The shinning face of plagiarism: the graying of an issue

ABSTRACT

In 2005 October, ACM issued a new policy and procedures on plagiarism. At SIGCSE 2006, a Birds-of-a-feather (Bof) session had taken place on plagiarism and self-plagiarism. Prior to the Bof, it was amazing to listen to the professorial ramblings about plagiarism such as "I had a student who plagiarized from the course textbook", "I had a student who plagiarized from a paper I wrote." Many academics treat a discussion of plagiarism as the academic equivalent of "What do you think about the weather?" They are both effective discussion starters about something that has an impact, but something they can't really do anything about. I was struck by how fast we academics opted for simplistic and erroneous reasoning about this subject. There were numerous points of agreement. Some include the following: (1) plagiarism is wrong; (2) it is on the increase (evils of the internet and paper mills); (3) it is (sometimes) hard to detect; (4) it is a problem getting "others" to do anything about it; (5) I would rather not have to address instances of plagiarism. We also have avoidance techniques as no longer requiring term papers or having all work done in class.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.1 Public Policy Issues
          Subjects: Ethics

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education
  K.7 THE COMPUTING PROFESSION
      K.7.4 Professional Ethics

General Terms:
Management