It is a truism that the design and deployment of information and communication technologies is vital to everyday life, the conduct of work and to social order. But how are individual, organisational and societal choices made? What might it mean to invoke a politics and an ethics of information technology design and use? This editorial paper situates these questions within the trajectory of preoccupations and approaches to the design and deployment of information technology since computerisation began in the 1940s. Focusing (...) upon the dominant concerns over the last three decades, the paper delineates an interest in design and use in relation to socio-technical theories, situated practices and actor-network theory. It is argued that each of these approaches is concerned with a particular form of politics that does not explicitly engage with ethics. In order to introduce ethics into contemporary debates about information technology, and to frame the papers in the special issue, it is argued that Levinas’ ethics is particularly valuable in problematising the relationship between politics and ethics. Levinas provides a critique of modernity’s emphasis on politics and the egocentric self. It is from a Levinasian concern with the Other and the primacy of the ethical that a general rethinking of the relationship between politics, ethics and justice in relation to information and communication technologies can be invoked. (shrink)

Given the tremendous proliferation of student plagiarism involving the Internet, the purpose of this study is to determine which theory of ethical reasoning students invoke when defending their transgressions: deontology, utilitarianism, rational self-interest, Machiavellianism, cultural relativism, or situational ethics. Understanding which theory of ethical reasoning students employ is critical, as preemptive steps can be taken by faculty to counteract this reasoning and prevent plagiarism. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that unethical behavior in school can lead to unethical behavior in business; (...) therefore, correcting unethical behavior in school can have a positive impact on organizational ethics. To meet this objective, a content analysis was conducted on the written records of students formally charged with plagiarizing at a large West Coast university. Each case was classified according to the primary ethical reasoning that the student used to justify plagiarism. Results indicate that students predominately invoke deontology, situational ethics, and Machiavellianism. Based on these findings, specific recommendations are offered to curb plagiarism. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify the relative contribution of individual and contextual predictors to students’ attitudes toward the acceptability of cheating and plagiarism. A group of 324 students from a tertiary institution in New Zealand completed an online survey. The findings indicate that gender, justice sensitivity, and understanding of university policies regarding academic dishonesty were the key predictors of the students’ attitudes toward the acceptability of cheating and plagiarism, both as agents of dishonest conduct and as witnesses (...) of misconduct among their peers. The implications of these findings for the development of policies and initiatives in tertiary institutions are discussed. (shrink)

Plagiarism may distress universities in the US, but there is little agreement as to exactly what constitutes plagiarism. While there is ample research on plagiarism, there is scant literature on the content of university policies regarding it. Using a systematic sample, we qualitatively analyzed 20 Carnegie-classified universities that are “Very High in Research.” This included 15 public state universities and five high-profile private universities. We uncovered highly varied and even contradictory policies at these institutions. Notable policy variations existed for verbatim (...) plagiarism, intentional plagiarism and unauthorized student collaboration at the studied institutions. We conclude by advising that the American Association of University Professors and other overarching academic bodies confer and come to accord on the disposition of these issues. (shrink)

This study examines Chinese undergraduates’ perceptions of plagiarism in English academic writing in relation to their disciplinary background (i.e., hard vs. soft disciplines), academic enculturation (i.e., length of study in university), and gender. Drawing on data collected from 270 students at two universities in China, it finds clear discipline-based differences in participants’ knowledge of plagiarism and perceptions about its causes; an enculturational effect on perceived acceptability of and condemnatory attitudes toward plagiarism, with senior students being less harsh than their junior (...) counterparts; and complex interactions among disciplinary background, length of study, and gender. Furthermore, it reveals conceptions of (il)legitimate intertextuality (i.e., textual borrowing) differing from those prevalent in Anglo American academia and clearly punitive stances on perceived plagiarism. These results suggest the need to take an educative rather than punitive approach to source use in English academic writing. (shrink)

Internet plagiarism continues unabated and may even be increasing. Questions pertaining to the ethical-moral construct employed by students to justify Internet plagiarism among high school students have remained relatively untouched. Understanding not simply the prevalence of Internet plagiarism but also the variety of explanations used by students to justify their plagiarism seems crucial to curtailing its practice. In this study, I surveyed 160 high school students and endeavored to understand and describe the practices of students who use the Internet for (...) schoolwork and who engage in copy-paste plagiarism or paper-buying practices. The results indicate that students are more easily able to justify copy-paste plagiarism for a variety of reasons that mirror justifications of other forms of conventional plagiarism. Most students indicated they would never purchase a paper for reasons ranging from fear of getting caught to more principled and nuanced ethical claims. Based on these results I also offer educators suggestions for refining assignments and evaluation methods. (shrink)

The world relies on authentic research that guides legislation, policy formulations, and governmental and corporate actions. Therefore, researchers globally should be aware of academic integrity and publication ethics. This research delved into plagiarism that severely undermines any scientific study. It explores the relationship between adverse attitudes (attitudes that favor plagiarism) and plagiaristic behavior. We probed deeper into the theories of planned behavior, reasoned action, and ethical theories of rational self-interest, cultural acceptance, and deontology to propose corrective measures as an intervention (...) to reduce adverse attitudes and plagiaristic behavior. Upon empirical testing of the said propositions through two studies (Study 1, n1 = 2609; Study 2, n2 = 2678), we ascertained a significant negative relationship between corrective measures and adverse attitudes and corrective measures and plagiaristic behavior. We also empirically examined the mediating effect of adverse attitudes on the relationship between corrective measures and plagiaristic behavior. The results confirm the mediation model, in which academics subjected to corrective actions reported reduced plagiaristic behavior through reduced adverse attitudes. The findings further the literature on plagiarism and provide crucial implications for managing plagiaristic behavior among academics. The study also provides specific corrective actions that educational administrators should initiate to ensure academic integrity. (shrink)

Academic cheating, a common and consequential form of dishonesty, has puzzled moral psychologists and educators for decades. The present research examined a new theoretical approach to the perceptions, evaluations, and motivations that shape students’ decisions to cheat. We tested key predictions of this approach by systematically examining students’ accounts of their own cheating. In two studies, we interviewed undergraduates in psychology (n = 68) and engineering (n = 123) classes about their past experiences with plagiarism or other cheating. Interviews assessed (...) students’ perceptions of whether they were cheating, their evaluations of whether their actions were okay, and their motivations for doing what they did. Most students did not initially recognize their acts as cheating. While students generally thought cheating was wrong, they often judged the exceptional cases in which they cheated to be acceptable, citing concerns such as assignment goals and task feasibility. The findings suggest that perceptions, evaluations, and competing motivations play a key role in students’ decisions to cheat. (shrink)

Nearly all students believe academic cheating is wrong, yet few students say they would report witnessed acts of cheating. To explain this apparent tension, the present research examined college students’ reasoning about whether to report plagiarism or other forms of cheating. Study 1 examined students’ conflicts when deciding whether to report cheating. Most students gave reasons against reporting a peer (e.g., social and physical consequences, a lack of responsibility to report) as well as reasons in favor of reporting (e.g., concerns (...) about welfare, justice, and fairness). Study 2 provided experimental confirmation that the contextual factors referenced by Study 1 participants in fact influenced decisions about whether to report cheating. Overall, the findings indicate that students often decide against reporting peers’ acts of cheating, though not due to a lack of concern about integrity. Rather, students may refrain from reporting because of conflicting concerns, lack of information about school policy, and perceived better alternatives to reporting. (shrink)

BackgroundScientists communicate progress and exchange information via publication and presentation at scientific meetings. We previously showed that text similarity analysis applied to Medline can identify and quantify plagiarism and duplicate publications in peer-reviewed biomedical journals. In the present study, we applied the same analysis to a large sample of conference abstracts.MethodsWe downloaded 144,149 abstracts from 207 national and international meetings of 63 biomedical conferences. Pairwise comparisons were made using eTBLAST: a text similarity engine. A domain expert then reviewed random samples (...) of highly similar abstracts to estimate the extent of text overlap and possible plagiarism.ResultsOur main findings indicate that the vast majority of textual overlap occurred within the same meeting and between meetings of the same conference, both of which were significantly higher than instances of plagiarism, which occurred in less than.5% of abstracts.ConclusionsThis analysis indicates that textual overlap in abstracts of papers presented at scientific meetings is one-tenth that of peer-reviewed publications, yet the plagiarism rate is approximately the same as previously measured in peer-reviewed publications. This latter finding underscores a need for monitoring scientific meeting submissions – as is now done when submitting manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals – to improve the integrity of scientific communications. (shrink)

Algorithms, or rather algorithmic actions, are seen as problematic because they are inscrutable, automatic, and subsumed in the flow of daily practices. Yet, they are also seen to be playing an important role in organizing opportunities, enacting certain categories, and doing what David Lyon calls “social sorting.” Thus, there is a general concern that this increasingly prevalent mode of ordering and organizing should be governed more explicitly. Some have argued for more transparency and openness, others have argued for more democratic (...) or value-centered design of such actors. In this article, we argue that governing practices—of, and through algorithmic actors—are best understood in terms of what Foucault calls governmentality. Governmentality allows us to consider the performative nature of these governing practices. They allow us to show how practice becomes problematized, how calculative practices are enacted as technologies of governance, how such calculative practices produce domains of knowledge and expertise, and finally, how such domains of knowledge become internalized in order to enact self-governing subjects. In other words, it allows us to show the mutually constitutive nature of problems, domains of knowledge, and subjectivities enacted through governing practices. In order to demonstrate this, we present attempts to govern academic writing with a specific focus on the algorithmic action of Turnitin. (shrink)

Educational policy and social sciences researchers have been studying dishonest behaviors among students for a long time. In this bibliometric study we examine the extant literature on academic dishonesty until 2017. We also analyze the specific case of the literature on plagiarism since it is arguably one of the most common academic dishonest behavior. We aim at identifying the intellectual structure of the field of academic dishonesty and plagiarism. Results show that Donald L. McCabe and Richard L. Marsh appear as (...) the most productive authors. Furthermore, Whitley, 235–274, 1998) “Factors associated with cheating among college students: A review”, and Pennycook, 201–230, 1996), entitled “Borrowing others’ words: Text, ownership, memory, and plagiarism” are the most cited publications on academic dishonesty and on plagiarism, respectively. Additionally, a strong connection between the McCabe and Treviño articles emerged from the co-citation analysis on academic dishonesty, and also a strong relationship between Pennycook, 201–230, 1996) and Pecorari, 317–345, 2003), suggesting that these articles are strongly connected. Results suggest that these are the most influential authors and articles of the field. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Although much has been written about Chinese students’ understandings of illegitimate intertextual practices, few studies have investigated Chinese university teachers’ perceptions of plagiarism, let alone the effects of their disciplinary background on their knowledge of and attitudes toward plagiarism. This paper reports on a study that examined the knowledge that 128 Chinese university teachers of different disciplinary backgrounds had of plagiarism, their attitudes toward identified plagiarism, and their own ability to engage in legitimate paraphrasing. Multiple regression analyses showed that (...) disciplinary background and teaching experience were significant predictors of the participants’ knowledge of plagiarism, whereas disciplinary background and overseas experience significantly predicted their stance on plagiarism. A logistic regression analysis identified disciplinary background as a significant predictor of the participants’ ability to produce legitimate paraphrases. Qualitative analyses of the participants’ open-ended responses revealed that their criteria for plagiarism aligned with Anglo-American conceptions of plagiarism and that intertextual competence was dependent in no small measure on linguistic competence. (shrink)

Three approaches to intertextual writing are available to college instructors: mechanical, ethical, and rhetorical. The mechanical approach, a staple of writing instruction, teaches the use of citation styles such as MLA or APA; methods of citing sources; and the conventions of quotation. The ethical approach is primarily concerned with the character of individual writers and their adherence to community standards categorized as “academic integrity.” The great majority of source-based writing instruction attends to one or both of these approaches. A third (...) approach, rhetorical intertextuality, is overshadowed by the ethical concerns that currently permeate educational institutions. Rhetorical intertextuality does promote textual ethics, but in a positive way, through instruction in building meaning in a target text through collaboration with source texts. Rhetorical intertextuality brings the source texts themselves to life and aims to engage the audience in a conversation with target text and source texts. Drawing on Citation Project data, we advocate instruction in intertextual writing that hails students as authors, not transgressors. Rhetorical intertextuality can provide a positive frame for college instruction in intertextual writing, one that facilitates deep engagement with texts; intellectual approaches to paraphrasing and summarizing; and an emphasis on the rhetorical choices that writers make as they encounter and respond to the ideas of others. The objective of such instruction is a dialogic interface between writer, audience, and sources—a conversation. (shrink)

This paper will address the question of the morality of technology. I believe this is an important question for our contemporary society in which technology, especially information technology, is increasingly becoming the default mode of social ordering. I want to suggest that the conventional manner of conceptualising the morality of technology is inadequate – even dangerous. The conventional view of technology is that technology represents technical means to achieve social ends. Thus, the moral problem of technology, from this perspective, is (...) the way in which the given technical means are applied to particular (good or bad) social ends. In opposition to this I want to suggest that the assumed separation, of this approach, between technical means and social ends are inappropriate. It only serves to hide the most important political and ethical dimensions of technology. I want to suggest that the morality of technology is much more embedded and implicit than such a view would suggest. In order to critique this approach I will draw on phenomenology and the more recent work of Bruno Latour. With these intellectual resources in mind I will propose disclosive ethics as a way to make the morality of technology visible. I will give a brief account of this approach and show how it might guide our␣understanding of the ethics and politics of technology by considering two examples of contemporary information technology: search engines and plagiarism detection systems. (shrink)

The purpose of the current study was to explore how effectively journal author guides communicate with graduate students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in Taiwan. A 10-item three-tier test was developed to explore the participants’ (1) confidence level in their reading comprehension of excerpts from author guides, (2) their actual comprehension, and (3) their understanding, if any. The test consisted of 10 excerpts from author guides that covered a variety of topics related to plagiarism. The test was administered (...) to 46 EFL graduate students. The findings revealed that the selected excerpts from the author guides caused confusion, which led to misunderstanding by the readers. Among the 10 types of plagiarism, citation issues and copying of methods sections were the the most understood, whereas self-plagiarism was the least understood type. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The discourse on honesty and dishonesty in academic work has seen considerable growth over the past two decades. This study empirically analyses the shifts in the literature over the past two decades in the research focus and most prolific authors, institutions, countries, and journals. A broad list of terms was employed from the Glossary of Academic Integrity to shortlist journal articles (n = 782) from Scopus. A bibliometric analysis was conducted for each decade and the results were compared. Research (...) outputs and number of clusters were over two-fold in the second compared to the first decade indicating an increase in volume and complexity. The study found a continued focus on plagiarism and academic misconduct research, though academic integrity and contract cheating emerged in the second decade. Shifts were evident in the output signifying a diversification of the research base and perspectives. Further research and action are needed to develop integrity as the broadest defense against dishonesty in all spheres of academia. (shrink)

In the midst of international opportunities available to academics and students, plagiarism keeps plaguing the Indonesian higher education sector. This paper reports the findings from an Australian Alumni Reference Group activity which took place in Jakarta, Indonesia, in May 2013. An exploratory survey on plagiarism was conducted with Australian Award Alumni to capture their perceptions and opinions on the incidence of plagiarism and plagiarism prevention in higher education institutions in Indonesia. The survey was then followed up with a series of (...) focus group discussions with representatives of higher education institutions to discuss the issues further. The findings revealed that a pattern of plagiarism conduct can be identified for both students and faculty members. One issue found is that there is a perceived discrepancy of standards between the overseas and local graduate faculty members on what plagiarism is. The overseas graduates are perceived as ‘stricter’, and this creates reluctance from the overseas faculty members to speak up on the issue for fear of being judged harshly. Concerns over standards and consistency, especially in law enforcement, were discussed in efforts to prevent plagiarism in higher education institutions in Indonesia. (shrink)

This study investigated students’ perceptions following a prepared, common presentation regarding academic integrity provided by their residence dons. This peer instruction study utilized both quantitative and qualitative analyses of survey data within a pre-test post-test design. Overall, students reported gains in knowledge, as well as confidence in their knowledge of academic integrity. Notably, students reported increases in their personal value for academic integrity after participating in the presentations. Overall, the quality and content of the presentations were judged positively, and participants’ (...) ratings of the presentation were predictive of increases in personal value of academic integrity, as well as self-reported knowledge and confidence gains. Qualitative analyses supported that the key ideas in the presentation served as the focal material for discussion, but also introduced specific topics that students wanted to explore in greater depth. (shrink)

Information technology has played a remarkably important role in developing the contemporary educational system. It not only provides easy access to enormous stores of information but also increases students' scientific efficiency. However, the availability of this technology has also led to increased plagiarism. This study attempted to explore how access to Internet technology contributes to plagiarism problems from the perspective of university students in Iran. A qualitative method to semistructured interviews with 20 students suggested important themes: uncertainty avoidance, tendency to (...) use shortcuts to progress, symbolic certification, social learning and modeling of faculty members as mentors, and plagiarism in the name of justice. Survey data from 180 university students suggest that the personality characteristic of conscientiousness had a negative effect on using information technology to commit plagiarism. (shrink)

A casual comment by a student alerted the authors to the existence and prevalence of Internet-based paraphrasing tools. A subsequent quick Google search highlighted the broad range and availability of online paraphrasing tools which offer free ‘services’ to paraphrase large sections of text ranging from sentences, paragraphs, whole articles, book chapters or previously written assignments. The ease of access to online paraphrasing tools provides the potential for students to submit work they have not directly written themselves, or in the case (...) of academics and other authors, to rewrite previously published materials to sidestep self-plagiarism. Students placing trust in online paraphrasing tools as an easy way of complying with the requirement for originality in submissions are at risk in terms of the quality of the output generated and possibly of not achieving the learning outcomes as they may not fully understand the information they have compiled. There are further risks relating to the legitimacy of the outputs in terms of academic integrity and plagiarism. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the existence, development, use and detection of use of Internet based paraphrasing tools. To demonstrate the dangers in using paraphrasing tools an experiment was conducted using some easily accessible Internet-based paraphrasing tools to process part of an existing publication. Two sites are compared to demonstrate the types of differences that exist in the quality of the output from certain paraphrasing algorithms, and the present poor performance of online originality checking services such as Turnitin® to identify and link material processed via machine based paraphrasing tools. The implications for student skills in paraphrasing, academic integrity and the clues to assist staff in identifying the use of online paraphrasing tools are discussed. (shrink)

This paper is about the phenomenon of encoding, more specifically about the encoded extension of agency. The question of code most often emerges from contemporary concerns about the way digital encoding is seen to be transforming our lives in fundamental ways, yet seems to operate ‘under the surface’ as it were. In this essay I suggest that the performative outcomes of digital encoding are best understood within a more general horizon of the phenomenon of encoding – that is to say (...) as norm- or rule-governed material enactments accepted (or taken for granted) as the necessary conditions for becoming. Encoded material enactments translate/extend agency, but never exactly. I argue that such encoded extensions are insecure, come at a cost and are performative. To illustrate this I present a brief discussion of some specific historical transitions in the encoding of human agency: from speech to writing, to mechanical writing, and finally to electronic writing. In each of these translations I aim to show that agency is translated/extended in ways that have many unexpected performative outcomes. Specifically, through a discussion of the digital encoding of writing, as reuse, I want to suggest the proposition that all agency is always borrowed (or ‘plagiarized’) – i.e. it is never originally human. As encoded beings we are never authors, we are rather more or less skilful reusers. To extend agency we have to submit to the demands of encoding and kidnap that encoding simultaneously – enabling constraints in Butler’s language. Our originality, if there is any, is in our skill at kidnapping the code and turning it into an extension of our agency, that is to say, our skill at resignification – to be original we need to be skilful ‘parasites’, as suggested by Serres. (shrink)

Hugely facilitated by the Internet, plagiarism by students threatens educational quality and professional ethics worldwide. Plagiarism reduces learning and is correlated with increased fraud and inefficiency on the job, thus lessening competitiveness and hampering development.In this context, the present research examines 48 licenciatura theses and 102 masters theses from five of Mozambique’s largest universities. Of the 150 theses, 75% contained significant plagiarism (>100 word equivalents) and 39%, very much (>500 word equivalents). Significant plagiarism was detected in both licenciatura and masters (...) theses. By using both Turnitin and Urkund to identify potentially plagiarized passages, professionally verifying whether those passages contain plagiarism, and, if confirmed, counting the words involved, the study presents a new method for classifying the quantity and significance of plagiarism. The use of two text-similarity-recognition programs also improved the rate of detection and, in some theses, significantly increased the classification of the gravity of the plagiarism encountered.Based on a broad review of the literature, the article argues that, to combat wide-scale plagiarism, academic institutions need to cultivate a consensus among faculty and students about the definition and types of plagiarism, the appropriate penalties, and the paramount professional and economic need to nurture professional ethics. However, to achieve even partial success requires significant involvement by administrators, faculty, students and student leaders guided by a holistic strategy using technological, pedagogical, administrative and legal components to prevent and detect plagiarism and then reeducate or discipline students caught plagiarizing. (shrink)