Penn State Capital College
Penn State Harrisburg
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Cyberplagiarism:
New Opportunities for Cheating
and
New Challenges for Teaching
INTERACTIVE EDITION
PENN STATE HARRISBURG
August 25, 2005
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Interactive Group Assignments
Group A: Click on hyperlink
What is Penn State’s definition of Academic
Integrity? Where can that definition be found?
Academic Integrity
Group B: Click on hyperlink
What are the most common definitions of
Plagiarism?
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Expectations For Students
What is the Penn State Code of Conduct?
“All students are expected to act with
personal integrity in order to create and
sustain an atmosphere where all can
succeed through their own honest efforts.”
From Penn State Student Code of Conduct
http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/principles.html
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What are Penn State’s Expectations for Faculty?
Group A: What Standards Should Faculty Expect
and Enforce?
http://www.cl.psu.edu/acadpolicies/guideline8.ht
ml See “Expectations” section
Group B: What Are the Responsibilities of the
Individual Course Instructor? See “Expectations”
section
http://www.cl.psu.edu/acadpolicies/guideline8.ht
ml
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Why Should Faculty Care?
Is Plagiarism a Real Problem?
“A national survey by Rutgers' Management
Education Center of 4,500 high school students found
that 75 percent [3375] of them engage in serious
cheating.” (Survey: “Many Students Say Cheating's
OK,” CNN Online, April 5, 2002).
http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/04/05/
highschool.cheating/index.html
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How Many Students Really Cheat?
“Donald McCabe’s study this year of 16,000
undergraduates at 23 colleges and universities
found that 38 percent [6080] had taken material
from the Internet and passed it off as their own.
Forty-four percent of all the students surveyed
said it was no big deal.”
Felicia R. Lee, “Are More People Cheating”? New York
Times (October 4, 2003)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/arts/04CHEA.html
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What’s the Story at Penn State?
Group A: What Do the Recent Student Surveys
Show? See the “Some Numbers” paragraph at:
http:// tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/cyberplag
Group B: Do Cheaters Have High or Low G.P.A.s?
See the “Some Numbers” paragraph at:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/cyberplag
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Grades and Cheating
Grade Point
Average
Had Not
Cheated
Had Cheated
equal to/below
2.75
42%
58%
between 2.76
and 3.29
45%
55%
equal to/above
3.30
57%
43%
Source: http://www.sa.psu.edu/sara/pulse/58-academic.PDF
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What is the Enforcement History at Penn
State?
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How Do Penn State Faculty Deal with Cheating?
“The most common punishment for cheating during the
2001-02 school year was giving students a zero for the
assignment or test. Almost half of the students caught
were disciplined in this way.”
“Other sanctions included a reduced grade on an
assignment or the course as a whole, the obligation of
redoing the work or just a warning.” Daily Collegian
(Monday, January 20, 2003)
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How Do Students Think the Academic
Integrity Policy Should Be Enforced?
83% get an F on test or assignment
42% be put on academic probation
33% get an F for the course
33% have a notation of cheating on transcript
27% have parents notified of cheating
26% be referred to Judicial Affairs
15% have to pay fine
10% be suspended or expelled from the University
Source: http://www.sa.psu.edu/sara/pulse/58-academic.PDF
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Where Do Students Get The Material?
“Turnitin indicates that 85% of plagiarized papers
are from the Internet; 13% from other student
term papers; and, 0.5% from paper mills.” [B.
Reagan, “E-commerce (a special report) – siting
sources,” Wall Street Journal (September 16,
2002), p. R4.
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What Enticements Do Web Vendors Offer
Students?
Group A: How Does This Company Rationalize the
Use of Web-Based Materials?
http://www.LazyStudents.com
Group B: What “Pleasure Principle” Does This
Web Site Use to Comfort the Busy Student?
http://www.ezwrite.com
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Can Cheaters Get Quality Material?
Group A: What Other Services Can Students Find?
http://www.research-papers-research-papers.com
Group B: How Can Students Be Sure of Getting Quality
Material?
http://www.toptermpapersites.com/
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How Do Web Sites Persuade Students that
Using Their Services is Not Cheating?
Group A: What Is the Pitch of Cheathouse.Com?
http://www.cheathouse.com
Group B: What Services Does School Sucks.Com
Use to Promote Its Site
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For Students: Some Incentives/Rationalizations for
Cheating
Advertisers’ encourage web theft by persuading
students that they are:
Getting help vs. stealing intellectual property
Advertisers’ encourage web theft by creating new
sources for plagiarism:
250+ general paper mills
70+ subject specific sites
Sites available throughout the world
Materials provided in nearly every
language
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For Students: Some Incentives/Rationalizations for
Cheating
Rationalizations based on subtle sales pitches for
students with poor academic preparation
Disrespect/mistrust of instructors who don’t seem
to care about students or their learning
Ignorance of expectations and misunderstandings
about assignments to promote products
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For Students: Some Incentives/Rationalizations for
Cheating
Belief that higher grades alone determine job
opportunities and admission to “good” graduate
schools
Detection and punishment are so unlikely that
“Cheating is a shortcut and it's a pretty efficient
one in a lot of cases.“ [Student Alice Newhall
quoted on CNN, April 05, 2002]
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Google’s Homework Helper: Not for Writers Only
Homework Helpers for Engineers and Scientists
Click on: http://www.answers.google.com
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Fee-Based Helpers for Math and Science
Group A: Review a typical algebra homework
helper – software assistant
http://www.maplesoft.com/maple10/maple10_stu
dents_algebra.aspx?p=m10-students-02-algebra
Group B: Review a typical math, accounting,
finance on-line tutorial
http://interactivemathtutor.com/
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More “Homework Helpers”
Group A: Review the Following Web Sites
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/homewor
k/math.aspx
http://www.brainmass.com/
Group B: Review the Following Web Sites
http://users.adelphia.net/~mathhomewor
khelp/index.html
http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhel
p/bjpinchbeck/
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What Can Faculty Do?
Group A: Select four tips you believe to be
important for preventing plagiarism from the
Prevention section of
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/cyberplag
Group B: Select four tips you believe to be
important for preventing plagiarism from the
Prevention section of
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/cyberplag
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What Should Faculty Do?
1.
Provide Real Help to Students
2.
Establish a Learning Community in the
Classroom – Create Trust and Expectations for
Honesty
3.
Demonstrate That Students Should Take
Responsibility for Their Own Learning
4.
Inform Students of Policy and Expectations in
Syllabi and Handouts
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Provide Real Help to Students
5.
Use Out-of-Class Tutorials: Ask Students to
Use ANGEL 5 Cyberplagiarism Question
Bank
6.
Expect Strong Local Administrative Support for
Enforcement of Policy and Consult with the
School Directors, Senior Associate Deans,
Judicial Affairs Office
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Provide Real Help to Students
7.
Review Plagiarism Literature Summaries
Frequently at Non-Penn State Web Sites
Group A: See http://www.webminer.com/plagiarism
Group B: See http://www.google.com and
Search “Cyberplagiarism”
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Provide Real Help to Students
8.
Spend some time in class distinguishing
between deliberate and accidental plagiarism
Group A: Look under “5.1.”
http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~writing/interactiveplagiarismtest.html
Group B: Look under “Examples of Plagiarism”
http://www.chem.uky.edu/courses/common/pla
giarism.html
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Provide Real Help to Students
9.
Use On-line sources to demonstrate
knowledge of plagiarism opportunities
Group A: What Help is Available at Other Big
10 Institutions
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/researc
h/r_plagiar.html
Group B: How Do other big 10 universities
assist students with tutorials?
http://www.indiana.edu/~istd/
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Provide Real Help to Students
10. Scan Web Sites for Assistance with Plagiarism and
Cyberplagiarism
Group A: See http://www.web-miner.com/plagiarism
Group B: http://www.virtualsalt.com
11. Use Search Engines to Locate Sources
Group A: See http://www.plagiarism.org/
Group B: See http://www.metacrawl.com
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Take Reasonable Precautions to Safeguard
the Integrity of Writing Assignments
Don’t Use Take Home Examinations with No
Limits on Sources
2. Don’t Assign Research Papers without
Explaining the Learning Goals Carefully
3. Don’t Forget to Use Basal Writing or
Handwriting Sample[s] to Establish Students’
Personal Writing Skill Levels
1.
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How to Safeguard the Integrity of Writing
Assignments
Use Practices Common Cumulative Research
Reports – Build the Project through Smaller
Projects and Evaluated Assignments
5. Always Establish Specific Learning Goals for
Out-of-Class Assignments
6. Warn Students that All Submitted Material Will
Be Checked by Standard Plagiarism Search
Software
4.
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How to Safeguard the Integrity of Writing
Assignments
Require Digital/Electronic Submission of All
Assignments to Check Students’ Work.
8. Use Microsoft Word’s Tool by Clicking on File,
Properties, Statistics
7.
a.
b.
c.
d.
Student Submits Paper Electronically
Faculty Member Pastes Text into Microsoft Word
Faculty Member Accesses Statistics
Faculty Member Determines How Long the Paper
was Being Edited
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Safeguarding the Integrity of Mathematics or
Science Homework
Evaluate/Grade All Submitted Assignments
2. Comment on Problem Solutions or
Uncompleted Steps
3. Query All Solutions Different from the Practices
Studied in Class or the Conventions of the
Discipline
4. Require Written Justifications for Idiosyncratic
Solutions
1.
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Programming and Software Cheating
What is Moss? Moss (for a Measure Of Software
Similarity) is an automatic system for
determining the similarity of C, C++, Java,
Pascal, Ada, ML, Lisp, or Scheme programs.
. . . The main application of Moss has been in
detecting plagiarism in programming classes.
Since its development in 1994, Moss has been
very effective in this role.
Source:
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~aiken/moss.html
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Latest Tools for Supporting Academic
Integrity at Penn State
Penn State subscribes to Turnitin.com
http://live.psu.edu/story/12056
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/turnitin/
What is Turnitin?
Turnitin.com ( http://turnitin.com ) is a Web-based
plagiarism detection and prevention system
owned by Turnitin.com, Inc.
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Latest Tools for Supporting Academic
Integrity at Penn State
Turnitin.com can be used as a means to teach
students how to work with sources and to raise
awareness of paraphrasing and quoting skills
in order to avoid plagiarism.
Penn State Help and Training
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/turnitin/Faculty.html#GetSt
arted
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Where to Get Help with Turnitin?
See your local ANGEL representative
Ms. Carol McQuiggan (cam240@psu.edu)
Attend Academic Integrity workshops sponsored
by the Capital College Teaching and Learning
Committee (Dates to be announced).
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Summary
Penn State is committed to a policy of Academic
Integrity, and this includes a commitment
against plagiarism.
Penn State is committed to supporting the integrity
of the teaching and learning process.
Penn State will provide faculty with the tools to
accomplish their teaching and learning goals.
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For a copy of Capital College’s Academic
Integrity Policy including an explanation of
procedures, check the Academic Policies tab on
the Harrisburg web page at:
http://www.hbg.psu.edu
For a copy of this interactive presentation, click on URL:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/wjm2/Cyberplag_
Interactive.ppt
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Penn State Capital College
Penn State Harrisburg
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