I’ve typically come to the defense of Gen Y, to which I belong, when baby boomers and others accuse us of neglecting personal relationships in favor of social networking, or of growing so reliant on technology that we’re unable to operate an actual telephone book or read a paper map. I even make my living doing all kinds of Millennial-y things like blogging and writing for online publications. But I also went to a solid journalism school that instilled me with plenty of old-old-school values, many of which I don’t think are forgiving when it comes to lifting another person’s writing or insights without also admitting where you got them.
The current concept of plagiarism is based on a capitalist view of property and ownership. It assumes that everything of value can be owned, bought, and sold and that ideas, knowledge, and art are created by individuals who have the rights of ownership. This view is deeply ingrained in Western culture.
Traditional definitions of plagiarism are further challenged by the digital revolution.
This situation has caused the current Millennial generation to see knowledge ownership, acquisition, and distribution in radically different terms than in previous generations. Clearly,
academia is past due in reevaluating the concept and how we deal with it in secondary and higher
education.
excellent report by NPR on the advantages but also perils of computerizing/automation of a complex process, which requires prolonged education and discussions, rather then “yielding with a hammer.”
What is your take on how students can be educated to avoid plagiarism? How academic dishonesty should be handled?
Please consider other IMS blog entries on plagiarism
Martine Herzog-EvansLaw Professor at the University of Reims, FranceTop Contributor
A colleague of mine is asking us to organise a disciplinary commission for a student who, during a test (home test) quoted an author at great length. I disagree with his judgement. This in my opinion is youth caution (I’m not too sure about what I think so I protect myself with very long quotes). She did refer to the author in question and did not steal his ideas as her own. The risk for the student (who happens to be a very good one) is that she may lose the right to pass any national exam of any sort for x years. I intend to defend her at the disciplinary hearing as I happen to have supervised her for a research last year and am supervising her this year for another and know what she’s made of. The question to you all is : what constitutes plagiarism in your opinion and practice?
Associate Professor at University of Central Missouri
@ John. That’s the point. The class I was teaching was policing in a democratic society. The paper was from a juvenile justice class that was taught by another professor. The content of the two courses does not match. It becomes real obvious when you get a re-cycled criminal law paper in a hate crimes or organized crime class. Some things will transfer and all knowledge is collective. However, in organized crime if you wanted to talk about criminal law, you might talk about the application of R.I.C.O., not Marbury v Madison or Estelle v. Gamble. A person wanting to apply the principles of juvenile justice might talk about the extended rights of a juvenile under Mirranda v. Arizona, not about juvenile holding facilities or juvenile courts.
I once conducted an initial interview, in virtual space, to fill one of two biostatistics faculty positions that we had. And, it is important to note that success at this interview requires that the candidate be able to answer key questions in biostatistics analysis.
With each question, (believe me, these are basic questions that anyone with an advanced degree in a related field should be able to answer), I could distinctly hear this individual “banging away” at the keyboard in search of the answer. Obviously, this candidate wasn’t prepared for the interview, nor did s/he possess the foundational knowledge that a degree holder in a field of study must have to succeed. Was it plagiarism or not?
Perhaps, this candidate plagiarized his/her way through college and graduate school. Who knows? But, I can confidently bet my retirement that some of these jokers are slipping, undetected, through our educational system. I will also bet that this is happening, even to a greater extent, worldwide.
John, I for one teach four classes, human biology, human health and disease (a watered-down patho-physiology course), the biology of aging and neuroscience. Someone could submit a paper say on Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, any of the dementias to any of these courses, a paper on atherosclerosis to three of them etc. But what is the point of writing the papers? To present their fellow students with new information (assuming they read it) or to give the student an opportunity to learn something new and demonstrate their comprehension? For me it’s mostly the latter, and allowing recycled papers doesn’t accomplish that.
And Dr. Nmezi I totally agree with you – for everyone we catch, how many slip through undetected?
Most countries in the world have constitutions that when examined closely, provide all the safeguards needed by a society – but in many places those laws are not upheld (for national security’s sake – a US excuse). So all’s I’m saying is uphold those rules that are in place – softening them may help those who otherwise might not be able to complete or compete successfully in a course or program, but you a hurting the society that expects that graduates of a program will be competent in what they do.
Harold, I guess I was thinking in terms of courses taught by different teachers. However, four of the five lecture courses I teach are strongly related and with that in mind, I make sure that I am in control of both the content and the assessment. So I make sure that if there is some overlap in content, I do not make an assignment which allows ‘recycling’. If someone has taken a similar course at another institution and ‘recycles’ a report, I have no way to detect that. So as far as I can tell I have never had a problem with this. But my assignments are structured so that they simply can’t support ‘recycling’.
Vaccination rates in the United Kingdom hit a low of 80 per cent in the early 2000s, leaving children unprotected from serious diseases. The repercussions are still being felt today, with Dr Wakefield being hailed as a hero by vaccine sceptics.
One clue is that the overwhelming majority of the papers were ostensibly written by authors who claim to be affiliated with Chinese institutions. Universities in China often reward researchers for publishing in notable journals listed on the Science Citation Index, in some cases paying them cash bonuses, though China’s science and education ministries have recently tried to crack down on the practice. It’s also long been a requirement that doctoral students at many Chinese universities publish a paper before they graduate.
Plagiarism and the lack of academic integrity it engenders are intricately connected to the larger debate about intellectual property rights (IPR) in China and the government’s promoted idea of a harmonious society to support stability.
AI is being used to monitor students and their work. The most prominent uses of AI in higher education are attached to applications designed to protect or preserve academic integrity through the use of plagiarism-detection software (60%) and proctoring applications (42%) (see figure 1).
The chatbots are coming! A sizable percentage (36%) of respondents reported that chatbots and digital assistants are in use at least somewhat on their campuses, with another 17% reporting that their institutions are in the planning, piloting, and initial stages of use (see figure 2). The use of chatbots in higher education by admissions, student affairs, career services, and other student success and support units is not entirely new, but the pandemic has likely contributed to an increase in their use as they help students get efficient, relevant, and correct answers to their questions without long waits.Footnote10 Chatbots may also liberate staff from repeatedly responding to the same questions and reduce errors by deploying updates immediately and universally.
AI is being used for student success tools such as identifying students who are at-risk academically (22%) and sending early academic warnings (16%); another 14% reported that their institutions are in the stage of planning, piloting, and initial usage of AI for these tasks.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that ineffective data management and integration (72%) and insufficient technical expertise (71%) present at least a moderate challenge to AI implementation. Financial concerns (67%) and immature data governance (66%) also pose challenges. Insufficient leadership support (56%) is a foundational challenge that is related to each of the previous listed challenges in this group.
Current use of AI
Chatbots for informational and technical support, HR benefits questions, parking questions, service desk questions, and student tutoring
Research applications, conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and data science research (my italics)
Library services (my italics)
Recruitment of prospective students
Providing individual instructional material pathways, assessment feedback, and adaptive learning software
Proctoring and plagiarism detection
Student engagement support and nudging, monitoring well-being, and predicting likelihood of disengaging the institution
“If you Google something like essay help and Stanford,” Ridolfo said, “you’ll get school content injected by essay mills or find pages that redirect you to their services.”
block the SQL injections and to set regular scans for additional paper mill intrusions.
hese intrusions were from just 14 known cheating providers when there are probably hundreds of them.
this pattern of hacking legitimate university property to sell cheating services could get much more complex and much more dangerous.
Since cheating is a billion-dollar, global dark market, it’s not surprising. It’s just awful. And schools should move quickly to address it, not just with patches, but with policy and policing.
according to Pew Research Center, 68 percent of American adults get their news from social media—platforms where opinion is often presented as fact.
results of the international test revealed that only 14 percent of U.S. students were able to reliably distinguish between fact and opinion.
News and Media Literacy (and the lack of) is not very different from Information Literacy
An “information literate” student is able to “locate, evaluate, and effectively use information from diverse sources.” See more About Information Literacy.
How does information literacy help me?
Every day we have questions that need answers. Where do we go? Whom can we trust? How can we find information to help ourselves? How can we help our family and friends? How can we learn about the world and be a better citizen? How can we make our voice heard?
Standard 1. The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed
Standard 2. The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently
Standard 3. The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system
Standard 4. The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
Standard 5. The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally
Project Information Literacy
A national, longitudinal research study based in the University of Washington’s iSchool, compiling data on college students habits to seek and use information.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Developing Your Research Topic/Question
Research always starts with a question. But the success of your research also depends on how you formulate that question. If your topic is too broad or too narrow, you may have trouble finding information when you search. When developing your question/topic, consider the following:
Research always starts with a question. But the success of your research also depends on how you formulate that question. If your topic is too broad or too narrow, you may have trouble finding information when you search. When developing your question/topic, consider the following:
Is my question one that is likely to have been researched and for which data have been published? Believe it or not, not every topic has been researched and/or published in the literature.
Be flexible. Consider broadening or narrowing the topic if you are getting a limited number or an overwhelming number of results when you search. In nursing it can be helpful to narrow by thinking about a specific population (gender, age, disease or condition, etc.), intervention, or outcome.
Discuss your topic with your professor and be willing to alter your topic according to the guidance you receive.
Getting Ready for Research
Library Resources vs. the Internet
How (where from) do you receive information about your professional interests?
Advantages/disadvantages of using Web Resources
Why Keyword Searching?
Why not just type in a phrase or sentence like you do in Google or Yahoo!?
Because most electronic databases store and retrieve information differently than Internet search engines.
A databases searches fields within a collection of records. These fields include the information commonly found in a citation plus an abstract (if available) and subject headings. Search engines search web content which is typically the full text of sources.
The bottom line: you get better results in a database by using effective keyword search strategies.
To develop an effective search strategy, you need to:
determine the key concepts in your topic and
develop a good list of keyword synonyms.
Why use synonyms?
Because there is more than one way to express a concept or idea. You don’t know if the article you’re looking for uses the same expression for a key concept that you are using.
Consider: Will an author use:
Hypertension or High Blood Pressure?
Teach or Instruct?
Therapy or Treatment?
Don’t get “keyword lock!” Be willing to try a different term as a keyword. If you are having trouble thinking of synonyms, check a thesaurus, dictionary, or reference book for ideas.
Keyword worksheet
Library Resources
How to find the SCSU Library Website
SCSU online databases
SCSU Library Web page
Basic Research Skills
Locating and Defining a Database
Database Searching Overview:
You can search using the SCSU library online dbases by choosing:
Simple search
Advanced search
Identifying a Scholarly Source
Boolean operators
Databases:
CINAHL, MEDLINE, PubMed, Health Source: Consumer Edition, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
Psychology:
PsychINFO
General Science
ScienceDirect
Arts & Humanities Citation Index
How do you evaluate a source of information to determine if it is appropriate for academic/scholarly use. There is no set “checklist” to complete but below are some criteria to consider when you are evaluating a source.
ACCURACY
Does the author cite reliable sources?
How does the information compare with that in other works on the topic?
Can you determine if the information has gone through peer-review?
Are there factual, spelling, typographical, or grammatical errors?
AUDIENCE
Who do you think the authors are trying to reach?
Is the language, vocabulary, style and tone appropriate for intended audience?
What are the audience demographics? (age, educational level, etc.)
Are the authors targeting a particular group or segment of society?
AUTHORITY
Who wrote the information found in the article or on the site?
What are the author’s credentials/qualifications for this particular topic?
Is the author affiliated with a particular organization or institution?
What does that affiliation suggest about the author?
CURRENCY
Is the content current?
Does the date of the information directly affect the accuracy or usefulness of the information?
OBJECTIVITY/BIAS
What is the author’s or website’s point of view?
Is the point of view subtle or explicit?
Is the information presented as fact or opinion?
If opinion, is the opinion supported by credible data or informed argument?
Is the information one-sided?
Are alternate views represented?
Does the point of view affect how you view the information?
PURPOSE
What is the author’s purpose or objective, to explain, provide new information or news, entertain, persuade or sell?
Does the purpose affect how you view the information presented?