Plagiarism and Cheating

Plagiarism and cheating has certainly changed since I was in undergraduate school. What I mean is that it seems far easier for professors to catch you than back then.

Using content that is in print from an obscure hard-copy resource was a common practice among my fellow students.

Now in the digital age such a thing will be caught.

Not lamenting, just a warning. In fact, this is how it was put to my son when he recently entered college as a freshman.

Here are some questions to consider as an online instructor:

What plagiarism detection software is available to online instructors?

Tools like Turnitin, and similar software. Copyscape is a resource that in professional writing has become a standard against which paid writers’ work is measured.

How can the design of assessments help prevent academic dishonesty?

The creation of a project throught a course seems to me a way of making the assessment tool complex enough to make plagiarism impractical while keeping the scope of student work within expected parameters.

What facilitation strategies do you propose to use as a current or future online instructor?

Use tools like Turnitin and Grammarly.

Use portfolio-building projects as a way of assessing student work.

What additional considerations for online teaching should be made to help detect or prevent cheating and plagiarism?

·         Realize that many students don’t see copying content from a website into their own coursework as plagiarism. Establishing a firm definition of plagiarism early in a course or program is essential (Laureate Education 2010).

·         Most or at least a significant portion of plagiarism infractions happen because the student does not know that how they are introducing content or work is considered cheating or dishonesty (Laureate Education 2010). I believe that this is because the lines of acceptable use have blurred as new technology has created an explosion of free, available content that is easy to access.

Perhaps the most common dishonesty in the specific field of software support and documentation is not copying work done by others, but presenting superfluous facts, questions, and actions as if they are solutions with the hope that the software user will become confused and cease asking for help with their issue.

References

Laureate Education (Producer). (2010). Plagiarism and cheating [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu