Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Plagiarism and Student Culture

There is a description of a new book, My Word! Plagiarism and Student Culture, written by anthropologist Susan Blum. Here are some teasers about the culture generating plagiarism:

“In terms of explaining student culture, Blum uses many of the student interviews to show how education has become to many students more an issue of credentialing and getting ahead than of any more idealistic love of learning.”

“Then there is the student concept — or lack thereof — of intellectual property. She notes the way students routinely ignore messages from colleges and threats of legal action to share music online, in violation of business standards of copyright. As with plagiarism, she notes, the student generation has embraced an entirely different concept of ownership, and students who would never shoplift feel no hesitation about downloading music they haven’t purchased.”

“But faculty members do have a role in promoting academic integrity, she writes. In her conclusion, she describes the importance of talking frequently with students about the value of higher education and learning (aside from professional advancement), and the need for classes to regularly consider the nature of originality, of appropriate citation, of doing one’s own work and so forth. But in those discussions, she writes that professors need to move beyond their views of these issues. For example, professors should talk with their students about why they tend to value books (and read books) less than their professors did.”

You can read the story at http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/03/myword.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

“Then there is the student concept — or lack thereof — of intellectual property. She notes the way students routinely ignore messages from colleges and threats of legal action to share music online, in violation of business standards of copyright. As with plagiarism, she notes, the student generation has embraced an entirely different concept of ownership, and students who would never shoplift feel no hesitation about downloading music they haven’t purchased.”

I have enough trouble reminding students to put their names on files i.e. documents and take some ownership of their work.
There are also plenty of kids in elementary school sitting at the back of the room texting answers on their cellphones if their teacher doesnt' have a clue of whats going on. We have laptops in the classroom now as well, is that always a plus or a distraction among other avenues for "sharing" ?

I can't tell you how many assignments I have spotted just from the content and style of it, and found students copying entire reviews from the Library of Congress website and submitting it as their own work--sometimes it just is very obvious to me. Now faculty can use Turnitin which I have yet to try out.

Students can take advantage of online research management tools like RefWorks which is so easy to use. check it out if you haven't already--

http://www.refworks.com/content/demo/RefWorks_Why_Bother.htm

RefWorks -- an online research management, writing and collaboration tool -- is designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies.

http://www.refworks.com/refworks/help/using_write-n-cite.htm

Using Write-N-Cite

Write-N-Cite is a utility that allows users (who meet the compatibility requirements below) to run an abbreviated version of RefWorks in their word processor. This version of RefWorks displays Author, Title, and Year Only, with a full view option available if needed.

With Write-N-Cite, you can cite references in a manuscript with the click of a button. The abbreviated version can be set to Always on top so that it stays in place as you are typing your manuscript and generating your bibliography. The utility installs a Write-N-Cite button on your desktop as well as an Add-in to your Word toolbar (Windows users only) and a menu option in Word, under Tools for launching Write-N-Cite.

It's that same important reminder that just because it's online, doesn't make it easy so much you don't have to do anything at all.
copy and paste copy and paste copy and paste, oh was I supposed to think too ? :-( it is up to us to raise the bar or it becomes a growing sinkhole.

Anonymous said...

Here is the link to RefWorks , why bother? short web tutorial which may have gotten cut off in the previous message.

http://www.refworks.com/content/
demo/RefWorks_Why_Bother.htm