

Coursera Adds Honor Code Prompt in Response to Reports of Plagiarism - iProject
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/coursera-adds-honor-code-prompt-in-response-to-reports-of-plagiarism/39328

======
tomku
It's worth noting that this isn't the addition of an honor code. Prior to
this, every student already agrees to an honor code when they visit the active
class page for the first time. The new part is that they're adding a click-
through reminder about the honor code when you submit an essay for grading.

------
oob205
“A large part of the plagiarism arises from lack of understanding of the
expected standards of behavior in U.S. academic institutions"

Or maybe it arises from perfect understanding of the standard of behaviors in
US academic institutions. As article notes, 43% in the US admit to cheating.
Truth is probably even higher. I'm not faulting Coursera for doing what they
think will work to curb cheating, but this idea that cheaters are the "other"
from countries where they don't know any better is ridiculous.

~~~
droithomme
> "As article notes, 43% in the US admit to cheating."

Actually, the article references another article on their site which
references a survey:

[http://chronicle.com/article/High-Tech-Cheating-on-
Homework/...](http://chronicle.com/article/High-Tech-Cheating-on-
Homework/64857/)

The second article states the survey, done by "Center for Academic Integrity",
found 22% admitted to cheating on tests, which is the traditional idea of
cheating, and 43% admit to "unauthorized collaboration on homework".

Unfortunately, the article does not properly cite its sources. In particular,
it does not name the survey, who did the survey, how many participants were
involved, what the range of errors is, what the definition of "unauthorized
collaboration" is, how the question was phrased, or which of numerous "Center
for Academic Integrity" was involved. The most prominent according to Google
seems to be the "International Center for Academic Integrity" at a Clemson
University, but I was not able to find a reference on their site to such a
study.

This is a good example of the problem with not properly attributing one's
sources such as "The Chronicle of Higher Education" is doing. Readers can not
evaluate the quality of claims in the article if they can not reliably locate
the sources and read the parameters and constraints of referenced surveys and
studies. It's very unprofessional not to properly cite sources in formal
publications and articles.

> "this idea that cheaters are the "other" from countries where they don't
> know any better is ridiculous"

In my experience (personally as an adjunct professor, and in frequent
discourse with other college professors making the same observations) most
students in US engineering courses for the last 25 years are nationals from
various asian nations. In many other countries collaboration on homework is
expected and normal and students are not taught that failure to show sources
is plagiarism. Only copying answers on a test is considered cheating in much
of the world. Because of this, the majority of cheating in engineering classes
is done by foreign students. Much of this is unintentional because they are
simply unaware and were raised in a different system. In some cases, students
receive sophisticated assistance from their home country, for example Chinese
students in some courses have bound Chinese language translations of class-
and-professor-specific course materials, including appendices full of past
course exams for a given class, with answers and explanations. Making use of
any and all resources one has access to, without feeling the need to attribute
or explain its provenance is considered common sense, not cheating. Explaining
US standards of academic behavior at least provides those who are unaware of
these standards an opportunity to adjust their behavior to conform to US (or
possibly western) standards of what is considered cheating.

 _Cautious readers will at this point be observing with delighted skepticism
and awareness of irony that - as I post anonymously using an alias - my
personal history claims above are not a reliable source and barely qualify as
anecdotal._

------
denzil_correa
A lot of people do not understand what plagiarism exactly means. Of course,
there are those who do and brag about it but there are a set of students who
do not understand what it means to plagiarize. Plagiarism is a wrong path to
tread and this should be explained - perhaps a course on History of Plagiarism
by Coursera?

------
seiji
It's adorable watching professors try to inflict their honor codes on the
entire world. Honor codes only work in the context of a community.
Universities can have honor codes because they control economic penalties if
you violate them (failure/expulsion/non-transferrable records).

Is there any disadvantage to cheating on an anonymous website course (other
than personally not knowing the material)?

You can't compare the motives of an upper middle class suburban American kid
with the popular view of China/India/"Over There" where everything is copied,
cheated, and broken down in a dog-eat-dog society.

Their official statement shows obliviousness to cross cultural issues and
societal norms: _“A large part of the plagiarism arises from lack of
understanding of the expected standards of behavior in U.S. academic
institutions, especially among students who have not been trained in such
institutions,” said Daphne Koller, a co-founder of the company and a Stanford
University professor, in an e-mail interview. “We believe that this language
will be quite helpful.”_

Is the answer truly "U.S. academic institutions are infallible and the world
must comply to our standards?"

~~~
yen223
>>"Is there any disadvantage to cheating on an anonymous website course (other
than personally not knowing the material)?"

Is there any _advantage_ to cheating in Coursera? Coursera doesn't offer
certification.

>>Is the answer truly "U.S. academic institutions are infallible and the world
must comply to our standards?"

No the answer is "Students shouldn't be plagiarizing because they won't get
any of the benefit from actually doing their homework."

~~~
tatsuke95
> _"Is there any advantage to cheating in Coursera? Coursera doesn't offer
> certification."_

Yeah. I thought the whole purpose of the open courseware initiative was
placing the learning of content ahead of the "credit". If you choose to cheat,
who cares? You are only hurting yourself.

~~~
vilya
Coursera emails you a certificate of completion when you finish a course. From
comments in their discussion forums, it seems like some students are using
these certificates to get partial credit towards courses at their own
university, or to show to employers as a proof of their development, etc. So
unfortunately there _is_ an incentive for some people to cheat on the courses.

~~~
Permit
Maybe to promote the "learning over credit" model, Coursera shouldn't attempt
to stop any kind of plagiarism. This would make the certificate essentially
worthless, which would promote learning only for the sake of learning.

------
dubya
Hmmm. I think I must have clicked through this the other day when I signed up
for the machine learning class. There was something that looked a bit like an
EULA.

------
dinkumthinkum
To people that think that this is about societal norms and people from Asia
not understanding plagiarism is unethical ... How can you really believe that?
That's just multicultural BS. They understand it is unethical, they just don't
care for whatever reason -- they aren't that naive. You'd have to be mentally
very childish to not to understand that. The same goes for corruption, people
in the third world understand it's not good - they aren't deluded everyone.

