Thursday, May 1, 2003

tech.life@school | Joyce Kasman Valenza

Fighting Student Plagiarism in a High Tech World

“Cheating and plagiarizing appear to be so widely accepted by students that the byword has changed from Don’t cheat or plagiarize to Don’t get caught.”   Ann Lathrop and Kathleen Foss

Among the most dog-eared of my books is Student Cheating and Plagiarizing in the Internet Era: A Wake-Up Call  (Libraries Unlimited, 2000).  Not only do authors Lathrop and Foss offer a comprehensive view of student cheating in a high-tech, cut and paste world, they provide an arsenal of tools--handouts, surveys, strategies, and workshop activities—to help teachers, parents, and administrators develop awareness and work toward constructing a culture of academic integrity.

  Foss, a high school librarian, was herself awakened to the problem when one of her students was suspected of copying a paper from the Internet. “The teacher had a terrible time tracking it and I got pulled in to help.”

The problem of plagiarism extends well beyond the student accused of cheating. The authors shared their concerns for the honest student. Lathrop points to the prevalence of lying and cheating in the larger adult worlds of business and politics and notes, “students see cheating all around them and nothing seems to happen or the punishment is so mild. The student who hasn’t cheated is continually being outscored.  And so more and more honest students feel they have to cheat to keep up with the cheaters.”

Students justify cheating behavior in a variety of ways -- unrealistic parent demands, lack of school policy and clear penalties, teacher apathy, competition for college and class rank, sports eligibility, time constraints compounded by student jobs or extracurricular activities, fear of failure, lack of time management skills, and the absence of ethical training.

Technology has clearly facilitated the problem.  According to Foss, “It’s never been as easy and prevalent.  For kids it’s become an ‘us vs. them’ game, and that’s not the purpose of education.  Some students have developed the belief that the purpose of schooling is not the gaining of knowledge, but how can I get the degree with least amount of work.”

The book describes typical cut and paste techniques. “Some students download and print the paper, create a title page and hand it in. Others, more sophisticated, . . .‘massage’ the text, perhaps using a thesaurus to replace words or phrases the teacher might recognize as beyond their usual vocabulary or writing style. Obvious strings of highly distinctive words can be changed or deleted if a student knows the teacher is ‘Internet savvy’ and might search for strings of words online.”

  But plagiarism and cheating are not confined to the technology of the Web. “When we look at a pager, for instance,” says Foss,  “we don’t think of a way to save answers, but our students see its many applications. Graphing calculators on students’ desks may store spelling words, definitions, formulas and important dates.  As the book notes students may use “silent pagers to send test questions to friends outside the classroom and then receive the answers. . .Lab results and homework assignments are shared electronically by fax and email.”

Our students don’t own this problem.  “Many teachers are reluctant to take a proactive stance on this issue,” said Foss. “Teacher groups won’t admit it happens, thinking if we address it means it’s a problem and that problem can potentially mar the reputation of the school.”  And teachers may be afraid of the process.  “The teacher I observed went through hell with the student’s parents, even though the administration did its best to back her. Parents can be very strong in defense of little ones.”

So what can we do? I asked the authors for their feeling about commercial websites that check student documents for plagiarized text. “Technology can be part of it but to be truly effective, you have to change thinking of the students,” said Lathrop.  “Otherwise it remains a game.”

  “It’s a big task to change the mindset of those not squealing on those who are cheating are robbing them of their future,” says Foss. “Teachers have to be the ones to initiate change and parents have to be partners in the process.”  Teachers must explicitly teach what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.  

  The authors advise:

• To affect any change you must have understanding awareness, and the support of all stakeholders--teachers, administrators, students, parents, the school board, and the larger community.  The book offers several brief surveys that would help build awareness of the level of the problem in the school’s culture.

• Develop an academic integrity policy, develop it with the involvement of all stakeholders, and enforce it fairly.  Post it in every classroom and refer to it whenever possible.  Consider establishing a central clearinghouse for discussing issues. A student who cheats in one class may be likely to cheat in another/ Watch this issue just as you would a student with a health problem.
• Develop awareness of all existing and emerging technologies and their potential unauthorized uses in the entire school community.
• Teachers need to structure assignments to make it difficult for students to plagiarize and challenge them to think creatively. Focus on process rather than product. Instead of collecting only a final product, have students submit research portfolios, including their notes and outlines and other documents of the research process.

Back to Virtual Library

Back to Neverending Search

Joyce Kasman Valenza is the librarian at Springfield High School in Erdenheim, Pa. Her column appears each week in tech.life. E-mail: joyce_valenza@sdst.org