August 29, 2002

7:35 AM

I came across this article on Wired about the problem of students plagiarising term papers from the Internet. This got me thinking about the current education system and our archaic methods of educating a student and testing his/her knowledge on the subject with exams, term papers, etc. Are there any alternative methods to evaluate a student's performance? Or are things fine the way they are? Are there any creative, practical ways to circumvent this problem, instead of the usual 'crackdown'? Any educators on Metafilter doing anything differently?
posted by Bernese Mountain Dog (18 comments total)

Um, could you post some sources about student evaluation using exams, term papers, etc., or alternative evaluation methods? This is so tangential you're essentially cheating by posting a barely-related link so you can start an open-ended conversation.
posted by dhartung at 7:45 AM on August 29, 2002

What's archaic about term papers and exams?
posted by mikel at 7:49 AM on August 29, 2002

This is a perfect example of what should be on a message board, and not a blog.
posted by Addiction at 7:51 AM on August 29, 2002

Sorry dhartung - I wasn't intending on starting an open-ended conversation - just a discussion on current methods of imparting an education and evaluating a student based on that system. Hopefully with some intelligent and reasonable conclusions at the end.

mikel - Going back to my years as an undergrad. many exam paper questions were simply the same as the previous years. Many prof's were too busy with their research to be creative about testing a student.

And the fact that students plagiarise term papers defeats the purpose of an education doesn't it?

Matt you can delte the topic if you wish - this was my first post and if inappropriate - I apologise.
Thanks.
posted by Bernese Mountain Dog at 7:58 AM on August 29, 2002

This thread has already been derailed.

MetaTalk
posted by ZachsMind at 7:58 AM on August 29, 2002

I, for one, would have liked to have proved my knowledge of Literature by playing non-archaic video games.
posted by panopticon at 7:59 AM on August 29, 2002

I, for one, would have liked to have proved my knowledge of Literature by playing non-archaic video games.

*You're a sea captain hunting a giant metaphorical whale, see how many you can catch!
*Quake 4: The Scarlet Letter
*The Holden Caufield disaffected youth game!
*Charles Dickens' Sim Orphanage!

This idea is gold, someone call the board of ed and EA.
posted by malphigian at 8:09 AM on August 29, 2002

From the article: It appears academicians' attempts to eradicate these hotbeds of plagiarism have done little to stifle their growth.

It appears that certain journalistarians could use some editorialistic help.

And if you're worried about online term-paper sites, exams are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
posted by rory at 8:09 AM on August 29, 2002

That would depend on what constitutes student "performance." Or, rather, what constitutes the instructor's course objectives. When I teach English literature, I expect the students to master both method and content. That is, a course like the Victorian survey I'm currently teaching introduces students to major (and some minor) authors, some of their key works, their revisions of traditional literary genres, and so forth. But it also teaches students how to improve their analytical skills. At this point in my career, the exam/paper combination seems the most accurate and efficient way of discovering a) to what extent they've learned both skills and content and b) to what extent I've been successful in conveying my lessons in same. After all, an examination tests my skill as a teacher as much as it does the student's skill as a learner. If everybody runs into trouble with an essay on the mid-term, I generally presume that something I did is at issue, and alter my presentation accordingly.

If I want to see how well students have mastered, say, the skills necessary to demonstrate how George Meredith's twist on the sonnet form in Modern Love relates to the poem's argument, then a paper would seem the way to go. However, I can certainly see arguments for demonstrating mastery in other ways: for example, I've asked students in the introduction to literary analysis course to write a few lines of iambic pentameter, as a means of checking how well they understand metre. I've also given "parody" assignments, since a good parody does demonstrate intimate understanding of the material being mocked. Some of my colleagues have students experiment with PowerPoint multimedia presentations; others assign website projects.

I'm not sure if plagiarism is a "growing" problem, or if it's just easier to catch now that students are (over)relying on the 'Net. (I keep getting students who plagiarize something from the first Google search result that comes up on the screen. Folks, if it took you five seconds to find it, it will take me five seconds to find it.) My school has subscribed to Turnitin.com, which may help matters somewhat; I've gone to electronic paper submissions for this reason. It's difficult to catch the students plagiarizing from "for pay" sites, since most of us don't feel like paying for access; on the other hand, it does make matters easier if two students hand in the same bought paper in the same class (oops). Nevertheless, it often is very easy to catch a student plagiarizing a paper, precisely because said student usually doesn't understand how to construct an argument with the lifted text.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:11 AM on August 29, 2002

Great thread thanks for the contribution BMD. I went to 15 schools in 12 years, private, public, traditional, non-traditional. Ive seen a lot of variety in education. My 9th grade year we graded ourselves and then wrote papers on why we deserved the grade which was then approved or not by the teachers. Assignments and tests were never graded rather comments and notes and suggestions by the teacher. That was a Quaker school.
posted by stbalbach at 8:12 AM on August 29, 2002

I plagiarised like f*ck at university...allegedly.

That sort of weasel like activity is what separates us from the animals

....except the weasel.
posted by Frasermoo at 8:13 AM on August 29, 2002

...actually, what Thomas J Wise says. When we were 'allegedly' plagiarising, the key was to find an obscure book, in an obscure library, not the ones on the shelf at the campus you studied at. We should have qualified in 'canniness' or something similar.
posted by Frasermoo at 8:16 AM on August 29, 2002

Lately, I've been getting a lot of hits on my website from turnitin.com, one of the anti-plagarism services. I find it amusing that their search-bot thinks someone would plagarize me...I wonder what subject I'm filed under...
posted by nomisxid at 8:20 AM on August 29, 2002

Nevertheless, it often is very easy to catch a student plagiarizing a paper, precisely because said student usually doesn't understand how to construct an argument with the lifted text.

Hear, hear. I once had a student hand in an essay plagiarized from the key textbook in a first year uni course. Did they imagine I hadn't read it?
posted by rory at 8:21 AM on August 29, 2002

They hoped.

Then took another hit on the bong.
posted by Frasermoo at 8:38 AM on August 29, 2002

I once had a student hand in an essay plagiarized from the key textbook in a first year uni course. Did they imagine I hadn't read it?
One of my former students downloaded MIDIs from the internet and submitted them as composition coursework - hard to catch as there's no way of Googling a couple of bars of melody...
I finally caught him by playing the pieces to class after class of younger kids until one identified the game it came from. Kids who can't be bothered to do the work generally can't be bothered to look to hard for stuff to plagiarise. If they did it would defeat the whole object.
posted by monkey closet at 9:00 AM on August 29, 2002

When we were 'allegedly' plagiarising, the key was to find an obscure book, in an obscure library, not the ones on the shelf at the campus you studied at.

Wouldn't have just been easier to DO the friggin' work?
posted by Vidiot at 9:05 AM on August 29, 2002

I think that tem papers can be an excellent way to teach and evaluate, not only students' communication skills, but also their ability to comprehend and think/write critically about the subject. I have been a lab assistant/teaching assistant for some introductory biology classes, where students are required to either turn in a term paper at the end of the class, or to turn in a series of shorter essays on various topics in biology. In both cases, the students were asked to turn in copies of their sources as well, and I can't even count the number of times that I found a suspiciously articulate paragraph in a student's paper, only to find the exact same paragrah, HIGHLIGHTED BY THE STUDENT, in one of their sources. There's plagairism, and then there's just plain stupidity.
Turnitin.com is an excellent resource for professors, particularly in english and social sciences, where it is possible for many references to come from the internet. (Turnitin.com only finds plagairism of stuff that's on the internet somewhere, as I understand it.)
In my experience, a major impediment to effectively stopping plagairism is the attitude of many professors. At every university I've heard of, school policy is quite clear: if you get caught, you get tossed. And yet, profs frequently don't even report plagairism - they may have long, stern talks with the students, but those students remain in the class, in the school, and often plagairize again on the very next draft of the paper (to be treated to another stern lecture, but no actual consequences). I think that, harsh as it is, if the professors followed the rule of the university, more (not all) students would be deterred from plagairism.
I'm also an advocate of oral or short essay exams for evaluating student comprehension, rather than using those silly fill-in-the-bubble multiple choice exams. Even though orals and essays mean much more work for the professors.
posted by naturegrrl at 9:24 AM on August 29, 2002