By Gabrielle Martin, News Editor.
How likely are you to get caught cheating on a test or plagiarizing an assignment? Statistically, at Delta College, not very
According to a study done by Donald McCabe of Rutgers University, 38 percent of undergraduate students admit to paraphrasing or copying a few sentences from a source without footnoting it while 14 percent admit to falsifying a bibliography and 3 percent admit to obtaining a paper from a term paper mill.
According to the Delta College Senate Policy Handbook, examples of academic dishonesty include: “plagiarism, cheating on tests, quizzes and other assignments, aiding and abetting dishonesty, and falsification of documents and official records.”
Taking three percent of Delta’s student population per year (around 15,000), there should be at least 450 cases of academic dishonesty per year at Delta College. However, reports only show 35 reported cases of academic dishonesty since November of 2013; no records of academic dishonesty before that exist.
Dean of Teaching and Learning, David Peruski, started in his position in July 2013 and says he’s not sure as to the record keeping before he arrived.
“I think there was some type of record keeping I’m just not sure the permanent maintenance of those records,” says Peruski.
It is important to note that Delta faculty aren’t required to report all cases of academic dishonesty. Delta’s Senate Handbook states that, “Faculty may use their discretion and judgment in any suspected violation of this policy, including limiting the action to a warning in cases in where the student’s course grade will not be affected.”
However, if the student’s course grade will be affected, the professor must explain the consequence in writing to the student and send the information to the Division Chair. The Division Chair then forwards the information up the chain of command until it reaches the Chief Academic Officer. According to policy, “The college will keep permanent records of these violations.”
Even though only 35 cases of academic dishonesty have been reported in the past nearly two years, Peruski doesn’t think those are the only 35 instances of academic dishonesty in which a student’s grade has been impacted that have occurred.
“I think sometimes [professors] might actually issue a grade that may result in a zero for the assignment but at the same time they’re sort of like, ‘I guess I just don’t feel it needs to go beyond the student and the professor,’ ” he says. “There may have been a penalty but they may have just kept it amongst themselves.”
Media Ethics and Law Instructor, Jay Brandow, says, “You want to give the student the opportunity to communicate if it’s a simple misunderstanding or mistake… I think the role of the instructor is to work with the student. Did they really know what they were doing?”
This is what Brandow did a few years ago when he had a student who “just was not academically prepared to be in college.” Brandow discovered that the student had plagiarized a class paper and called the student in for a chat.
“He definitely got a 0 on the paper. He had the opportunity to re-do it,” Brandow says. That incident wasn’t reported; according to Brandow, the student dropped out of his class and out of the school soon after.
“I do agree that the policy as written isn’t always followed,” says Peruski.
While the policy may not always be followed, Brandow doesn’t think it’s necessary for any real change to occur in the current policy.
“I think the policy is fine. Like any law, they’re written for a reason. But I think in the exercise of justice, often times a first offender, they’re not going to send them to the gallows… they may give them an opportunity to prove themselves.” He adds, “You want to be a little flexible. I’m not saying you’re letting them off the hook, but you need to be flexible.”
Janet Alexander, a professor in the English Division, agrees that there should be flexibility – especially when students don’t set out to be academically dishonest.
“Most plagiarism is unintended plagiarism I think… Usually it’s just a misunderstanding of how to cite correctly. A lot of teachers will use that as a learning opportunity,” she says.
Delta student Kaitlin Brown, 19, who is going into accounting and sports management thinks that professors are too easy on students when it comes to plagiarism and the consequences of doing so.
“I don’t think sourcing is that hard… you’re supposed to learn that in high school,” she says. She adds, “Some people, they’re smart enough to know and just don’t care.”
Matthew Hewitt, 21, is a computer programming student at Delta and has a different point of view. He thinks part of the reason students plagiarize so much is because they aren’t taught how to cite properly.
“You’d think the teachers would go through how to source papers thoroughly,” he says.
One way that faculty at Delta are trying to keep better tabs on plagiarism is to have students submit papers on turnitin.com, a site that checks the paper with familiarity to journals, articles and other resources. Alexander has her students submit all papers via TurnItIn. Brandow feels programs like this are incredibly helpful to faculty.
“I don’t think any one person, no matter what degree they have, can be familiar with every article ever written so that technology will help [instructors] keep the students honest,” he says.
While TurnItIn helps faculty monitor plagiarism, Delta College will soon be implementing a new way for faculty to report academic dishonesty when it does occur so the college can keep better record of it. Rather than e-mailing the Division Chair when an instructor discovers a situation of academic dishonesty, they will now submit an electronic form. That form will be stored in a central repository.
“We have the ability then to monitor what some people might consider minor infractions and term-major infractions,” says Peruski. “Maybe we will see increased compliance with our policies.”
The plan is for this new process for reporting academic dishonesty to go into effect at the start of the academic year; however, Delta College faculty first need to be educated on the new process.
“What we want is the best outcome for our faculty and for our students and we want to try to help students grow and understand why it’s important that they do their own work,” says Peruski.
As the semester begins, and instructors go through the course syllabus with their new class, it seems every professor at Delta College has a story to tell about a student who cheated on a test or plagiarized a paper. Typically, the story ends with the student being dropped from the class or receiving a zero on the assignment. According to Peruski, no student at Delta has ever been expelled or dropped from a class due to academic dishonesty. As far as handing out a zero on the assignment, not every professor can be one of the 35 who reported a case. Some professors are either the professor is just saying that to scare the students or likely didn’t follow Delta’s policy.
“One: professors want students to use high standards. Two: Maybe some of it is scare tactics,” says Peruski.
