Rose,
If we allowing cheating in a classroom, will we allow cheating in the workplace?
Shelly Crider
We should always be concerned with cheating.
Open discussions, citing work is very important.
As an instructor we need to stay active with our students and instill the integrity of their work.
Integrity in any type of course is extremely important. I do however feel that it is much harder to control in an online environment given that there is no one standing in the same room as the student. So no I do not agree that we should not be concerned with cheating in an online environment. In fact more measures need to be taken to ensure that cheating is not occurring. Having stated this, I also believe that you cannot design a course in which cheating does not or cannot occur.
I have oticed a greater frequency of plagiarism issues in the online environment, perhaps having to do with the anonymity and increased distance between teacher - student - student. I use TURNITIN software in my online courses and while students were at first apprehensive, they're beginning to see it as more of a learning tool. Frankly, I believe many students simply haven't learned about academic integrity. It's come up a lot recently and below is something I posted to my course just last night on the matter:
Hello all. There was a lot of good conversation in the week 4 discussion board. I wanted to clarify a few things about turnitin and the originailty reports you receive at the time of your submissions. To begin, as a rule no more than 10-15% of your papers should be direct quotes or paraphrased information from your source materials. Much beyond that and your voice as author can become lost. And at some point, it ceases being YOUR paper, but rather an amalgam of sources held loosely together. Not good.
For this reason, I set turnitin filters to include both your citation page AND quoted material for the initial report you receive. Upon initial look, anything over 20% catches my eye. However, once in your individual papers, I run another filter to take out "properly quoted" material and your reference page. This often drops your report below 10% which is what I look for (by eyeball, not a firm rule).
While plagiarism is rampant and a major concern in all colleges and universities, XXX University, and your instructors as an extension thereof, don't intend Turnitin to be a sleuthing, Big Brother, GOTCHA! tool. Rather, we use it as an instructional aid to help student understand and drive home responsible source usage, and to develop you as reasearchers and scholars. As many of you noted on the boards, your initial reports were eye-opening. MISSION ACCMPLISHED! Now how you take this info and move forward is what I'm more interested in.
I set up the turnitin dropbox so that you can get your originality report immediately and you can resubmit until the due dates. Submit a draft early, and if you don't like what the report says, revise and resubmit before the due date.
Rebecca,
I like the open discussion as well!!
Shelly Crider
William,
I like having a discussion on integrity actually!
Shelly Crider
Jenifer,
Excellent post and oh so true!!
Shelly Crider
Cheating should never be tolerated in any setting may it be online or traditional classes. If the students are in the traditional class or online environment, there should still be a sense of integrity and honesty. This type of behavior will have an impacted on that learners in which they will cheat throughout life.
Michael,
Never!! Cheating once leads to cheating somewhere else!
Shelly Crider
I hope that I am understanding your question correctly however I find that students in an online enviornment do cheat as well as those in the traditional classroom. I agree that this should be a concern because students can plagiarize and demonstrate integrity issues in an online environment and we must find ways to prevent it. When students plagiarize we can notify the student and address the consequences in hope that it will not happen again because I understand that some students do not do it intentionally, they just do not know. As for integrity issues, I feel that students should not allow anyone else to complete their work or have access to their course room and I find that this is a great concern and students should be educated. Faculty should consider including a policy statement regarding acdemic integrity in their course room and announcements page. This would help to limit the behaviors and give students knowledge first hand.
We should always be on guard for cheating - whether online or on-site. During a discussion in an on-site classroom, students are presenting their impressions of a reading or topic based on their analysis (off the top of their head). However, with on-line discussion boards, there is always the possibility a student is just copy and pasting text from a source that is not cited. How do we guard against a student presenting material on discussion boards that are not their own?
Fonzette,
If another student completes the work....they should be the one getting credit for college work!
Shelly Crider
Peter,
I like that you are looking for that! Making sure the students know this is not acceptable and calling them out on it will curb others from trying.
Shelly Crider
I have yet to teach an online course. I am taking this course to prepare me for when the opportunity arises.
As a result of your to-the-point message, I will check into using TurnItIn.
In my classroom I've noticed that cheating is abhorred by strong students and a typical way of getting something done by poor students. In other words, I haven't noticed a lot of cheating among those students that want to learn; however the opposite shows true for those students that only want to get through a course.
We discuss experiences with individuals that we have worked with in the past that did not carry their own weight on the job & then relate it to the classroom. No one likes working with incompetent people.
Cynthia,
It is always good to take notes as to what has worked and not worked!
Shelly Crider
Cheating is the same no matter what venue it happens in, online or in person. The end result of cheating is that the student is not learning the material. This end result shows that we should be concerned with cheating no matter which environment.
Matthew,
Cheating leads to more cheating. A terrible problem.
Shelly Crider
Cheating is cheating and we should be concerned regardless of the delivery method.
Andre,
A statement right from my own heart!
Shelly Crider
I do feel cheating is the same in any area. We all know our students and their abilities. It can be obvious when an online student is plagiarizing an essay assignment.
