Cheating in the Digital Age

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Cheating in the Digital Age

• Bob JensenEmeritus Professor of
  AccountingTrinity University in San Antonio 190
  Sunset Hill RoadSugar Hill, NH 03586
• 603-823-8482rjensen_at_trinity.edu
• http//www.trinity.edu/rjensen /

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Key Jensen Web Sites

• Cheating --- http//www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagia
  rism.htm Local Link --- ..\..\plagiarsm.htm
• Assessment --- http//www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Asse
  ss.htm Local Link --- ..\..\assess.htm

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54 of Accounting Majors Cheat

• 54 of Accounting Students Admit to Cheating
  SmartPros, August 31, 2007 ---
  http//accounting.smartpros.com/x58970.xml
• Accounting majors are just as likely to cheat in
  college as other business students, according to
  a new study.
• The academic study -- titled Do Accounting
  Students Cheat? A Study Examining Undergraduate
  Accounting Students' Honesty and Perceptions of
  Dishonest Behavior -- surveyed 569 undergraduate
  business majors, including 294 undergraduate
  accounting students, from seven universities in
  Georgia, Mississippi and Texas.

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54 of Accounting Majors Cheat

• The study set out to find out if students who
  were accounting majors were as likely to cheat or
  act in an academically dishonest manner as were
  students with other business majors.
• The authors of the study, David E. Morris of
  North Georgia College State University, and
  Claire McCarty Kilian of the University of
  Wisconsin at River Falls, found that 54 percent
  of the accounting students they surveyed admitted
  to cheating, compared to 52 percent of business
  majors overall

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"MBAs most likely to cheat," India Times,
September 22, 2006 --- http//timesofindia.indiati
mes.com/articleshow/2018004.cms

• BOSTON Graduate business students in the United
  States and Canada are more likely to cheat on
  their work than their counterparts in other
  academic fields, the author of a research paper
  said on Wednesday.
• The study of 5,300 graduate students in the
  United States and Canada found that 56 per cent
  of graduate business students admitted to
  cheating in the past year, with many saying they
  cheated because they believed it was an accepted
  practice in business.
• Following business students, 54 per cent of
  graduate engineering students admitted to
  cheating, as did 50 per cent of physical science
  students, 49 per cent of medical and health-care
  students

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Selected Illustrations

• The University of Virginia has expelled one
  student for plagiarism after a computer program
  caught him in the act. More than 100 cases are
  still pending "Plagiarist Booted Others Wait,"
  by Katie Dean--- http//www.wired.com/news/culture
  /0,1284,45802,00.html 
• Cheating Scandal in the Fuqua School of Business
  at Duke UniversityIn the biggest cheating
  scandal ever at Duke Universitys business
  school, 34 students are facing penalties for
  collaborating on exam answers, The News
  Observer of Raleigh reported. Nine students face
  expulsion, while others face a range of
  penalties, including one-year suspensions from
  the MBA program. Inside Higher Ed, April 30,
  2007 --- http//www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/0
  4/30/qt The ABC News account on May 1, 2007 is
  at http//abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id3105733

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Selected Illustrations

• "Both Sides of Kenan-Flagler  MBAs run around
  like frantic idiots but are courted by huge
  companies as rock stars. It is no surprise that
  this combination of frenzy and entitlement leads
  to cheating," by Danvers Fleury, Business Week,
  June 24, 2007 --- http//www.businessweek.com/bsc
  hools/content/jun2007/bs20070624_280134.htm?link_p
  ositionlink2 
• Ohio University has sent letters to more than 50
  people who earned masters degrees with material
  believed to be plagiarized, asking them to return
  their degrees, rewrite their theses, or demand a
  hearing, The Athens News reported. In May the
  university found rampant and flagrant
  plagiarism among some graduate students in its
  mechanical engineering department.Inside Higher
  Ed, July 19, 2006 --- http//www.insidehighered.co
  m/news/2006/07/19/qt

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Two of Bob Jensens Cheaters

• I had one student who submitted a paper with such
  fine writing I suspected cheating. Using Google,
  I found where the paper was entirely pasted from
  three different sources. He was the CEO of a
  small company, and his only argument was that he
  hired one of his employees to write his paper.
  The employee was the one who plagiarized. My
  student still got an F for cheating.
• I had a graduating senior who, in his last
  semester, cheated and got an F from me and did
  not graduate on schedule even though his parents
  were in town for the graduation ceremony. They
  hired an attorney and confronted me and the
  university with a threatened lawsuit. When a
  vice-president of the university explained the
  facts of life about such lawsuits the student
  dropped the case and pleaded for some way to take
  the course over from me in the summer.

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Another of Bob Jensens Cheaters

• I do not allow students to use cell phones or
  other gadgets (e.g., PDAs or Blackberries) during
  examination. One of my graduate students went to
  the bathroom during a final examination. I caught
  him using a cell phone and gave him an F because
  the conversation on the phone was about
  examination content.
• Another professor, a tax professor, was
  suspicious of this student and his buddy when
  they went to the bathroom several times during an
  examination. At the bottom of a trash can in the
  bathroom, this professor found a hidden textbook.
  

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Other Illustrations

• Others?

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Major Problems in the Digital Age

• Internet search engines have made it both easier
  to find modules to plagiarize and to cut and
  paste modules without even having to actually
  read those modules.
• Students write papers in digital files that can
  be stored and plagiarized by future students
  (e.g., fraternity brothers).
• Companies exist that, for a fee, will both
  research and write papers on a vast array of
  topics,"B-Schools Take on Essay Consultants," by
  Rob Capriccioso, Inside Higher Ed, February 6,
  2006

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Hired Guns for Cheating

• SchoolSucks.com --- http//www.schoolsucks.com/ 
• Termpapers R Us --- http//www.termpapersrus.com/ 
  
• CheatHouse.com --- http//www.cheathouse.com/
  (Free papers)
• PaperWizards.com --- http//www.paperwizards.com/ 

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Major Problems in the Digital Age

• Students taking examinations on a computer may
  actually communicate with other persons by such
  things as instant messaging during examinations.
• Gadgets like cell phones (including ones with
  cameras), PDAs, Blackberries, and even digital
  watches make it easier to cheat.
• Some students have pasted crib notes on the back
  sides of labels on water bottles. Tiny, tiny
  fonts become readable when views through the
  water of the bottle.

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Major Problems in the Digital Age

• Examinations and homework solutions are now
  stored on computers. Some students are very good
  at hacking into systems. Countless times
  professors are not even aware that their
  examination and homework files have been
  compromised.
• Students have become increasingly skilled at
  hacking into files of the Registrar and use these
  skills to change course grades for themselves and
  for their friends.

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Major Problems in the Digital Age

• Over 80 of students cheated in clever ways while
  they were in high school. They come into college
  believing that cheating is just being street
  smart.
• The increased focus on grade averages for college
  admission and employment opportunities have made
  grades the primary focus of most students. This
  obsession with grades increases motivations to
  cheat for higher grades.
• Some parents are so concerned about grades of
  their children that the parents themselves
  condone cheating.

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Major Problems in the Digital Age

• Parents will sometimes give students money to
  hire experts or top students to write papers and
  take-home examinations for their children.
  Admission essays are sometimes not the work of
  students applying for admission.
• With large classes or online classes, surrogates
  may be hired to take examinations.
• Being street smart is deemed more important than
  being a scholar.

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Major Problems in the Digital Age

• Faculty are reluctant to take action against
  suspected cheaters. In a 1999 survey of over
  1,000 faculty on 21 campuses, one-third of those
  who were aware of student cheating in their
  course in the last two years, did nothing to
  address it. Students suggest that cheating is
  higher in courses where it is well known that
  faculty members are likely to ignore
  cheating.Quoted from the research of Donald L.
  McCabe of Rutgers University (founder and first
  president of CAI)
• The Age of Litigation increases faculty and
  college administrator paranoia.

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Major Problems in the Digital Age

• Faculty that attract large numbers of students
  are sometimes rewarded for their popularity.
  However, in some cases they may be popular
  because they are week in detecting and/or
  punishing cheating.
• Faculty have become paranoid about teaching
  evaluations. Evidence shows that teaching
  evaluations have led to grade inflation and
  concerns with popularity rather than student
  scholarship.

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Major Problems in the Digital Age

• Others

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Tricks to Control Cheating

• Be very clear in the course syllabus about what
  constitutes cheating and what happens to cheaters
  in the course.
• Point to your colleges honor code and/or
  procedures for dealing with cheating incidents.
• Stress the importance of integrity and
  professionalism both in college and in life after
  college.
• Make students sign pledges on papers and
  examinations.

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Tricks to Control Cheating

• Use completely or slightly different versions of
  problems or questions.
• Point to video cameras in classrooms or other
  test sites.Better yet use those cameras.
• Verify student IDs and compare faces with
  pictures.
• Forbid students to leave the test site
  unaccompanied during an examination.
• Ban gadgets, including wrist watches and PDAs.
  Check backsides of water bottle labels.

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Tricks to Control Cheating

• Enforce cheating detection and punishment
  policies.
• Encourage students to report cheating even if the
  whistleblowers remain anonymous. Cheaters
  generally repeat what they think are successful
  ploys.
• Verify that special needs students are really
  special needs students certified by college
  counselors.

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Tricks to Control Cheating

• Others?

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Tricks to Control Plagiarism

• Announce that some (unspecified) software to
  detect plagiarism will be used for each submitted
  paper or take home examination.
• The easiest first step is to used the Advanced
  Search option in Google and/or Yahoo. Beyond that
  are the various commercial services, one or more
  of which might be available in your college.
• Require all submissions to be MS Doc/Excel or
  similar files and announce that all works
  submitted in previous semesters are stored for
  comparative purposes in college files.

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Software to Detect Plagiarism

• Comparisons --- http//www.educause.edu/ir/library
  /pdf/SER07017B.pdf Local Link ---
  ..\PlagiarismDetection.pdf
• Turnitin
• MyDropBox
• PAIRwise
• Others

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Tricks to Control Plagiarism

• Others?

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Cheating Issues Somewhat Unique to Distance
Education

• Greater ability to fake presence at exams,
  forums, chat rooms, and team projects with
  surrogate (paid) experts or friends.
• Greater ability to use cheating materials not
  allowed in onsite examinations.

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Combating Online Cheating

• Outside proctoring of some type. In the early
  days of correspondence schools in the U.K. it was
  the village vicar.
• Sylvan or related nearby testing centers.
• Webcams

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Gray Zones

• Authors, including professors, often pay writing
  experts to turn rough drafts into well-written
  finished products. Although the rough drafts may
  not be plagiarized, hired writing or even content
  consultants may then turn the rough work into
  polished works. This is accepted in academe and
  the media. Whether or not it is ethical students
  in an education environment is one of those gray
  zones where being a student is unique from being
  on-the-job.
• People we respect for ethics, such as the clergy,
  often plagiarize ideas and even entire sermons.
  These ministers, priests, and rabbis contend that
  the message is what is important, and they will
  deliver the best and most entertaining message
  possible.

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Useful Links

• The Center for Academic Integrity is affiliated
  with the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Clemson
  University --- http//www.academicintegrity.org/
  (Note the CAI Assessment Guide for a campus)
• Useful Links --- http//www.academicintegrity.org/
  useful_links/index.php Applied Ethics Resources
  on WWW(Maintained by the Center of Applied
  Ethics, this site is organized by categories such
  as business ethics, media ethics, computer
  ethics, and ethical/moral decision-making.)
• Association for Moral Education
• Association for Student Judicial Affairs
• Canadian Resource for Professional Ethics

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Useful Links

• The Center for the Study of Ethics in the
  ProfessionsIllinois Institute of Technology
• CHARACTER COUNTS!
• Character Education Center
• The Character Education Partnership
• College and Character
• CollegeValues.org
• Creating a Code of Ethics for Your Organization

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Useful Links

• Stanford Center on Ethics
• Electronic Reference Formats Recommended by the
  American Psychological Association
• Emory University's Center for Ethics
• Ethics Center for Engineering Science(Case
  Western Reserve University has organized this
  site to include engineering ethics, research
  ethics, corporate ethics and solving problems.)

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Useful Links

• Ethics on the World Wide Web(The School of
  Communications at California State University,
  Fullerton, provides this site, which has many
  listings in areas such as military ethics, sports
  ethics, medical ethics, and legal ethics.)
• Ethics Resource Center
• Ethics Updates(Updates on current literature,
  both popular and professional, pertaining to
  ethics in areas of ethical theory, applied
  ethics, and case studies.
• Institute for Global Ethics(This is an
  independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to
  elevating public awareness and promoting the
  discussion of ethics in a global context.)

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Useful Links

• Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics
  (JSCOPE)(JSCOPE is an organization of military
  professionals, academics and others formed to
  discuss ethical issues relevant to the Military.)
  
• Josephson Institute
• The Kenan Institute for Ethics(The Kenan
  Institute for Ethics at Duke University provides
  this site. The KIE provides a strong focus on
  ethics at Duke University in teaching, training,
  research, and everyday life by inspiring personal
  integrity and civic commitment.)
• National Association of Student Personnel
  Administrators
• The Official Site of the National Collegiate
  Athletic Association

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Useful Links

• The Practical Ethics Center
• Society for Values in Higher Education
• United States Air Force Academy Center for
  Character Development
• United States Department of Education

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Key Jensen Web Sites

• Cheating --- http//www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagia
  rism.htm Local Link --- ..\..\plagiarsm.htm
• Assessment --- http//www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Asse
  ss.htm Local Link --- ..\..\assess.htm

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The End