The Internet and Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty is the use of unauthorized assistance with the intent to deceive an instructor. Academic dishonesty includes behaviors like cheating, plagiarism, and fabrication. Cheating is the use of materials, information or notes that are not authorized by the instructor. Plagiarism is the act of claiming or using someone’s own words or ideas and using them as your own without giving them credit. Fabrication involves falsifying information or data.

Academic honesty, expected of every student, is essential to the process of education and to upholding high ethical standards. Cheating, including plagiarism, inappropriate use of technology, or any other kind of unethical or dishonest behavior, may subject the student to severe academic penalties, including dismissal.All work submitted for evaluation in a course, including tests, term papers, and computer programs, must represent only the work of the student unless indicated otherwise. This includes homework, essays, theses, and creative projects.Material taken from the work of others must be acknowledged. Materials submitted to fulfill requirements in one course may not be submitted in another course without prior approval of the instructor.

Counterfeit academics, counterfeit grades, and in fact, counterfeit universities are the theme of a scathing commentary by one Philadelphia professor. Brent Staples, a long time college professor often writes excerpts for big name magazines like The New York Times. Brent Staples article “Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A’s” is very well written but lacks extensive evidence for some of his emotionally driven statements.

Chace, W. M. (2012). A Question of Honor: Cheating on campus undermines the reputation of our universities and the value of their degrees. Now is the time for students themselves to stop it. (Cover story). American Scholar, 81(2), 20-32.

In “Is Diogenes on your Campus?” Karen Bleeker states that Community colleges must prize integrity to reinforce the behaviors of the honest students. First of all, studies shows that this widespread problem and one that may be accelerating. Both objective studies of academic dishonesty and anecdotal evidence from professors and administrators seem to show that students are cheating more often that in the past. If this continues, not only will the integrity of the academic process be threatened, but we will be raising a generation of students who think such behavior is normal. In addition, allowing such cheating to continue hurts and angers honest students. They choose not to cheat for a variety

In the professional field, academic dishonesty obstructs respect and fairness between all students, staff and faculty members that share a common goal. It shatters mutual trust that is shared and maintained between students and faculty members in an academic relationship. When students claim someone else work as their own, they are giving credit to themselves and not the original publisher. Also, it violates the standard academic integrity by delivering false information to fellow students and professors. The 2017-2018 Brandman Catalog makes a valid point that, “The University expects that students will conduct themselves in an honest and ethical manner and respect the intellectual work of others” (Brandman University, 2017). This shows how

In “Cheating in Online Classes is Now Big Business,” Derek Newton addresses the issue of cheating in online courses and proposes some avenues to explore in order to fight against it. There are businesses, agencies, and entrepreneurs who offer to take student’s online classes for them. Newton shares his findings from contacting one of these businesses that provide tutors to take online classes for their clients, even going as far as taking on their identities. Newton found that for a given price, he could not only have someone take his online class for him, but with a guaranteed high grade. Newton explains that with online education growing so do these businesses. Newton proposes that colleges should employ more interaction between the professors

In Isaac Gilman’s article, one of the topics he discussed was the importance of academic integrity. While the internet provides a useful tool for learning new things, it can also be used to steal ideas and work. Plagiarism has been around for a long time, but the access to online information makes it effortless. Paper mills which gain a profit from selling

I ran into an article online called “How Online Students Are Cheating” by Jamie Littlefield where she discussed many of the reasons why students are cheating in online classes where many topics were discussed by the author regarding academic dishonesty in online courses. While the discipline I teach will require some collaboration and discussion between students it is also important that they understand the institution’s rules, regulations and consequences of academic dishonesty and how it will impact them personally, professionally and, more importantly, academically.

Dishonesty in the academic setting can be done by cheating on a test, plagiarism, and or an act of bullying (Billings, 2015). These methods of cheating are on the rise with the increase use of technology (Billings, 2015). There are devices sold to aid in the act of cheating. All of this has impacted the learning environment by making the surrounding students feel uncomfortable. While some students are struggling to pass, and others are naturally gifted with the ability to remember the material all students look at cheating as a negative behavior. Moreover the nursing students are looked at as “the helpers” a honest profession (Billings, 2015). If the nursing students will cheat on a test,

Cheaters come in all shapes and sizes. In fact, 75% of all students openly admit to some form of academic dishonesty throughout their educational career ("Cheating Fact Sheet"). With so many people who openly admit to academic dishonesty, certain categories of students tend to exhibit more cheating behaviors than others. One classification consists of students in a group. Studies have found that cheating is more prevalent in group oriented settings, such as fraternities and sororities (Anderman and Murdock 17). Most dishonest behaviors involve some form of collaboration or communication between learners thus, this correlation is logical.

Academic dishonesty is a threat to every student and every institution of higher education. The very act runs contrary to the fundamental values of higher education (Bowers, 1964). Dishonesty compromises the integrity of the individual student as well as the reputation of the institution (Engler, Landau, & Epstein, 2008; Gallant, 2008).

Technology is rapidly evolving and changing, and as a result of the increasing availability and propagation of several forms of technology, academic dishonesty cases in every college and university have greatly multiplied and become a global issue. The issue on cheating behaviors in students is so pervasive and uncontrollable that it is almost considered as commonplace (Arhin & Jones, 2009). One of the hardest challenges for educators is knowing how and when to discipline their students. In the given scenario, there are several issues to take into account; the first and foremost being the issue of academic dishonesty. Academic dishonesty is defined by the Webster dictionary as the intentional participation in deceptive practices regarding one’s academic work or the work of another (Faucher & Caves, 2009). Jones (2011) states that many institutions of higher education have adopted academic dishonesty policies, instituted academic integrity tutorial completion prerequisites for next term registration, and acquired plagiarism software detection tools. They go on to say that within the past few years, high-tech cheating is gradually replacing the simple cut-and-paste cheating, and educators must be proactive and develop instructional strategies that integrate all facets of appropriate digital citizenship, that is, digital ethics. By implementing these academic dishonesty and integrity policies and making them attainable to

In the second section, I will state my opinion on how to confront the situation of students using “paper mills” and cheating in general as well as why the alternative view presented is inappropriate. The culmination will be reached in the third portion, which will contain my conclusion. Following this essay, a Works Cited page is provided with information of the sources utilized.

McCabe has said that an estimated seventy percent of college students have admitted to some type of cheating. He supports this claim by saying that the parties to blame here is the school system and the media. HBU defines academic dishonesty to when a student cheats or steals someone’s work and passes it as their own among these are a list of actions that count for academic dishonesty. Some examples being brought up about dishonesty is how in the NFL saw past the deflating incident in the Super Bowl were it seems like the media praised the player for his actions (Loschiavo). Therefor, students think it is correct to do be dishonest in their class work.