Universities are re-examining their plagiarism policies following a series of high profile cases, including what has been dubbed as the “largest cheating scandal in memory” by The New York Times.
Nearly 125 Harvard students are under suspicion of cheating on a take-home exam, according to a note sent out to all students by the dean of undergraduate education Jay Harris on Aug. 30.
The cases of plagiarism ranged from “inappropriate collaboration to outright plagiarism,” Harris said.
This scandal touches on the larger issue of plagiarism’s prevalence due to online tools, according to a study published by Duquesne University researchers this year.
The study found students were more likely to plagiarize when given access to these tools, for example during a take-home exam.
One reason students may be more likely to plagiarize with access to the Internet is because perceptions of how to use information have changed due to the Internet, Carleton associate cognitive science professor Ash Asudeh said.
“People view stuff on the Internet as much more up for grabs than they have with books,” Asudeh said.
Asudeh has given out take-home exams in the past and allowed students to work in pairs, although he required an individual write-up to avoid plagiarism.
Asudeh has seen his fair share of plagiarism cases while teaching at Carleton over the past six years, but he said he sees it as more of an issue with people seeking to disobey the rules than a problem with the rules themselves.
“More is necessary, though, than simply knowing rules and refining practices,” Harris wrote. “Without integrity, there can be no genuine achievement.”
The Harvard students are still under review and a number have taken a leave of absence, according to The New York Times.
“From year to year there has been an slow but increasing trend of plagiarism cases, and we continue to increase our efforts to raise awareness about academic honesty,” Carleton University provost and vice-president (academic) Peter Ricketts said via email.
Ricketts said the trend is due to increasing numbers of students along with more consistent efforts by instructors to scan for plagiarized work.
“In particular, the advent of powerful Internet search engines makes it a more straightforward task to identify plagiarized work.”
Carleton has had cases of plagiarism on take-home exams, although “it happens infrequently and only at the individual level,” Ricketts said.
