Officials blame easy access, copyright ignorance for academic misconduct

by Laura M. Schneider
Senior Campus Writer

Academic pressure, increased computer access and copyright law ignorance are some of the causes of a recent rise in students pirating their papers from the Internet, Ohio University officials said.

The number of cases of academic misconduct reported to OU Office of Judiciaries has increased from 14 in 1998-99 to 35 in 1999-2000 to 42 in 2000-01. Academic misconduct covers cheating and plagiarism offenses and can result in a maximum penalty of expulsion.

Judy Piercy, director of judiciaries, said the number of academic misconduct cases increased significantly in 1999, the same year the university installed more than 2,000 computers in residence halls.

"It was a big jump in '99," she said. "I would say our most frequent types of academic misconduct are plagiarism from the Internet."

In 1999, 82 percent of academic misconduct cases involved freshmen or sophomores, compared to 18 percent of juniors and above.

But the numbers have evened out, with 45 percent of cases in the lower two classes and 55 percent in higher grades last year.

Michael Bugeja, OU special assistant to the president, said plagiarizing is now a simpler endeavor than before the Internet became easily available to students.

Bugeja, author of several articles on plagiarism, said that a decade ago, students had to travel to the library, locate a document, copy it in front of others and type up the article themselves.

But the ease of copying and pasting an article from the Internet makes plagiarism simple, he said.

Piercy said the pressure of deadlines also leads students to plagiarize.

"I don't think people think about being asked to leave the school for this," she said.

But students received probation in 45 percent of academic misconduct cases last year and 28 percent of cases ended in suspension.

Although the Internet can make plagiarism easier for students, it also provides access for instructors to discover who is cheating, Piercy said.

"Faculty have become very savvy at locating it," she said.

But Piercy said it is not likely the increase in academic misconduct cases comes from teachers finding plagiarism more easily.

"There has to be a reason to check," she said.

So university officials have taken steps to combat plagiarism, such as joining the Center for Academic Integrity, a 225-member forum.

The forum gives schools the opportunity to view how other faculty members and administrators are dealing with plagiarism, said Don McCabe, the center's founding president.

Bugeja, who has guidelines for professors to catch plagiarists available on the judiciaries Web site (http://www.ohiou.edu/judiciaries), said 10 years ago, students accused of cheating would blame similarities in two papers on coincidence.

"When caught now, what we get was 'I didn't know it was wrong' or 'I didn't know how to cite it' or 'I didn't know what plagiarism was,'" Bugeja said. "Some of these students have not made the transition in their mind between stealing from a library and stealing from the Internet."

Bugeja said continuing an educational approach will eliminate the excuse.

"To bust the new excuse, we need to have a statement in our syllabi and make sure we cover it as professors," he said. "The more we educate on this and other issues, the less the excuse will work that 'I didn't know it was wrong.'"

Bugeja said the Internet gives a false sense of security.

"I think the computer gives us the false impression that what we're doing is private – it's very public," he said.