Michael,
You are right! Cheating is nothing new and it will not go away anytime soon!
Shelly Crider
Terrific post. Now whether I agree or disagree depends upon the context of the question. From an ethical standpoint, cheating it wrong and I would have to disagree with your statement. However, if we are looking at this from a cognitive standpoint, even if someone else is doing some or most of the work, the student is still engaged and indirectly learning. So, from that standpoint, I would have to say that I really don't care.
Cheating is cheating no matter what the instructional environment is. The student who decides to cheat will do so, whether they are enrolled in an on-the ground course or on-line. The plagiarism checkers make it a lot quicker to provide feedback to the student. If a student plagiarizes an essay, I do give them an opportunity to re-do it, as long as they find a new source document to support the work.
Henry,
Interesting take. I do like a creative student! I have seen some students who take no pride in cheating either.
Shelly Crider
Jenny ,
Cheating on your education will end up showing its ugly head at some point in time!
Shelly Crider
This issue resolves its self in the long run. Students who cannot perform and cheat to "pass" the course, will fail when challenged in real life situations.
Some educators feel that we should make every attempt to show this group of students the down falls of cheating. However many of these students have been allowed to complete classes in primary and secondary educational settings and it is the only way they feel they can move on. they certainly wouldn't want to make the effort and actually study the material or spend time in tutoring.
Assuming the goal of this group of students that are now in a trade school is to gain solid employment. These students will soon find that their lack of effort in school will be recognized by their employer and and their employment may be short lived or at best they will stay at entry level positions. There is little room at the top, and obtain a higher paying position takes real work and demonstrated ability.
Frank,
This is a sad but true statement Frank!
Shelly Crider
Yes, I think we should definitely be concerned about cheating and take measures to deter students from doing so. Both areas are a concern and I think your question gains traction as a negative aspect or deterrent to the online learning environment. Fortunately there are programs like Turnitin that catch the offenders and deter others from violating academic integrity standards. In later posts I read about the "second chances" given to offending students. I recently had a student submit code for help before the assignment was due and the code definitely wasn't their own. I suspected it when I discovered that their code was using a deprecated version of this particular programming language. So I copied their entire code and Googled it. I Found several sites with the EXACT same code, word for word. Just a note. My student's code wasn't working for one because it featured deprecated language for the version we were in and two, they didn't even bother to match the object names from the copied code to their own environment. I wrote a pretty lengthy email to the student and warned them against submitting this and asked them where they got it. Since they weren't submitting the assignment I didn't follow up with disciplinary action and wondered if this was something that I SHOULD have done. After reading several posts on the subject. I think I did the right thing. The student did end up submitting their own code for the assignment and I hope that he learned something from the experience both in computer programming and in life.
Cameron,
You will know what is right for each student. I have had students complain on other students discussion posts because they have found the exact same post as before. Keeps me on my toes as well!
Shelly Crider
The student may also cheat in the traditional class, however I totally disagree we should not be concerned. We should teach the student what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. There is so much information on the internet, the student’s want to copy and paste they information directly from the research site. They should be given steps on how to paraphrase their research material and cite their sources. As instructors, we must give them the additional tools to be able to format their assignments. I tell my students, the information cannot be based upon what you know. We are in an academic setting that requires you to back up your research and examples. We must cite our source.
Charlene,
Excellent post. We all must cite our sources. Students need to know how and have extra resources at their fingertips!
Shelly Crider
It depends on the type of evaluation we are trying on both environments: on-line or face to face. For example, if we ask for an essay, it's very hard to copy one of those but if we put a multiple choice test perhaps it would be hard for the students to cheat is we set a random questions for the on-line version.
As I say, it also depend on what and how we are evaluating the learning outcomes.
Hi Ms. Crider,
I believe that as educators we should be concerned with cheating in all educational settings. This includes labs, in person classrooms, online, and clinical settings to name a few. Dishonest students will cheat in any academic setting. We should be concerned with cheating and develop tactics to lessen the frequency of cheating. What we know as cheating has drastically changed over the years. With the integration of online learning this presents a new challenge and as educators I believe we must rise to occasion to counteract this.
Thank you,
Adrianna Davis
Rocio,
We definitely want to randomize our mulitple choice test to limit cheating.
Shelly Crider
Adrianna,
Yes, ass educational settings need to have concerns....even training in your current job.
Shelly Crider
I disagree. The learner not only fails the institution but they also fail themselves. They are trying to reach a goal and trying to learn new material; by cheating they are not able to learn the material they are just learning how to find the answer to the material. We should all be concerned with cheating because some students my see others getting away with it and may try it themselves
wyshondia,
It is sad when some students see others getting away with cheating.
Shelly Crider
I disagree. I think that we should do all we can to prevent or make it difficult for cheating to occur. I do not think that we need to make cheating a main focus. Students have to learn how to be accountable for their actions. If someone decides to cheat they should also think of the consequences of their actions. Are you retaining the information by electing to cheat? How will cheating benefit you in the long run? We can only do so much to prevent cheating whether it is in a traditional setting or online. I do feel that it is not as easy as people think to cheat in an online environment. There are more time constraints, some classrooms are set up where you can not access other websites while taking tests, and some even have camera's on the laptops where testing can be monitored closely. So, yes cheating should be considered when developing an online course but it should not be a major concern.
Rashunda,
Thank you for this post....nicely done!! Cheating is a concern that we should all take seriously.
Shelly Crider
Hi Stephanie,
I absolutely give do-overs. I have found that in this day of technology a lot of my students think cut and paste is a perfectly acceptable tool to complete an essay or project. They are shocked that it is considered plagiarism. The know and have heard the word before. They know it is "bad" but have no idea that means cut/paste. After explanation I do give them a chance to give me original work. The find it difficult but in the end are proud of their work.
