UWP Lecturers Safe Assign

[Gray Scott]

Mary,

I usually file 10-15 academic integrity cases per quarter when teaching 1A and 1B (though fewer with 1C). 

This quarter, I have 12 again, teaching 1B, so from my numbers things are about the same. (Of course, it's possible that I'm blurry eyed enough this term that I'm missing the spike.) 

However, the dishonest students this term seem lazier. They're more inclined to recycle papers they wrote for previous classes. For instance, in previous terms, it was unusual for me to have even 1 recycle attempt per term. This quarter I've had three. Due to Safe Assignments, those are fairly easy to catch, so it might be safe to say they're easier to nab this term than in previous terms. For that, at least, I'm grateful.

Oh, I will comment on one other apparent trend: Starting last year, they've seemed more inclined to fight (even against clear-cut evidence), more likely to freak out, and more likely to call their parents. This term I've had one who threatened suicide during conference, and one who called her father, a lawyer. Last year, I had an international student fight all the way to the very bitter end, through the whole SJA process. Up to that point, I'd had a 100% confession rate, without any Jack Bauer moves required. I'm still sort of bummed about losing that. I suspect that part of what's going on might be that students may be becoming more open with each other about a lot of things, and thus more inclined to discuss their plagiarizing with buddies, so that when I confront someone, he's sitting there thinking, "Hell, everyone else does it. Why is Mr. Scott picking on me?" If they tend to think of their actions as typical, they might be more inclined to fight. Something like that.

I'd love to hear from other instructors about what they're seeing, by the way. We can't share details (student privacy), but certainly the patterns can be illuminating. 

- Gray
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mary Cummins 
  To: wallaceteach at aol.com 
  Cc: Lecturers list 
  Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 9:52 PM
  Subject: Re: UWP Lecturers Safe Assign


  Hi folks, 

  Here's a separate question.  Has anyone else been finding more plagiarism cases than usual this quarter?  I usually find two or three, but this quarter it shot up to seven.  (I teach a whole class period about avoiding plagiarism, and we go over it four other times in class throughout the quarter, so I don't think it's ignorance . . .)
    
  Mary Cummins





------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: Wallaceteach at aol.com
  Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:59:10 -0400
  To: caroldo at ucr.edu; gray at scotts.net
  CC: englecturers at lists.ucr.edu
  Subject: Re: UWP Lecturers Safe Assign


  Hey all,
      Just weighing in here, but if the students don't follow the requirement I can't see how we have any choice but to fail them. I think Gray's ideas are very compelling.  As to the other comment, I don't really understand the argument about it being unfair to require students to submit papers to safe assign, but I will say it is unfair to the other students, who did fulfill the requirements, to not penalize those students who don't.
      We aren't doing them any favors if we don't hold these students to standards.  That kind of thinking has led to innumerable problems and to a general lack of responsibility I think we can all agree has had disastrous consequences.  Also, this is a great and relatively painless way to learn a valuable lesson.
  Wallace Cleaves


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