Information Ethics for Faculty: Bibliography

"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."

"New students face the challenge of making a smooth transition between school and university, and with regards to academic practice, there are often gaps between student expectations and university requirements. This study supports the use of the plagiarism detection service Turnitin to give students instant feedback on essays to help improve academic literacy.

A student cohort (n = 76) submitted draft essays to Turnitin and received instruction on how to interpret the ‘originality report’ themselves for feedback. The impact of this self-service approach was analysed by comparing the writing quality and incidence of plagiarism in draft and final essays, and comparing the results to a previous cohort (n = 80) who had not used Turnitin formatively. Student and staff perceptions were explored by interview and questionnaire."

"A study of cheating and plagiarism using a scenario based format, has provided an insight into attitudes towards questionable work practices of first year information technology students' within the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering of Monash University, and the School of Information Technology of Swinburne University. Students at both institutions showed similar responses to a range of cheating behaviours, in line with other literature. Plagiarism and cheating are widely tolerated and commonly practised, at least on the lower end of the spectrum of seriousness. However there were some areas of significant difference between the two student samples that warrant further research to develop strategic approaches for limiting cheating practices."

"This paper explores the context and the implications of an alleged case of plagiarism in a master’s dissertation submitted to a university lacking both an ethical code of conduct and a formalized procedure to deal with academic misconduct. The events evolved into a bitter political process in which the more ethically aware members of faculty challenged efforts to cover-up. Here the focus is on the motives and behavior of faculty members involved in this case rather than the alleged plagiarist’s."

"The reviewed literature reported on plagiarism in the context of the digital era from the perspective of a broader educational spectrum. The authors of this review ask questions with regard to what constitutes plagiarism, how prevalent plagiarism is in our schools, colleges, and society, what is done to prevent and reduce plagiarism, the attitudes of faculty toward academic dishonesty in general, and individual differences as predictors of academic dishonesty. This article identifies research questions that have not been addressed sufficiently in the literature and suggests specific research areas for further investigation."

"In this article, I attempt to deal with some of the complexities of text, ownership, memorization, and plagiarism. Arguing that plagiarism cannot be cast as a simple black-and-white issue, the prevention of which can be achieved via threats, warnings, and admonitions, I suggest that it needs to be understood in terms of complex relationships between text, memory, and learning. This is part of an attempt to explore more generally different relationships between learning, literacy, and cultural difference."

"This research examines the influence of situational ethics on cheating among college students. The analysis of responses from 6,096 students at thirty-one diverse schools suggests that neutralization is a significant factor in justifying the violation of institutional norms on academic honesty. Although cheating is generally seen as wrong, students identify many situations in which they feel cheating is acceptable."

"This paper considers the problem of source code plagiarism by students within the computing disciplines and reports the results of a survey of students in Computing departments in 18 institutions in the U.K. This survey was designed to investigate how well students understand the concept of source code plagiarism and to discover what, if any, specific aspects might cause particular confusion. An analysis of the results was carried out to assess understanding by topic and to discover whether various demographic factors may have an influence on that understanding. Within the survey sample, it appeared that the demographic factors tested did not generally affect students’ understanding of source code plagiarism. However, analysis of the data for specific topics revealed that there are several areas of activity where the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behavior is not clearly understood. These findings have implications for plagiarism education programs."

"if [plagiarism] is inherently indefinable, how is it that the academy still manages to use it as the basis for serious legislation and adjudication?"