.
Could you not constantly remind your students online also?
Scott
Scott and Everyone,
You can just as easily remind students of your policy on academic honesty online as you can in a (should that be “a” or “an”) f2f environment. It can be done through email, announcements, discussion threads, directions to assignments and quizzes among other methods of communication.
I have a comment on the discussion above on how to catch a cheater on an assignment. Looking at writing patterns (Donna), putting emphasis on citations (Gerald) and focusing on the assignment (Zac) are all acceptable methods. However, they do not work for all types of graded deliverables. On typical M/C, T/F, short answer exams a suggestion was made to use question pools so that students taking the test would not get the same questions. Question pools have size limitations which are not very effective. I have also found that using question pools provided directly from textbooks do not address course objectives directly and most do not test at the higher levels of comprehension. I have designed several programming courses. The last two had pooled final exams which I wrote from scratch. Only then was I satisfied that the questions were directly related to the content of the course and its objectives and not to the objectives of a given textbook used to supplement the course. When you are writing a 100-question test it is pretty tough to make the pool size larger than three. To minimize cheating, the solution would be to assess and grade students by methods that differ from the traditional methods used in the f2f classroom. However, in many cases the course designer is just the subject matter expert and administration decides the basic components of each course module.
While I agree with the majority of the comments regarding test banks being a poor method of assessment due to their limitations, I believe we have moved away from the intent of the original posting.
If I have a paper for Dr. Abramson that I've used for my Online Teaching and Learning class and I choose to turn that paper in to Dr. Cohen for the Human Computer Interaction class to fulfill requirements for that class, have I created some sort of academic dishonesty by not performing a complete literature review on the subject matter OR am I just cheating myself out of the opportunity to advance my learning?
Zac
Zac, you're right - straight to answering your question:
1. Anything you do contrary to the instructions of the teacher should be considered an academic "sin," since you are knowingly violating the explicit will of the teacher.
2. While I would never recycle a complete paper of mine, I have no problem with using tiny portions of previous writing to help build subsequent papers. Personally, I try to spin every assignment of every class into something that I can use in my dissertation. Occasionally I create a really effective way of explaining a topic, and it would fit perfectly into a larger work such as my idea paper. My advisor told me that using my own material in this way is not only ethically pure, but it improves the quality of the final product.
I wonder if others have had similar experiences.
Rick
I have had a chance to think about the issue of reusing a paper for another class. I believe Rick addressed what I have been thinking. I probably would not reuse the entire paper but perhaps some of it if it achieved some purpose in the "new" paper. It was good to hear that some advisers advocate this.
Rick,
You are right on with the comment about the papers. I also agree that when writing in our classes, it is best to find as many articles that pertain to your dissertation as possible. Using small portions of these papers in subsequent semesters only helps with the continuation of your idea. Adding new references and ideas to it helps to build the literature base.
Matt
>I have had a chance to think about the issue of >reusing a paper for another class. I believe Rick >addressed what I have been thinking. I probably >would not reuse the entire paper but perhaps some >of it if it achieved some purpose in the "new" paper. >It was good to hear that some advisers advocate this
Rags,
I've actually attempted this twice, and both times I regretted it. Most of the time reusing sections of a paper don't actually fit. Instead I try and keep a bank of related articles and books if a paper will have overlapping subjects. I don't think it's cheating in most cases as described, but it would have to be looked at in a case by case basis.
Rags,
I agree, reusing does not work for me. I also save the references and reuse them.
Lisa
I don't believe the issue is so much whether or not recycling your own work is *beneficial*, but rather whether it is *ethical*. It's definitely not plagiarism.
Speaking of plagiarism, I think it's a real challenge to teach students that it is wrong, especially when famous people do it on a regular basis. Stealing others' published material is not often noticed, and when it is, it rarely causes a public fuss.
Here is an example of what I'm talking about:
Plagiarized cartoon
Ignore the political spin and focus on comparing the content of the speech with the content of the cartoon.
Rick
Hello Zac and everyone,
I think we may dissect the issue of reusing previous papers into several areas:
Problem - Rarely two courses will ask student to address the same problem. In case they do, I will not have any problem reusing the problem explanation part of a previous paper.
Literature review – I think it is fine to reuse, though I would expect myself to add more materials, and remove obsolete literature.
Methodology – Unless I know that my previous method is wrong, I will reuse this part of the paper.
Data and results – Again, if both papers address the same problem, I would reuse the data and results. If two papers are not addressing similar problem, it would be wrong to reuse this part.
Conclusion and discussion – Given new literature, conclusion likely will be different. Reuse is difficult.
~Steve
Steve,
I do agree with your posting. In addition to your posting, as a doctoral student, we are building a foundation for the dissertation and it would be beneficial to gather all resources, modify each section based on feedbacks, and solidify each sections. Is this cheating, in my opinion it is not because you are building the body of knowledge, which will be use for the dissertation.
Fred
All:
I also agree with Steve's explanation. I believe it's both ethically compliant and academically smart.
But, it would be something quite different if one is using a paper written bu someone else. Then, it doesn't matter if the author of the paper give one permission; it's still academically dishonest.
After reading some of the posts, one can conclude that academic dishonesty is widespread.
There are some great idea's here. I really liked the assertion that we teachers must establish the rules for collaboration. We will either structure our class to stimulate collaboration or we will tacitly approve of it by turning a blide eye. That said, in teaching computer programming, there is a certain amount of collaboration that students do outside of class as they talk to one another in an attempt to solve the problem before them. Personally, I love this type of collaboration because they are genuinely discussing the course content. There is a fine line, of course, between developing skills on your own and borrowing those of others. This is why I feel it is important that we teachers provide "gotcha" opportunities in later projects or exams, as Steve suggested, wherein we separate those that know the material and those who do not.
What is prevalent to me in the course of teaching umpteen years now is this: we have a culture that stresses getting an assignment done for a grade, not the learning.
Jeff Kimball
Everyone,
Many debates have been conducted on the issue of academic dishonesty with no significant gains in prevention. The suggestions I have read throughout this discussion have shed new light on approaches toward dishonesty. At the K-12 level, you will always have students who will gravitate towards dishonesty and blatant cheating. It is much more difficult to enforce policies since parent control and interest is much stronger. Parents will fight any academic dishonesty referrals, which will eventually lead to more headaches for faculty. A course syllabus that discusses class policies does not work in a K-12 setting. However, extensive test banks (teacher created or textbook supplied or a combination of both) helps to minimize risk. If this approach is not attractive, then a performance-based approach that follows an extensive rubric or student portfolios will certainly put pressure on students to succeed. For example, in my AP Computer Science class this year, I have abandoned essay writing since this exercise only brings me work that has been copied from Internet sources. Rather, I have decided to implement a research presentation that must be given in front of the entire class. The presentation must include a minimum 15 PowerPoint slides summarizing the topic and current research being conducted in the field, impact on society, personal predictions, and at least 5 references. This type of performance-based assessment enables everyone to showcase their talents. Is this foolproof? No, of course not.
Vito
Vito,
I completely agree about K-12. I am sure that administration would rather forget about the issues surrounding cheating and dishonesty. With parents, these battles lead to lawsuits and nasty altercations depending on the situation.
Matt
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