Thursday, November 18, 2010

Academic integrity and plagiarism


Lot in the news now about the moral depravity of students as evidenced by "cheating." The Philosophy Monkey treats it well. I like that he makes a point that instructors aren't as stupid as student's might think (with a video of an instructor calling his students on cheating), but any suppositions that there is a generational component are undercut by the current discussion of former President Bush's alleged plaigiarism of his own memoirs. See Christian Science Monitor, which cites Huffington Post. The embedded image is from Doone'sbury at Slate on 11-18-10 @ 10 am, that site has been running quotes from Bush's memoir with other sources. Yesterday's example was nearly identical- but I didn't do a screengrab.

I question that the ethics of our students are much different from that of our leaders, and therefore the issue is one of our culture as a whole rather than kids today; however, many readers of the article "Cheating and the Generational Divide" in Inside Higher Education may disagree. Prior to a test students researched online for publisher created tests - and the instructor used the test provided by the publisher. Some students claim the instructor said in class he would create his own test. I need to someday read this more carefully - but I gotta get ready for class.

I hope a student chooses plagiarism or ethics for an inquiry-learning research project. I'd like to hear a balanced and logical discussion of the issue.

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