Caught plagiarizing at university of phoenix

Project topic: Ethics and the college student

The final project must be presented using a digital tool that allows you to incorporate different modes of communicating the concepts you learned in this class as well as sources found in your research (for example: audio recordings related to your research; visual representations of data like charts and graphs; animation and images). Power Point

Here are a few presentation tools that you may explore for use to create your Week 8 Assignment Final Research Project. Choose a tool that is useful to you, that you are comfortable using (try out tutorials on each site), and that best presents your work developed for your project. Please remember the assignment is a presentation not a research paper. Use PowerPoint (found on computers with Microsoft Office)

Before submitting your project for credit:

· Proofread carefully;

· The project begins with an attractive title section (including information found on an APA compliant title page );

A brief outline of the presentation appears early in the project (utilize your final outline modified for brevity from your Week 4 forum activity); Link to my outline:

https://edge.apus.edu/access/content/attachment/302137/Forums/3d51fa6c-a06f-4a74-814f-1c210564d86a/outline.tp.coll100.pdf

·

· The presentation includes introduction, body main ideas, and conclusion; touches on all important concepts of your topic

· The presentation integrates several visual, audio, or animated components;

· At least one paraphrase or quotation in-text citation (with APA citation) is included;

· Attribute information in the presentation to the resources (i.e. cite your work!):

· A summary restates the main ideas you presented (i.e., conclusion);

· An APA formatted reference list is included at the end of the presentation;

· Review the Preparing a PowerPoint presentation in APA Style video for examples on how to cite in presentations;

· Upload or link your work to this assignment; and

· Log out of the assignment then test the link or upload before final submission.

Your work throughout the class as well as the resources in the course will help you create your Final Research Project. If you have questions, please contact me at any time. Tammyk951@gmail.com

**Must use and cite 3 scholarly sources

As follows:

References

INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE: Academic Dishonesty.Ethics & Behavior,

Academic Dishonesty Scott A. Wowra University of Phoenix The data in this special issue are both encouraging and discouraging. On the positive side, researchers are making theoretical breakthroughs into the psychology of the academic cheater, which may result in practical interventions. Yet the studies illustrate the sheer magnitude of the problem and the resources needed to address unethical behavior among the younger members of the American academe. In short, this special issue shows that the “Internet revolution” facilitates new types of academic dishonesty (Sisti, this issue; Stephens, Young, & Calabrese, this issue); that academic cheating is often an intentional, planned act that results from a Machiavellian tendency to neutralize moral sanctions against cheating (Harding, Mayhew, Finelli, & Carpenter, this issue); that motivations to cheat differ across students (Davy, Kincaid, Smith, & Trawick, this issue; Wowra, this issue); and that academic cheating is a symptom of a larger problem (Lovett-Hooper, Komarraju, Weston, & Dollinger, this issue; Wowra, this issue). ONLINE TECHNOLOGY, OFFLINE MORALITY The ease and efficiency of the Internet cuts both ways in academia. Templeton scholars Dominic Sisti and Jason Stephens show that when students use online technologies, this often results in moral behavior going offline. Sisti documents the various excuses and justifications that high school students use to neutralize their academic cheating.Themostcommonreasonforengaginginonline,“cut-and-paste”cheating is a lack of time, suggesting that students require better time management strategies to avoid academic shortcuts. Stephens and his colleagues compare three types of ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 17(3), 211–214 Copyright © 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Correspondence should be addressed to Scott Wowra, 639 Brooks Avenue, West Columbia, SC 29169. E-mail: scowow@email.phoenix.edu cheaters, including “conventional” paper-and-pencil cheaters, “digital-only” cheaters, and cheaters who use both methods. Digital-only cheaters are rare, suggesting that the Internet facilitates, but does not cause, students to cheat on their schoolwork. Students who use both traditional and digital methods to cheat also perceive the least moral responsibility for their unethical behavior. A MACHIAVELLIAN WORLDVIEW Templeton scholar Trevor Harding and his colleagues delve into the intentional, planned machinations of the college cheater. Based on a modified Theory of Planned Behavior (Azjen, 2002), Harding conceptualizes a psychological model of the academic cheater based in the student’s moral reasoning ability. Harding shows that, controlling for contextual factors, undergraduates enrolled in engineering courses are more likely to cheat relative to their peers in the humanities, suggesting some unique challenges to curb cheating in the “hard” sciences. He concludes that “students who exhibit a more positive attitude toward cheating, who operate in an environment with less restrictive norms against cheating, and who have a weak sense of moral obligation to avoid cheating will be more likely to cheat in a given situation.” STUDENT MOTIVATIONS AFFECT ACADEMIC CHEATING Continuing with the Machiavellian theme, students who regard their education as a means to an end, such as a high-paying job, are more likely to cheat relative to students who view education as a reward in and of itself (Davy et al., this issue). Therefore, pedagogies that stimulate intrinsic interests in class materials should reduce cheating behavior. Extrinsic motivation can also be social in nature. Students who are motivated to avoid embarrassment appear to be more likely to cheat relative to students who are relatively free of symptoms of social anxiety (Wowra, this issue). In addition, students who place high importance on their moral identities are less likely to recall cheating relative to students who regard moral prescriptions as relatively unimportant to their sense of self. ACADEMIC DISHONESTY IS A SYMPTOM OF A LARGER PROBLEM Academic cheating is not an isolated behavioral pattern. Students who cheat in high school tend to cheat in college. Students who cheat in college may be more likely to violate workplace ethics (e.g., Harding, Carpenter, Finelli, & Passow, 212 WOWRA 2004; this relatively unexplored issue requires further investigation). The cycle of unethical behavior may begin early in a student’s educational career and persist into his or her professional career, where taking shortcuts and bending the rules as an engineer or doctor result in life-threatening ramifications. Blankenship and Whitley (2000) first described this troubling possibility a few years ago in the pages of Ethics & Behavior. Data in this special issue replicate their findings. Students who engage in academic cheating also report engaging, and predict future engagement, in other forms of unethical behavior, including lying, stealing, cheating on romantic partners, and violating other societal norms (Lovett-Hooper et al., this issue; Wowra, this issue). This finding certainly does not explain why students cheat in their classes. This finding does provide, however, a fresh perspective. Academic cheating is often one behavioral pattern in a student’s general repertoire of unethical actions to get what he or she wants (e.g., approval, public achievement). The practical implications of this finding are clear. Interventions for academic dishonesty cannot treat the problem in isolation, because a growing number of studies show that many students regard academic cheating as a functional way to operate in the world. It is important to remember that today’s students are tomorrow’s instructors, doctors, and engineers. To combat this Machiavellian philosophy, parents, professors, and administrators must generate reasons why it is in a student’s best interest to maintain his or her academic integrity and reject this expedient philosophy. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Don McCabe, the Center for Academic Integrity, and the John Templeton Foundation for their encouragement and support of this special issue. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Academic Integrity, the John Templeton Foundation, or the University of Phoenix. REFERENCES Ajzen, I. (2002). Attitudes, personality, and behavior. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Blankenship, K. L., & Whitley, B. E. (2000). Relation of general deviance to academic dishonesty. Ethics & Behavior, 10, 1–12. Davy, J. A., Kincaid, J. F., Smith, K. J., & Trawick, M. A. (2007/this issue). An examination of the role of attitudinal characteristics and motivation on the cheating behavior of business students. Ethics & Behavior, 17, 281–302. Harding, T. S., Carpenter, D. D., Finelli, C. J., & Passow, H. J. (2004). Does academic dishonesty relate to unethical behavior in professional practice? An exploratory study. Science and Engineering Eth

Citation: Wowra, S. A. (2007). INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE: Academic Dishonesty. Ethics & Behavior, 17(3), 211-214. Doi: 10.1080/10508420701519122

Honestly speaking about academic dishonesty

When Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis of New York University's Stern School of Business wrote in his blog on finding ways to make cheating by students irrelevant, his idea was derailed by a chain of unpleasant events. As a result, this is how he reacted in an email interview to Inside Higher Ed: "I will never write about my teaching experiences again" [1]. Ipeirotis believed that an arms race between the ever improving cheating methods and the sophisticated cheating detection techniques was futile. He argued that it was important to make cheating irrelevant by designing assessment methods that were not easily amenable to cheating.

Why do students cheat? Increased competition to get better grades and a skewed shift in our focus from the joy of learning. The anonymity of the student in a large class also makes them less connected forcing them to take a ring side view than being part of the whole experience of learning through lectures, assignments, tests, group discussions, etc. It is similar to that of an accident victim bleeding on the road while we surround and watch without taking a lead to help because we are not related to the victim.

Cheating can take place in various forms: inside the class and outside the class. Cheating inside the classroom usually involves copying answers during the examination from a neighbor's answer script and in large classes, where it is difficult to recognize every student, impersonation can easily take place. It is cheating outside the class room which is more rampant and difficult to control and our focus here is on this form of cheating. Outside the classroom, cheating can involve copying home assignments, laboratory records, computer programs, and indulging in plagiarism for term papers. While plagiarism is very easy in today's digital world, many people have not yet properly understood it. Recently, a group of students approached me to give a talk on plagiarism to the first year students who have just joined the institute. When I mentioned about this invitation to a friend, who is a senior professor, he said, "Why do first year students have to know about plagiarism?"

It is important to recognize that plagiarism does take place on campuses either knowingly or unknowingly. In a survey on academic dishonesty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), it was found that cheating on papers involving plagiarism, which is an outside classroom activity, was more common than cheating during the examinations [2]. It was also found by the UNC study that 76% of the 200 respondents felt that plagiarism as a means of cheating is easier and less risky than cheating during the examinations. While the students are right in thinking that plagiarism is easy to commit, they are absolutely wrong about the consequences that may follow. This is the reason why we should be talking to the freshers about plagiarism and its consequences.

Ipeirotis of New York University rang the bell in his blog by mentioning that in a class of 100, about 20% of the students had plagiarized their assignments. He had clear evidence of the plagiarism in some cases and others confessed to it when he informed the students that he would report the matter to the authorities. This disclosure on his blog led to a series of unpleasant events for Ipeirotis: lower teaching rating by students and a cut in his salary raise. Eventually, he had to remove his post from the blog. This has forced him to rethink whether it is worth going after the cheaters.

In this cheating game, if a "me-versus-them" stand is taken, it is going to be counterproductive. It is wise to think that students are in general confused about what does or does not constitute plagiarism. Easy access to digital media and the instinctive copy/paste attitude make them vulnerable. Therefore, it is all the more important to engage them on the broader issues related to plagiarism. It can be disastrous if we cheat our way through assessments, which test our learning and provide a feedback on what we lack in our knowledge. Would you like to go to a doctor who has cheated through his examinations? Would you like to hire an engineer for constructing your house if you know he has passed his examinations by cheating? If you somehow get your degree by cheating your way through, what would happen when you actually have to use your creative thinking at your workplace? Would not you be caught?

Although the original Sanskrit Ramayana, the great Indian epic, was written by Valmiki, several hundred versions of Ramayana are known to the humankind. The same Ramayana is told in different ways by creative minds without the fear of being bugged by plagiarism. If the human race is evolving, our creativity should evolve too. We should not be doing things which are detrimental to our own creativity which in turn will render us useless to the evolution of the civilization.

Often, individuals react to the environment around them. I remember in a TV show, in an experiment on how individuals can be influenced, two persons were asked to stand in the middle of a market and look into the sky. Soon, ten more people joined them looking into the sky. On a second day, when ten volunteers in the experiment started looking into the sky, the crowd around them looking into the sky became bigger. Although this is a too simplistic an example, there is no doubt that an encouraging environment will make us look at bigger goals. Therefore, what is important is to create an environment in which cheating becomes irrelevant so that the thought of cheating is outside your mind's horizon. We should not hang our boots because cheating is part of our lives. We need to make a beginning rather than feel helpless. Where shall we start?

As part of the lectures, can we discuss with the students about plagiarism and ethics of it? Or even ask them to write a small piece on plagiarism? This will ensure that students will never be able to say they are not aware of plagiarism.Can we design the assessments which will bring out the spontaneous response of the students?Can we ask them to submit their intermediate plans on their assignment instead of waiting until the deadline for submission?Can we do things which will induce in the students a sense of belonging to the class and in the process make them more responsible?Can we make the students feel that we trust them leading to a reciprocal response?Can we make the assessments more interesting and challenging so that students are required to use specific scholarly resources and read more than what is taught in the class?Can we make the assessments more relevant to their learning goals by specifically informing them the context in which the assignment is designed?Can we design collaborative assignments in which small groups participate in producing a solution while being aware of the limits of collaboration?

Making the act of cheating risky through punishments will only solve the problem partially. However, I would not like to underplay the importance of enforcing some discipline. It is desirable to make the ground rules clear to the students right in the first class. Students should know the consequences if they are caught plagiarizing, e.g., a lower grade, fail, etc. However, any such disciplinary measures should be a policy of the institute and should be implemented uniformly so that the individual teachers who report cheating are not grudged against. However, prevention is better than catching later and punishing.

We also need to make periodic scientific surveys on cheating and the causes that prompt them to cheat on our campuses. We should have the courage to put these survey results in public domain and initiate an informed debate among the students. We cannot cure the disease by simply feigning ignorance about it.

Perhaps, you may be thinking that what I have suggested above is too idealistic. We are all pressed for time with our involvement in research, teaching, administration, and so on. Where is the time to think about all these? But a beginning is better than not doing at all. Complaining about the bad times that we are in will take us to nowhere. We must find solutions.

By choosing appropriate assessment methods and by creating a positive environment in the classroom through dialogue and discussion on cheating, even if a small number of students desist from plagiarism, I think that is a first step but a big leap. I am sure that will prompt us to write about our teaching experiences again.

Citation:

Kumar, M. (2012). Honestly speaking about academic dishonesty. IETE Technical Review, 29(5), 357-359. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0256-4602.103162

Last reference Link: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=iih&AN=18391437&site=ehost-live&scope=site