CHEATINGA discussion on academic dishonesty

Christina Tolson, MBACollege of Southern Maryland

AFACCT ’15 -- 25th Annual Conferenceat Carroll Community CollegeJanuary 8, 2015Session 4.6 (3:00-4:00 p.m.)

EVERYONE DOES IT

Sports• Lance Armstrong• Tanya Harding• Baseball's Steroid Era

Politics• Joe Biden’s plagiarism

• Law School• Speeches

Business - Fraud• Kenneth ‘Kenny Boy’ Lay• Bernard “Bernie” Madoff

• JPMorgan turns a blind eye

School• 2 out of 3 students have

cheated at some point in their academic careers

STUDENTS IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Technology Provides Instant Information• Buying Papers - Business is Booming

• May 2013: found that 63% of the undergrad students asked admitted to cheating http://www.today.com/video/today/52043286#52043286

• ABC news report from 2011 on cheating finds that number is higher:  http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/college-cheating-culture-12389056

• Parents help by purchasing papers

• Sample site• Guaranteed: http://www.evolutionwriters.com/• I spent more on pizza night:

http://buyessayscheap.com/money-back-guarantee.html• Tempting: http://unemployedprofessors.com/

• YouTube provides millions of ‘How to’ videos on cheating

COLLEGE CHEATING SCANDALSMany of the recent cheating scandals involve collaboration:

• Harvard take-home test scandal• Approximately 70 students forced to withdraw• Almost 50% of the students were disciplined

• Duke's Graduate School• Nearly 10% of the MBA first-year class were expelled, suspended, or failed for

collaborating on an online exam

• Barnard College• In 2013 the Homework and Quizzes of the123 English course, Major English

Texts II, were thrown out• Result – a proctored exam worth 70% of the grade was administered to all

students

Motivation – Great GPAEducators are at odds with their goal of the student mastering the subject and the student’s motivation for a great GPA.

Mastery

Achievement Pleases ParentsCompletion of Academic GoalsBetter Job Opportunities

James M. Lang recommends allowing the learner repeated attempts for assignments to better enable mastery of the subject matter. This recommendation works well in composition and other writing courses.

Access to People

Looking on another student's test

Give another student test answers

Give another student test questions

Collaborating on Take-home/On-line Tests

Collaborating on Homework

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

University of Nebraska-Lincoln High School Survey Results

Did it Anyway! Cheating?

Millennial's are natural collaborators, and think that some cheating as a lesser sin – it is helping. Given that collaboration in the workplace will make them more successful, how can we allow them to hone those skills? Be very clear what work is individual, and provide more assignments to allow them to hone their collaboration skills.

Deter the Behavior

Create an Ethical Classroom EnvironmentReview your college’s policy on Academic Dishonesty

• Include that policy in your syllabus

Talk about Academic Ethics in Class

• Ensure that students know what the college considers cheating• I can plagiarized myself?• Collaboration How can we allow them to hone those skills,

• As a time management tool• Helping others

• It is cheating, but only if you get caught

Accidental Plagiarism

Plagiarism without malicious intent

• Using uncited information

• Poor paraphrasing

• Re-submitting Personal Work

Ensure that our students understand the rules

Accidental Plagiarism

Plagiarism without malicious intent

Internet: Ease of access to information

• Using uncited information• Poor paraphrasing• Patch writing• Back translations (ESL)• Citation confusion• Cryptomnesia• Sloppy note taking during research

• Re-submitting Personal Work

SAFEASSIGN DATABASES

• Internet• Comprehensive index of documents available for public

access on the Internet• ProQuest ABI/Inform database

• Over 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6 million articles from ’90s to present time, updated weekly

• Institutional document archives• Consists of all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in

their respective institutions• Global Reference Database

• Contains papers that were volunteered by students from Blackboard client institutions to help prevent cross-institutional plagiarism

SAFEASSIGN

• Three ways to use SafeAssign SafeAssignment SafeAssignment Draft Direct Submit

• Introduction to SafeAssign

• Build a SafeAssignment Draft as a teaching tool Employs the Submit as Draft option to a paper so the student can

generate a SafeAssign report

There are similar functions within Turnitin and other plagiarism systems, but BlackBoard is demonstrated because it is used by about 40% of the colleges in Maryland.

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For each assignment use two SafeAssignments in Bb’s Content Area:

• Draft paper• Final paper• Select SafeAssignment from the

drop-down menu Create Assessment

Create a SafeAssignment

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1.Name the assignment

2.Assign point value

3.Write any necessary instructions

4.Make the assignment available

5.Check the Draft box

6.Check Yes in the Student Viewable radio button allows students to see the report

7.Urgent Checking reduces processing time

SAFEASSIGNMENT DRAFT

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1.Name the assignment

2.Assign point value

3.Write any necessary instructions

4.Make the assignment available

5.Do not check the Draft box

6.Check Yes in the Student Viewable box allows students to see the report

7.Urgent Checking reduces processing time

Note: The final paper is checked against the systems database.

SAFEASSIGNMENT FINAL

THE SAFEASSIGN REPORT

1. Return to the View SafeAssignment page.2. On the View SafeAssignment page, click the green check mark link under SA Report. The SA Report provides extensive information to help you determine whether you are appropriately citing your works. This page includes:

Paper Information: Data about the paper, such as the author, percent matching, and when it was submitted

Suspected Sources: This section lists the original sources that match sections of the submitted paper.

To display the original work, click the source title.To display the related phrase within your paper, click the magnifying glass.

Paper Text: This section shows the submitted paper. All matching blocks of text are identified and numbered. Click a phrase to display the Source Comparison Window which provides a direct comparison between your paper’s phrase and the source document it matches.

Below 15%: Papers typically include some quotes and few common phrases, or blocks of text matching other documents.

Between 15% and 40%: Papers include extensive quoted (or paraphrased) material, or may include plagiarism.

Over 40%: There is a very high probability that text in this paper was copied from other sources. These papers include quoted (or paraphrased) text in excess.

Interpreting the SafeAssign Score

The SafeAssign score indicates the probablility that the submitted paper contains matches to existing sources.

But, where there is the will…

SafeAssign may miss disguised plagiarism

• Mosaic plagiarism• Copied language from a single source,

or many sources• Faked citations• A purchased paper

Questions?

If there is time to share – What has experience taught you?

FYI…Online & traditional course settings have about the same incidence of cheating.

Buying papers • NBC May 2013: found that 63% of the

undergrad students asked admitted to cheating:

http://www.today.com/video/today/52043286#52043286

• ABC news report from 2011 on cheating finds that number as 75%:  http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/college-cheating-culture-12389056

Sample sites• Guaranteed: http://www.evolutionwriters.com/

• I spend more money on pizza night: http://buyessayscheap.com/money-back-guarantee.html

• Tempting: http://unemployedprofessors.com/

Everybody does it• http://

www.sfgate.com/education/article/Everybody-Does-It-2523376.php

Access to Information• YouTube provides thousands of ‘How

to videos on cheating• Access to People• Collaboration is the norm

GPA Motivates – Mastery, not so much• Pleases Parents• Completion of Academic Goals• Better Job Opportunities

Bottom Line - Professor’s diligence • Ensure that students know what

your college considers cheating

From the Handout…

MORE FROM THE HANDOUT…

To learn more about cheating, go to:• San Jose State University Equal Time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZbBjBNtuKk

• UCF Professor Richard Quinn accuses his class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbzJTTDO9f4

• Pros & Cons of Cheating in College: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpwitKo9H3k

• Ten clever ways to cheat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3W_JUS0iVs

• How To Cheat On Any Multiple Choice Test 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok0_K1aVpO

• Or type, “How to Cheat” into the YouTube search engine

REFERENCESBarrett, Dan. "An Academic Ghostwriter Comes Clean." The Chronicle of Higher Education (2012): 1-5. Article.

Davis, Stephen F., Patrick F. Drinan, and Tricia Betram Gallant. Cheating in School: What We Know and What We Can Do. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Book.

Dionne Jr., E. J. "Biden Admits Plagiarism in School But Says It Was Not 'Malevolent'." New York Times 18 September 1987: 1-2. Article.

Distance Education Report - Magna Publications, Inc. "Special Report: Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education." Faculty Focus (2010): 1-20. Journal.

Finder, Alan. The New York Times: 34 Duke Business Students Face Discipline for Cheating. 1 May 2007. News Article. 2 July 2013.

Grijalva, Therese C., Clifford Nowell, and Joe Kerkvliet. "Academic Honesty and Online Courses." College Student Journal 40.1 (2006): 180-5. Article.

Lang, James M., Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 2013. Book

Manjoo, Farhad. Slate - There is no Harvard Cheating Scandal. 1 February 2013. Article. 11 11 2014.

McCabe, Donald L., Kenneth D. Butterfield, and Linda K. Travino. Cheating in College: Why Students Do It and What Educators Can Do About It. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2012. Book.

McCabe, Donald L., Kinda Klebe Trevino, and Kenneth D. Butterfield. "Cheating in Academic Institutions: A Decade of Research." Ethics & Behavior (2001): 1-14. Article.

McMahon, Regan. "Everybody Does It." San Francisco Gate 6 September 2007: 1-5. News Article.

Novotney, Amy. "Beat the Cheat." American Psychological Association Monitor 2011 2011: 1-2. Article.

Perez-Pena, Richard. "Studies Find More Student Cheating, With High Achievers No Exception." New York Times 7 September 2002: 1-3. Article.

Stein, Joel. "Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation." Time 9 May 2013: 1-9. Article.

U.S. News & World Report. "Most High Schoolers Cheat - But don't always see it as cheating: Study examines prevalence, perceptions of cheating." U.S. News & World Report 13 May 2010: 1-2. Article.

Watkins, Marshall. Stanford administrators defend Honor Code in wake of Harvard scandal. Stanford, 3 October 2012. Online News.