I Ain't Gonna Cheat On You No More
College has changed a lot since I was a traditional undergrad. I've written about the differences in clothing choices before. But technology has also changed drastically. Cellphones are now the norm (too bad we didn't have cellphones in the mid-90's—I would've saved a lot on my long-distance bills); wifi and lower computer prices have liberated students from computer labs; PowerPoint lectures are the norm (whatever happened to good ol' blackboard and chalk?); and online class websites are utilized everyday for homework, lecture notes, grades and student forums. Not to mention how integral the internet has become for all types of communication (as evidenced by this blog).
All of the above I encountered at UMd when I was taking my pre-reqs for nursing school. One thing that I did not encounter until this fall was the use of Turnitin.com. This is a web-based service in which students upload papers to be scanned for plagiarism. I don't know if I am just naive in thinking about my first undergrad experience—but I don't think that I know anyone who cheated by plagiarizing. Is it really that much of a problem now?
There are a couple of interesting points brought up by this Washington Post article: once a paper is uploaded, that paper is now the property of Turnitin.com, to be used as comparison against future papers submitted to the site. Another point is that some classes mandate the use of Turnitin.com (for my bioethics class, we can submit conscientious objections to using the site), otherwise the student will fail the assignment. It seems to me that using this site goes against trying to build trust and confidence in students, and in a student's ability to cite information sources correctly (or teacher's ability to catch mis-citations). What ever happened to learning how to write a research paper—not just in forming a thesis and backing that thesis with assertions and facts, but learning the proper way for citing materials used? Are teachers going to take advantage of this and let it do their work for them?
All of the above I encountered at UMd when I was taking my pre-reqs for nursing school. One thing that I did not encounter until this fall was the use of Turnitin.com. This is a web-based service in which students upload papers to be scanned for plagiarism. I don't know if I am just naive in thinking about my first undergrad experience—but I don't think that I know anyone who cheated by plagiarizing. Is it really that much of a problem now?
There are a couple of interesting points brought up by this Washington Post article: once a paper is uploaded, that paper is now the property of Turnitin.com, to be used as comparison against future papers submitted to the site. Another point is that some classes mandate the use of Turnitin.com (for my bioethics class, we can submit conscientious objections to using the site), otherwise the student will fail the assignment. It seems to me that using this site goes against trying to build trust and confidence in students, and in a student's ability to cite information sources correctly (or teacher's ability to catch mis-citations). What ever happened to learning how to write a research paper—not just in forming a thesis and backing that thesis with assertions and facts, but learning the proper way for citing materials used? Are teachers going to take advantage of this and let it do their work for them?
Comments
1) I still use chalk and the blackboard. For your everyday key words and tricky character diagrams, you really can't beat it.
2) In literature courses, we still follow the tried and true thesis-based argumentative essay, though even there, plagarism rears its ugly head, often in the form of wikipedia paraphasing and the like...