Academic Dishonesty: the Need for Prevention and Control

Academic dishonesty negatively affects students, employers, and educational institutions. A review of the literature indicates the problem is widespread and requires attention. Advances in technology are making it easier for students to cheat. Someday it will happen to you. A student will turn in such an excellent, well-written paper that you seriously doubt its authenticity. Or, during a test, you will look up and find a student copying from another student. The sinking feeling that immediately weighs in on you could be overwhelming as you realize you must decide how to deal with a suspected or actual case of cheating. Cheating is not a victimless crime, Cheating creates a culture of mistrust, Cheating devalues education and most importantly students don’t learn much. discuss the negative effects of academic dishonesty, the need for control and prevention, and the methods used to prevent and control it.

Academic dishonesty is a serious problem on many college and university campuses. Traditional cheating has evolved from using crib notes, looking over someone’s shoulder, and plagiarizing written works to more technological forms. The introduction of computer technology has introduced new opportunities for students to cheat and has created a host of ethical concerns, computer technology allows students to easily copy and distribute intellectual property without giving credit to the originator of the property. This problem is just another form of plagiarism and is a serious violation of the laws that protect intellectual property, yet it remains a serious concern on many campuses (Villano, 2006).

Ross (2005) argues that the Internet provides new opportunities for cheating, especially Obtaining papers and projects pertaining to computer science and other related fields. Villano (2006) explains the magnitude of the problem by describing the methods and reasoning behind Students cheating on their coursework. Villano believes the Internet has made plagiarism worse, Because students can simply cut and paste into their own documents. Before the Internet, Students asked others for written papers. Nowadays, students can buy a term paper for around $7 Dollars off the Internet (Villano). In fact, Zobel (2004) identified several cases where students Purchased papers through an online source and turned them in as their own. This academic dishonesty goes beyond plagiarism.

Cheating used to be considered an unmentionable sin. However, in this day and age, it has become more common and somewhat of a daily occurrence. Cheating is more widespread today than in the past.. According to a survey from 24000 students of 70 schools we get to know that 64% students admitted to cheating on a test, 58% admitted to plagiarism and 95 % admitted into some other form of cheating.

There are many ways that academic cheating can be prevented by both students and college. The students have a major role in prevention of such type of cheating by not sharing your assignments and by keeping track of your sources. The college can establish a clear policy of rules and can use new technology tools like Turnitin that are designed to make academic dishonesty easier to sniff out. Some new ways of uncovering cheating may feel a little creepy. Proctor track, a software that monitors online test-takers through a webcam, identifies slouching, stretching, shifts in lighting and picking up a dropped pencil as potentially dishonest behaviors. The company behind it, Verificent Technologies, says that Proctor track is currently installed on 300,000 student computers, with over 1 million online exams proctored since its release.

It’s very important to stop the academic dishonesty among the students because Academic dishonesty is not in the long-term best interests of students. Or the short-term best interests, for that matter. The question is really one of economics. If you cheat on a quiz, for instance, and “earn” yourself five points by short-cutting mastery of some material — and then go and take a test that has 20 points of questions on the same material, and you lose all 20 because you didn’t master that material then you lose 15 points instead. There is a net loss in the process of cheating or plagiarizing, even if you don’t get caught. And if you do get caught, the stakes go that much higher. Academic dishonesty at this young age can lead to a much bigger dishonesty in later years. So do you want to be around the person who is dishonest with you and can break your trust because if he has done it the first time he will not hesitate to do it again?

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