Online classroom presents students with a lot of options. It takes students with strong characters, such as integrity and discipline to plow through successfully, without collision or corruption. According to Transparency International, crime is “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain” – which directly translates to a lack of academic integrity.
Take, for example, a student who can access the online resources of academia. At the same time, the student is required to write a report or documentation of some sort about the online resource material that they encountered. It does not go without mention that most students like the more natural way out.
I mean it’s just a click away. Instead of spending more time critically analyzing a question and tackling it, it is considered too much work as compared to ‘copying and pasting.’
Part One
Plagiarism is undeniably widespread among the student body. In a variety of interviews that I carried out, most students find it too easy to copy and paste. It becomes a challenge; however, when a student ‘steals’ another person’s content and fails to give credit to the creator (author) yet, he earns, excellent grades on another person’s work.
It is the highest form of online academic misconduct. The discipline behind doing the right thing always is alien to most of my peers. Findings from my interviews indicated that most students admitted to having scored excellent grades through ‘stolen’ works – plagiarism.
Another common phenomenon in online academia is collusion. E-learning forums have chat boxes or message platforms in which most students communicate freely and get reverence. It results in cooperation among students. Similar to what takes place in an online classroom, without supervision.
One can only imagine, the credibility of such a test. Students share what they find difficult with their fellows and then and there, get solutions to any difficulties they might have. In addition to plagiarism and collusion, there is a fraud.
It is undeniably true that there are online portals in which students can access, and their papers, projects, and assignments are taken care of.
This is usually at a fee. The quality of the work is superb as most of my friends have admitted to using these sites not once nor twice, but several times, and each time they get an almost perfect score (Jones, 2011). I can only imagine the excitement behind someone handling your project, term paper with professionalism, but what does this due to a student’s competence?
They have scored an excellent grade yes, but are they up to the task which they were required (Howard, 2009). This form of fraud derails the academic capabilities of young men and women by not exposing them to the tasks that are at hand — resulting in less competent citizens and professionals in various disciplines.
However, most students attribute this to the circumstances under which they are schooling. For instance, most online learners juggle between work, studies, and raising families; therefore, they claim that they hardly have time to do their assignments.
Part 2
These unethical practices need mitigation. It is not only upon the administration of academia and educators thereof that are tasked with this duty. It is upon us as students to take action against academic indiscipline. Imagine a world where a doctor doesn’t know how to operate on a person or the relevant procedures behind diagnosing minor ailments – what a shame.
It is without a doubt that the online challenges are only paralleled by the growth of digital technologies. It has, therefore been a difficult task for educators, around the world to keep track of what is legitimate and what is false. However, the availability of meticulous software such as turn it in enables the verification of plagiarism levels and the rebuke thereof for the students that have recorded high levels of plagiarism.
Hence, as much as it is difficult to wipe out the problem, educators are revolutionaries that continually seek ways to ensure genuine quality work.
Institutions of higher learning should adopt such systems in order to monitor what students bring in as their papers and projects. For the comprehensive comprehension of the root of the problem (Plagiarism) It is for the administration to approach it from a different perspective.
It would be easier dealing with what is known to exist rather than what should be terminated ( Enlow, 2010). The management of higher institutions is well capable of providing educators with the means necessary to identify, prevent, and penalize accordingly guilty personnel.
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