Diane
Your comments about high school are interesting - the
approach in schools to coursework is a problem. However, there may be
help on the way, at least for some of us.
1) In the last couple of months I've seen guidelines for
Scottish high schools from the SQA (sort of exam board) which discuss
plagiarism, etc. in coursework for 4th+ year pupils (including advice to
parents!).
2) This week my granddaughter (age 9 ) in Primary 5 in
Falkirk was given a 'project' on France. The instructions included "use a
computer and the Internet, don't copy, use your own words and include a
bibliography". The teacher will, of course, explain all these
ideas.
The 1st seems sensible but is 2) a bit of overkill?
When is a good age to start all this? Is there anything like this going on in
other parts of the country?
I suppose it might mean that we'll be alright in about 10
years time!
Scott
Scott Raeburn
Academic Conduct Officer
School of Computing
Napier
University
Merchiston Campus
Edinburgh EH10 5DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 455 2716
Fax: +44 (0)131 455 2727
Email: [log in to unmask]
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/
01273 678767
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