On 3 Mar 2006, at 09:36, Mike Reddy wrote:
<snip>
>
> Students are only potential cheats, looking for the loop hole, if you
> choose to see them that way.
>
> The attitude to plagiarism, copying and making of learning into an
> issue of offence is one that I am hoping will be the subject of a
> workshop at the next Plagiarism Conference. It needs an open and
> frank, possibly bloody debate. I could be completely wrong. I'd love
> to know what others think and whether they see this as an
> interesting/important part of the problem to discuss.
> >>
count me in on that workshop. I think this is absolutely central, the
more I read about the issue the more my blood boils at times, and the
more I begin to think Peter Levin has it right about the witch hunt
being waged against students in some quarters.
Students find the rules about referencing complicated and confusing, in
the past they only had to worry about these once they reached
postgraduate level as there was no such thing as coursework - we all
sat a bunch of 3 hr exams at the end of 3 yrs, swapping each others
essays for revision purposes was positively encouraged. Now,
practically every bit of work they produce is formally assessed, not
only do they have to handle getting to grips with their subject but
also the rules of the referencing game - and very few of them have been
adequately taught to do this in high school.
I think the driving analogy is a good one too, and one I have used with
overseas students in particular - i.e. when you come into a new country
you can't expect that the rules of the road will be the same as in your
home country- the academic "rules of the road" in the UK with respect
to plagiarism and referencing might be different from the ones you are
used to. Do we extend the analogy and have the tutor as driving
instructor? if so then we have a responsibility to ensure that the
students *know* there is a highway code which will be examined as well
as their ability to drive the car.... a lot of academics seem to be
seeing themselves in the role of traffic police...
Diane
Diane Brewster
Research Fellow
IDEAS Lab
Dept Informatics
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton BN19QH
http://ideas.fcs.sussex.ac.uk/~D.M.Brewster/
[log in to unmask]
01273 678767
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