UWP Lecturers plagiarism reports

[Gray Scott]

Sandy, et al,

My experiences have been like Kim's: I usually get signatures, but when I'm unable to do so (and there will be a few this term I won't be able to get), the Student Conduct office is supportive. 

The Student Conduct office has had this form for years, by the way, and I've been filling out 3-5 per section per quarter for about 5 years now. I don't have any problems with the form. And I don't have any complaints about the Student Conduct office, either. It has been nothing but supportive since it was overhauled back in ... 2003-ish? 

I've had students put up hellish fights over their cases, and the Student Conduct office deals with pretty much the whole thing each time. I just get updates. I'm happy about that.  

I've even sent Student Conduct cases for which all I had was a faint suspicion, and they did all the detective work. Last term, I had a student turn in papers that had another person's name listed as author in the Properties of the electronic document. I looked up the other name and discovered they were sorority sisters. I sent it to Student Conduct with a question mark, unable to establish on my own whether anything dishonest was happening. The Student Conduct office dug into it, calling the students in for meetings, and didn't bother me at all about it. A few weeks later the office sent me a report on the other student -- a student who wasn't even in my class -- concluding that the sorority sister had been editing her friend's papers for her, cleaning up the grammar. 

That office is pretty hard-core, and does tough, unpleasant work. 

Meanwhile, getting the signatures and trying to meet with the students are good ideas for us. Those moves cover our backsides -- otherwise, the students can later claim we went around them, and that they've since lost or misplaced evidence that would have exonerated them. By meeting with them and getting them to sign the document (and thereby to make a defense at that point), we limit how much time they have to cook up a cover story, devise horror stories about us, and the like. 

This is an important consideration. Our students are gradually becoming more aggressive, more litigious. This year I've been emailed by a lawyer on behalf of a cheater and had a mom threaten to go to the media. That form is my friend, as far as I can see. I'll cheerfully fill out any paperwork that cuts down on the cheater's ability to retaliate later.

Also, I'll stress what Kate pointed out: Giving the student a chance to talk to you about the problem is only fair. 

- Gray

A long P.S.: 

I do have a small problem with the effect that reporting plagiarism has on evals. It's far more severe than the impact of giving low grades: If you give a student a choice between an F on a paper or a chance to revise the paper but a student conduct report, the student will almost always take the F. Students hate being reported (because they think it'll kill their chances at grad school or appear on transcripts, and don't believe assurances to the contrary). Moreover, they get to evaluate us after we've turned them in. When they do, they tend to lash out a bit, and the more one catches, the lower those evals go. 

Worse, they lash out in ways that aren't obvious to outsiders: If you're a tough grader or assign a lot of work, students who lash out about those policies will say things like "Assines to much work!!" or "Gradz to haard," but if you catch a quarter of your class plagiarizing, none of those students will say that's why they're nuking you -- they'll find something else to complain about. (Usually, in a fit of projection, they accuse you of being unfair or lazy, or that's the pattern I usually see.) 

The situation is a deterrent to reporting these cases, and an incentive to deal with students "in-house." I suspect that many cases never get reported because of this. 

As I said, I would cheerfully fill out any paperwork that would cut down on retaliation, and if there were forms I could fill out to deal with this, I'd spend time on them, too. 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Stamp 
  To: englecturers at lists.ucr.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 12:51 PM
  Subject: SPAM-LOW: Re: UWP Lecturers plagiarism reports


  Where is the requirement for a student signature?  I don't see one on 
  the form.

  According to the Student Conduct site, you just need to attempt to 
  contact the student:

  http://conduct.ucr.edu/Faculty/Faculty+Reporting+of+Academic+Misconduct.htm

  > Whenever possible, the communication should take place through an in-
  > person consultation and should be conducted in a manner that respects 
  > each student's privacy and maintains an environment that supports 
  > teaching and learning. When a meeting is not possible or practical, an 
  > instructor may communicate with the student in writing. Written 
  > communication will be sent by U.S. mail to the address most recently 
  > filed with the Registrar's Office, or to the student’s University e-
  > mail address.

  ...

  > The student must be given the opportunity to respond to the allegation 
  > of misconduct. When communication is made in writing, students will be 
  > given 10 business days to respond.

  http://conduct.ucr.edu/Forms/Academic+Misconduct+Referral+Form.htm

  > When a student has failed to respond to attempts to communicate them, 
  > where possible, please include documentation of the attempt(s) in the 
  > form of copies of the letters/emails, and/or a call log documenting 
  > dates/times of attempted telephone contact.  Include the telephone 
  > number contacted. 

  That seems reasonable to me.  Send an email, wait 2 weeks, if no 
  response, print it out and file with the report.

  John


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