What do do do after you catch a cheater? What about
appeals?
I would think it is easier to design assignments that prevent
cheating. In some years I required a learning statement.
The evaluation of the learning statement had more weight than the
assignment.
Del
Richard Hudak wrote:
Here is my department's "Academic Dishonesty" policy
<http://www.merrimack.edu/generator.php?id=1274>.
Our library also publishes resources for detecting plagiarism
<http://www.noblenet.org/merrimack/faculty.htm>.
I would agree that plagiarism is often quite easy to detect. Reading a
paper, one realizes it doesn't sound like other writing by the same
student. So the brain is more useful than the technology. The
technology is useful for proof; often Google will suffice. However, I
wonder to what degree this isn't just the "low-hanging fruit." Does
more sophisticated dishonesty require more sophisticated tools?
If this is the case, are we only "catching" the "petty criminals," the
ones who blunder into it due to pressures of time and lack of
understanding? Better knowledge of the social conditions of cheating
will help us. I have begun to work some of this appreciation of how
such cheating occurs into a statement that precedes my inclusion of
the departmental policy in my syllabus. To the extent that students
treat the syllabus as a contract, I believe it is necessary to be
clear about cheating and the possible sanctions for it. A colleague in
my department has prepared a writing guide that addresses issues such
as the proper use of references. This would be a good tool for this
process of educating students. Teaching students how to read scholarly
works is another way to educate them in the proprieties.
One way that I think plagiarism may be deterred is by requiring
students to require students to present the results of their own
inquiry. In my Complex Organizations class, I used an assignment from
the ASA Teaching Guide for that subject. Students were required to
attend two decision-making meetings and write about several focused
questions. The Massachusetts Open Meeting Law means that many such
meetings in municipal government are available to them, and focused
questions mean they can't simply reword the meeting minutes, which may
be available online.
I support the notion of data-based guidelines for preventing and
policing plagiarism.
Richard Hudak
Merrimack College
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Jul 25, 2005, at 5:19 PM, beccahenthorn wrote:
I was just wondering how the rest of you guys deal with academic
dishonesty. Do you have a school wide or departmental policy? Do you
have a statement about academic dishonesty in your course syllabus, and
how is the student disciplined for such behaviors.
Rebecca Henthorn
Murray State College
Tishomingo, OK 73460
http://mscok.edu/~bhenthorn
There is only us. We are the
ones we've been waiting for.
- Annie Dillard
|
