Educating The University of Iowa on the challenges of plagiarism

	Jon Whitmore

fyi: First, can we define plagiarism?

Whitmore: A broad definition is the representation of another person’s work as one’s own. Stereoptypically, plagiarism is copying written material from a book or a web site without quotes or attribution. But copying another student’s exam answers is also representing someone else’s work as one’s own.

fyi: Do we have any hard data on the prevalence of plagiarism on campus?

Whitmore: We’ve never done a survey here. At the conference, John T. Harwood of Pennsylvania State University described the results of a survey at his school, conducted in March 1999. Seventeen percent of students surveyed said they had cheated on tests and 44 percent said they had done so on class assignments. This is a national issue and every campus is affected. We want to involve the whole University community and to treat the issue as an educational opportunity.

fyi: You heard from a panel of students at the conference. Did they admit to plagiarism?

Whitmore: They were extremely candid. They said that plagiarism starts as early as junior high school. But it was evident, too, that a lot of it represented ignorance as to the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Some first-year students believe that material on web sites is there to be taken. They know how to download music and videos and they may not realize that it’s a violation of copyright to do so. Some simply don’t know how to correctly cite material taken from a web site. We even know that for some foreign students the use of others’ words can be honorific in their cultures. But we cannot be naïve. It’s a far-ranging issue.

fyi: The Penn State survey indicates that a majority of students say they have not cheated. Do you think that’s accurate?

Whitmore: I think that most students prefer not to cheat. They feel short-changed by those who plagiarize or cheat on tests, and they get very upset by it.

fyi: There are computer programs that allow professors to submit student papers for checking against material existing on the web for duplication of content. Might the University use these programs?

Whitmore: We’re developing such a web site for faculty. They will be able to submit entire essays as text files to verify that there’s been no plagiarism. We could even ask students to submit their papers to the professor with certification from the web site that the work is not a copy. Technology may be the cause of much plagiarism, but it can also be an answer.

However, our solution has to be education as well as detection. Many students who come to the University have been exposed to plagiarism at their high schools. Putting a warning in course syllabi is one step, but we need to do more—a message at Orientation, reinforcement during classes. We need multiple messages during a semester.

The most important thing we must do is to get students to understand what intellectual property represents—your ideas, your writing, your formulas have worth and you own that worth. If they understand that their work has value, it will put a whole new perspective on issues of copyright and patents.

fyi: What can faculty members do?

Whitmore: Some faculty members think they will not be supported if they discover plagiarism and they fail a student. We must make sure they know that their department and the University care about this issue. The Council on Teaching and the Center for Teaching will have lead roles but students must be part of the conversation. The Graduate College and the Faculty Council are also important players and the University librarians can assist students on proper citations and attribution.

The web site we’re developing will help faculty members and teaching assistants deal with this issue. Our seminar speaker offered some simple steps that can discourage plagiarism—for example, teachers might ask not just for a final paper, but for an outline, followed by drafts before the final paper is submitted at the end of the semester.

We believe that addressing the issue of plagiarism fits well with our goal of being a writing university. Academic honesty, integrity, and ethics are all part of that effort. It will be a multi-venue, multi-year process and we may not succeed 100 percent—but we must try.

Article by Anne Tanner