On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 17:09:02 -0700 wrote: >Mike Palij wrote: >> Okay. Could you please specify the conditions under which you find >> plagiarism in a student's work acceptable and would not comment on it? >> From a relativistic perspective, some forms of plagiarism would appear >> to be acceptable (indeed, on TiPS some have argued that >> self-plagiarism by a researcher can be justified). Under what >> conditions would a "recycled" paper, essay, or presentation be >> acceptable? > >Funny you should bring up precisely this example. An article on just >this came up in Inside Higher Ed just the other day. It specifies >exactly the conditions under which our particular, cultural prohibitions >might not be appropriate to enforce: > http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/16/cheat
I must have missed where in the article it says that a student enrolled in a U.S. or Canadian college is allowed to plagiarize papers, the initial paragraph notwithstanding. The question for the poli sci student situation is whether the U.S. college's academic standards are to apply or Chilean standards? Clearly, the U.S. department assumed that the U.S. standards apply. Why this was unclear to the student is a puzzlement. It is not an issue of fairness but which standards are to be followed. The issue of variations in academic standards internationally as well as how this affects immigrants exposed to different standards as well as how U.S./Candian students adapt to foreign standards, is not a new issue. At NYU during the 1990s, the introduction to psychology course in the College of Arts & Science (which would typically have several hundred students enrolled) had a significant problem with recent Russian immigrants who had difficulty discriminating "sharing" from "cheating" (especially on exams even though it was emphasized that "sharing" was not allowed). Similar sharing in other classes, especially for papers, also had to be "extinguished" though it seems like native U.S. students are striving to be more "international" in their orientation towards academic standards. So, the question of whether there are variations in academic standards is not at issue: there are variations and the real question is which standards are to apply. It should not come as a surprise that many U.S. institutions will assert that U.S. standards apply and students at foreign institutions not meeting U.S. standards will have to make up the work. The clearest example of this is in medical education. People coming to the U.S. with medical degrees from other countries have to meet specific standards in order to practice medicine in the U.S. One source of info on this is: http://educationusaintaiwan.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-foreign-citizens-become-doctors-in.html If one wants to work in the U.S. or U.S.-type institutions, it behooves them to meet U.S. standards, at least until international standards are agreed upon and become part of curricula everywhere. Of course, one can always ignore U.S. or international standards and rely only on "local" standards. But one should not be surprised if the local standards are not deemed to be equivalent. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
