scholarly journals Catching lightning in a bottle: Surveying plagiarism futures

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Dixon ◽  
Kelly George ◽  
Tyler Carr

The digitization of higher education is evolving academic misconduct, posing both new challenges to and opportunities for academic integrity and its research. The digital evidence inherent to online-based academic misconduct produces new avenues of replicable, aggregate, and data-driven (RAD) research not previously available. In a digital mutation of the misuse of unoriginal material, students are increasingly leveraging online learning platforms like CourseHero.com to exchange completed coursework. This study leverages a novel dataset recorded by the upload of academic materials on CourseHero.com to measure how at-risk sample courses are to potential academic misconduct. This study’s survey of exchanged coursework reveals that students are sharing a significant amount of academic material online that poses a direct danger to their courses’ academic integrity. This study’s approach to observing what academic material students are sharing online demonstrates a novel means of leveraging digitized academic misconduct to develop valuable insights for planning the mitigation of academic dishonesty and maintaining course academic integrity.

Author(s):  
Michael L Kremmer ◽  
Mark Brimble ◽  
Peta Stevenson-Clarke

Academic dishonesty is a fundamental issue in terms of the educational integrity of higher education institutions. Accordingly, there is a growing pool of literature that examines this issue. This study adds to this literature by investigating factors that may influence student engagement in academic misconduct. We examine the influence of the type of assessment items, age, gender, nationality, discipline and level of study and the students' self-reported history of cheating. Drawing from a survey of 1,057 students across four major Queensland universities, we find that a student's age, gender and nationality are useful in explaining the probability of a student cheating. Our key finding, however, suggests that the likelihood that a student will engage in any given cheating behaviour is most strongly influenced by the extent to which the student engages in other forms of cheating, supporting the notion of "once a cheat always a cheat". We conclude that more needs to be done to combat a culture of acceptance of academic dishonesty and to minimise defensive misconduct by students who otherwise might not engage in such behaviour. We suggest that university administrators devote increased resources to this issue and develop mechanisms for managing and curtailing the level of academic misconduct. A failure to do so may result in a further undermining of the academic integrity of the Australian tertiary sector.


Author(s):  
Shiva Das Sivasubramaniam ◽  
Zeenath Reza Khan

Establishing and maintaining academic integrity has always been a focal point amongst all higher education organisations. A few studies have been designed to compare the efficacy of measures/procedures amongst different institutions. Some other attempts were also made to compare the procedures for academic misconduct investigations amongst different institutions about handling potential plagiarisms and/or academic misconducts. The aim of this workshop based investigation was to show the participants, the importance of pro-activeness and practical awareness to establish institutional procedures for handling potential plagiarism and/or academic dishonesty. We wanted to show the inconsistencies in the approaches of conducting academic investigations relating to plagiarism related misconducts. We have carried out a simple Google® search and selected publicly available institutional policies and procedures of five different international universities representing different geographical representations. The comparison has highlighted the approaches to investigate plagiarism or academic misconduct are varied amongst these universities. Some institutional policies have established clearly defined processes, others have vague and ambiguous procedures. The study has highlighted the importance of investigating institutional procedures in a comparative manner. In order to provide some recommendation of institutional policies and procedures, we would work closely with the European Network of Academic Integrity (ENAI), and other international stakeholders to expand this study in a larger scale.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10367
Author(s):  
Claudiu Coman ◽  
Laurențiu Gabriel Țîru ◽  
Luiza Meseșan-Schmitz ◽  
Carmen Stanciu ◽  
Maria Cristina Bularca

The research focuses on identifying the way in which Romanian universities managed to provide knowledge during the Coronavirus pandemic, when, in a very short time, universities had to adapt the educational process for exclusively online teaching and learning. In this regard, we analyzed students’ perception regarding online learning, their capacity to assimilate information, and the use of E-learning platforms. An online survey based on a semi-structured questionnaire was conducted. Data was collected from 762 students from two of the largest Romanian universities. The results of the research revealed that higher education institutions in Romania were not prepared for exclusively online learning. Thus, the advantages of online learning identified in other studies seem to diminish in value, while disadvantages become more prominent. The hierarchy of problems that arise in online learning changes in the context of the crisis caused by the pandemic. Technical issues are the most important, followed by teachers’ lack of technical skills and their teaching style improperly adapted to the online environment. However, the last place was assigned by students to the lack of interaction with teachers or poor communication with them. Based on these findings, research implications for universities and researchers are discussed.


NASPA Journal ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie L Zelna ◽  
Marilee J Bresciani

Based on concerns regarding current trends in higher education, one Research I institution set out to measure knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and perceptions related to academic misconduct. Through a self-report survey, trends specific to the university’s community as well as educational interventions were identified to further educate the campus community about academic integrity in order to reduce academic misconduct.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (6 (344)) ◽  
pp. 162-171
Author(s):  
Anastasiia Kuzmenko ◽  

The article deals with the features of higher education of the third level in Latin America, namely Brazil and Mexico. The object of the research is the quality system of higher education in Latin America (Brazil and Mexico), and its subject is the formation and attitude to the culture of academic integrity of PhD-applicants in these countries. The goal is highlighting the implementation of the leading practices for the formation of the academic integrity culture among PhD-applicants in Latin America, in particular Brazil and Mexico. Objectives are to consider ways of forming the academic integrity culture of PhD-applicants at the international, state and institutional levels in Latin America, in particular Brazil and Mexico. It has been investigated that scientific activity is widely developed in Brazil, and the basis for the formation of academic integrity is used according to the experience of the United States of America. However, violations such as plagiarism or deception are perceived not as a manifestation of unethical behaviour, but more as a violation of ignorance or unintentional borrowing. There is also a low level of success of applicants for higher education, which is also fruitful for the generation of dishonest behaviour. Mexico is the «opposite lever» in the experience of the academic integrity culture, since the economic system of the country has its own gaps and leads to a high level of corruption, and as a result, the manifestation of academic dishonesty in all its forms. Despite this, the country understands the need to form the academic integrity culture as a factor influencing the further responsible and ethical activities of a future competitive specialist. Thus, there is a cyclical nature: the honest behaviour of the applicant for education forms the skills of the honest behaviour of a specialist, the honest behaviour of a specialist is the absence of corruption, in particular in education.


2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia M. Christensen Hughes ◽  
Donald L. McCabe

Research suggests that the majority of U.S. undergraduate students have engaged in some form of misconduct while completing their academic work, despite knowing that such behaviour is ethically or morally wrong. U.S.-based studies have also identified myriad personal and institutional factors associated with academic misconduct. Implicit in some of these factors are several institutional strategies that may be implemented to support academic integrity: revisiting the values and goals of higher education, recommitting to quality in teaching and assessment practice, establishing effective policies and invigilation practices, providing educational opportunities and support for all members of the university community, and using (modified) academic honour codes. There is a dearth of similar research in Canada despite growing recognition that academic misconduct is a problem on Canadian campuses. This paper suggests that Canadian higher education can learn much from the U.S. experience and calls for both a recommitment to academic integrity and research on academic misconduct in Canadian higher education institutions.


10.28945/3629 ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 193-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adi Friedman ◽  
Ina Blau ◽  
Yoram Eshet-Alkalai

This study examined the phenomenon of academic dishonesty among university students. It was based on Pavela’s (1997) framework of types of academic dishonesty (cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, and facilitation) and distinguished between digital and “traditional”- analog dishonesty. The study analyzed cases of academic dishonesty offenses committed by students, as well as the reasons for academic dishonesty behaviors, and the severity of penalties for violations of academic integrity. The motivational framework for committing an act of academic dishonesty (Murdock & Anderman, 2006) and the Self-Concept Maintenance model (Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008) were employed to analyze the reasons for students’ dishonest behaviors. We analyzed 315 protocols of the Disciplinary Committee, at The Open University of Israel, from 2012-2013 that represent all of the offenses examined by the Committee during one and a half years. The findings showed that analog dishonesty was more prevalent than digital dishonesty. According to the students, the most prevalent reason for their academic dishonesty was the need to maintain a positive view of self as an honest person despite violating ethical codes. Interestingly, penalties for analog dishonesty were found to be more severe than those imposed for digital dishonesty. Surprisingly, women were penalized more severely than men, despite no significant gender differences in dishonesty types or in any other parameter explored in the study. Findings of this study shed light on the scope and roots of academic dishonesty and may assist institutions in coping effectively with this phenomenon.


2021 ◽  
pp. 153-159
Author(s):  
Elena Denisova-Schmidt

AbstractThe lack of academic integrity, fraud, and other forms of unethical behaviour are problems that higher education faces in both developing and developed countries, at mass and elite universities, and public and private institutions. While academic misconduct is not new, massification, internationalization, privatization, digitalization, and commercialization have placed ethics higher on the agenda for many universities (Denisova-Schmidt and De Wit 2017; Denisova-Schmidt 2018, 2019; Bretag 2020).


Author(s):  
Caroline Burns

This purpose of this paper is to outline how values theory can be incorporated into a business ethics curriculum and how academic integrity can be recruited in doing so. The paper presents a pedagogical approach that allows students to reflect on their values, articulate their values stances, and learn how values influence both ethical and unethical behavior. The paper also demonstrates how academic dishonesty is an effective means by which to teach students the pathway from values, to attitudes, to behavior, while also teaching students the long-term ramifications of behaving unethically during their time spent in higher education.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Simpson

Academic dishonesty is a long-standing issue for faculty and administrators, yet the concern over dishonesty among international students is growing. With the changing demographics of higher education, faculty and administrators must revisit how campus policies and procedures serve all students’ needs, but especially international students, as it relates to academic dishonesty. This article explores academic dishonesty from an international student context and provides suggestions for facilitating a campus culture of academic integrity.


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