Plagiarism or Collaboration?

Is It Plagiarism or Collaboration?

http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/01/23/is-it-plagiarism-or-collaboration/

a recent PEW research study found that while educators find technology beneficial in teaching writing skills, they feel it has also led to a direct increase in rates of plagiarism and infringement of intellectual property rights.

We want students to do “group work,” to collaborate, and to discuss. However, we have very specific realms in which we want this to happen: the group assignment, the in-class discussion, studying for exams, etc. At the same time, many of us want to put up barriers and halt any collaboration at other times (during assessments, for example). When collaboration takes place during assessment, we deem it plagiarism or cheating, and technology is often identified as the instrument that tempts students into such behavior.

A student may produce an entirely wrong answer, but if how they got there was through logic, reasonable assumption, educated guessing (not just plain old “guessing”) – and they were effective in communicating that process – then there is evidence of learning that I can take into account.

More on plagiarism, academic integrity and academic dishonesty in this IMS blog:

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=plagiarism&submit=Search
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/tag/academic-integrity/
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/tag/academic-dishonesty/

 

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