Honesty Through Ownership: Increasing Student Involvement to Reduce Plagiarism

by Tamara Maddox, Esq., Assistant Chair , Computer Science Department

In the computer science curriculum, ethics is far more than a reminder to students not to cheat. We begin with the basics of different forms of philosophical ethics, and then work to apply them to some of the many ethical issues involving computers and technology. Students study intellectual property rights, computer crime, privacy issues, free speech, and more. Usually the difficulty is in what to leave out rather than in how to fill a semester class. Helping our students to understand and deal with ethical concerns that they are likely to encounter in their future jobs is very
important to our department.

That being said, cheating and plagiarism seem to be pervasive issues in so many classes that perhaps you are thinking that an entire semester discussing them may not hurt! To a certain degree, dealing with this topic directly does help, and, as I like to remind my students, “Cheating in an ethics class is really bad!” However, I far prefer to find ways to encourage students not to cheat, so I can spend my time helping them learn and recognize their own capabilities rather than proving their misdeeds.

What, then, can we do to discourage cheating while avoiding an atmosphere of doom and gloom in the classroom? I will not pretend to have found a magic formula, but I have developed certain approaches that seem to help enormously. First, I deliberately create unique and interesting assignments that make cheating difficult. Students
who are actually interested in an assignment are far more likely to do honest work to complete it and often are motivated to do their best work as well. At the same time, a unique assignment is far more difficult to plagiarize. Students may find plenty of good sources, but if every other line must be original in order to actually respond to
the assignment, the temptation to cheat loses its luster. Why cheat when you’ve already done the extra work? You’ve already been told that showing good research will help your grade.

Designing interesting assignments is especially important in the area of ethics, where students come prepared to find everything snooze-worthy. I will admit that I do not shy away from racy material if it seems a good way to deal with issues and engage students. I look for topics where issues of technology and ethics appear as real-world problems, relevant to students’ lives. I then construct a hypothetical situation incorporating several issues, and I ask students to respond to very specific questions involving the scenario presented. These questions: (1) motivate students to think about the issues involved, (2) help to focus students on what their papers should discuss, (3) provide a guideline for evaluation of the paper, and (4) make plagiarism (using internet sources or papers written for other assignments) extremely difficult. The combination of different questions is also intended to encourage individual student thought on the ethical issues, careful analysis of the legal issues, and overall comprehension of the substantive material
involved.

For example, this semester, my scenario for the individual paper for CS 306 (Ethics and Law for the Computing Professional) involves a student (“Gary Gamesmaker”) who creates a popular computer game. When students begin to copy his game without permission rather than paying the small fee required, Gary decides to take matters into his own hands and bury a type of virus within his own software, which is launched when someone tries to play the game using a pirated copy. This virus threatens to erase the user’s hard drive if the game is not removed within a short period of time. In actuality, the “virus” does no harm to the user’s hard drive, but a technophobic student does not realize this and unwittingly destroys another student’s important data while bungling an attempt to remove the copied game. Th e assignment asks students to analyze whether the harmed student can legally recover as well as whether it was ethical for Gary to include the virus in the first place. Students are required to conduct research on the legalities
and to discuss the matter from the perspective of different ethical theories as well as from their own viewpoints.

I also try very hard to help students understand what I expect for each assignment. Providing students with tools to help evaluate their own work helps to relieve anxiety and usually results in a better final product. For large assignments, I typically either provide a structure for the overall submission, or I set forth some type of evaluation criteria -- sometimes both. When time permits, I favor the use of in-class peer reviews of written work. Peer reviews help students in multiple ways, such as learning to evaluate their own work by attempting to honestly assess that of a fellow student’s. For my more advanced classes, I prefer an open-ended rubric that encourages specific student comments rather than simple ratings (See the example at the bottom of the next column).

Finally, I’ve learned that I need to be as clear as possible in explaining to my students what I consider a product of their own work and thought processes and what I consider an honor code violation. Whether students truly do not understand what constitutes plagiarism, or whether they simply use miscomprehension as an excuse, making a point of explaining your expectations helps avoid such discussions after the fact. It’s not easy to mix simplicity with thoroughness, but I do make it my goal. For example, I use a custom-made honor code pledge for my assignments, which includes a link to a basic explanation of citation and quotation requirements with simple examples (Since my classes do not have strict citation form requirements, I tend to focus on giving appropriate credit to the source together with sufficient information that it can be found by the reader). I also remind my students that there are two important reasons for citing and quoting properly, aside from honor code issues. First, it is always appropriate to give credit to the person(s) from whom you are borrowing information. Second, from an academic standpoint, citations
and quotations demonstrate the degree of research a student has incorporated into the assignment.

Designing interesting, focused assignments with multiple issues can be time-consuming, and sometimes it stretches my own creative faculties. However, the rewards are manifold. In addition to student motivation and reduction in plagiarism, I find that creation of such assignments gives me a fresh perspective of the material I am teaching, making me more effective in the classroom. And by the way -- grading these types of papers can be a lot more fun, too.

Persuasive Paper Peer Review

Reviewer’s Name: ______________ Writer’s Name: _______________

As the peer reviewer, first read the author’s paper, making any grammatical changes and notes you feel are appropriate. Then, answer the questions below in as much detail as possible, adding any comments you feel would be helpful.

1. How well does the paper cover the chosen question(s) and issue(s)?

2. How persuasive is the discussion? Are arguments innovative & convincing?

3. How well is the paper written? Consider whether the introduction & conclusion are clear; whether the ideas fl ow logically; whether the paper seems easy to understand; and whether the conclusions fl ow logically from the facts, research, and reasoning.

4. Does the paper demonstrate clear and effective research? Consider whether: the research seems thorough, sources appear to be reliable (was the 5-part reliability analysis performed properly for each source?), proper credit is given to sources through citations (even when quotes are not used), overall research makes sense in context of the topic, the bibliography includes all req’d info. 5. How professional is the paper? Consider the overall form, including: grammar and spelling, whether typos are present, whether proper citation form is used, organization of Bibliography, etc.