Student Cheating

I have been reading a lot lately about plagiarism and student cheating and the extent to which campuses and faculty are going to identify and stop cheating.  Interestingly, some campuses and some faculty have come out against the routine use of programs that search submitted work of plagiarism, such as turn-it-in, on the basis that the use of these programs presumes that cheating is going on and treats the student as someone who can't be trusted.

First of all, over 60 percent of students admit to plagiarism at some point in their academic careers.  So, students are cheating!  To not look for it on the basis that doing so suggests that students can't be trusted is to deny reality.  Doing nothing also encourages the activity.  It's a wink and a nod.

I have previously pointed out that some of my local institutions that use on-line coursework do nothing to ensure that the students taking on-line tests are actually the students registered for the course or are not being helped my a battery of friends siting behind them as they take the test.

We need to recognize that our failure to ensure the quality of our product diminished the value of that product.  Ensuring the value of our course grades and degrees will cost us money, and may mean that not everyone gets a college degree, but having over half the students cheating also has a cost.  Can we accept the cost of lower productivity or incompetent action by people who passed classes and got degrees without having to master their field of study.  I think not.

T.S. Hall