1. CHEATING
A discussion on academic dishonesty
Christina Tolson, MBA
College of Southern Maryland
AFACCT ’15 -- 25th Annual Conference
at Carroll Community College
January 8, 2015
Session 4.6 (3:00-4:00 p.m.)

2. EVERYONE DOES IT
Sports
• Lance Armstrong
• Tanya Harding
• Baseball's Steroid Era
Politics
• Joe Biden’s plagiarism
• Law School
• Speeches
 Business - Fraud
• Kenneth ‘Kenny Boy’ Lay
• Bernard “Bernie” Madoff
• JPMorgan turns a blind eye
 School
• 2 out of 3 students have
cheated at some point in their
academic careers

3. STUDENTS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Technology Provides Instant Information
• Buying Papers - Business is Booming
• May 2013: found that 63% of the undergrad students asked admitted to cheating
http://www.today.com/video/today/52043286#52043286
• ABC news report from 2011 on cheating finds that number is
higher: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/college-cheating-culture-12389056
• Parents help by purchasing papers
• Sample site
• Guaranteed: http://www.evolutionwriters.com/
• I spent more on pizza night: http://buyessayscheap.com/money-back-guarantee.html
• Tempting: http://unemployedprofessors.com/
• YouTube provides millions of ‘How to’ videos on cheating

4. COLLEGE CHEATING SCANDALS
Many of the recent cheating scandals involve collaboration:
• Harvard take-home test scandal
• Approximately 70 students forced to withdraw
• Almost 50% of the students were disciplined
• Duke's Graduate School
• Nearly 10% of the MBA first-year class were expelled, suspended, or failed for
collaborating on an online exam
• Barnard College
• In 2013 the Homework and Quizzes of the123 English course, Major English Texts II,
were thrown out
• Result – a proctored exam worth 70% of the grade was administered to all
students

5. Motivation – Great GPA
Educators are at odds with their goal of the student mastering the subject and the
student’s motivation for a great GPA.
 Mastery
 Achievement
Pleases Parents
Completion of Academic Goals
Better Job Opportunities
James M. Lang recommends allowing the learner repeated attempts for assignments to
better enable mastery of the subject matter. This recommendation works well in
composition and other writing courses.

6. Access to People
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Looking on another student's test
Give another student test answers
Give another student test questions
Collaborating on Take-home/On-line Tests
Collaborating on Homework
University of Nebraska-Lincoln High School Survey Results
Did it Anyway! Cheating?
Millennial's are natural collaborators, and think that some cheating as a lesser sin – it is helping. Given that
collaboration in the workplace will make them more successful, how can we allow them to hone those skills? Be
very clear what work is individual, and provide more assignments to allow them to hone their collaboration skills.

7. Deter the Behavior
Create an Ethical Classroom Environment
Review your college’s policy on Academic Dishonesty
• Include that policy in your syllabus
Talk about Academic Ethics in Class
• Ensure that students know what the college considers cheating
• I can plagiarized myself?
• Collaboration How can we allow them to hone those skills,
• As a time management tool
• Helping others
• It is cheating, but only if you get caught

8. Accidental Plagiarism
Plagiarism without malicious intent
• Using uncited information
• Poor paraphrasing
• Re-submitting Personal Work
Ensure that our students understand the rules

9. Accidental Plagiarism
Plagiarism without malicious intent
Internet: Ease of access to information
• Using uncited information
• Poor paraphrasing
• Patch writing
• Back translations (ESL)
• Citation confusion
• Cryptomnesia
• Sloppy note taking during research
• Re-submitting Personal Work

10. SAFEASSIGN DATABASES
• Internet
• Comprehensive index of documents available for public
access on the Internet
• ProQuest ABI/Inform database
• Over 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6 million articles from
’90s to present time, updated weekly
• Institutional document archives
• Consists of all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in their
respective institutions
• Global Reference Database
• Contains papers that were volunteered by students from
Blackboard client institutions to help prevent cross-institutional
plagiarism

11. SAFEASSIGN
• Three ways to use SafeAssign
 SafeAssignment
 SafeAssignment Draft
 Direct Submit
• Introduction to SafeAssign
• Build a SafeAssignment Draft as a teaching tool
 Employs the Submit as Draft option to a paper so the student can
generate a SafeAssign report
There are similar functions within Turnitin and other plagiarism systems,
but BlackBoard is demonstrated because it is used by about 40% of the
colleges in Maryland.

12. 12
For each assignment use two
SafeAssignments in Bb’s Content
Area:
• Draft paper
• Final paper
• Select SafeAssignment from the
drop-down menu Create
Assessment
Create a SafeAssignment

13. 13
1.Name the assignment
2.Assign point value
3.Write any necessary
instructions
4.Make the assignment
available
5.Check the Draft box
6.Check Yes in the Student
Viewable radio button allows
students to see the report
7.Urgent Checking reduces
processing time
SAFEASSIGNMENT DRAFT

14. 14
1.Name the assignment
2.Assign point value
3.Write any necessary instructions
4.Make the assignment available
5.Do not check the Draft box
6.Check Yes in the Student Viewable
box allows students to see the report
7.Urgent Checking reduces processing
time
Note: The final paper is checked
against the systems database.
SAFEASSIGNMENT FINAL

15. THE SAFEASSIGN REPORT
1. Return to the View SafeAssignment page.
2. On the View SafeAssignment page, click the green check
mark link under SA Report. The SA Report provides extensive
information to help you determine whether you are
appropriately citing your works. This page includes:
Paper Information: Data about the paper, such as the
author, percent matching, and when it was submitted
Suspected Sources: This section lists the original sources
that match sections of the submitted paper.
To display the original work, click the source title.
To display the related phrase within your paper, click
the magnifying glass.
Paper Text: This section shows the submitted paper. All
matching blocks of text are identified and numbered. Click
a phrase to display the Source Comparison Window which
provides a direct comparison between your paper’s
phrase and the source document it matches.

16.  Below 15%: Papers typically include
some quotes and few common
phrases, or blocks of text matching
other documents.
 Between 15% and 40%: Papers
include extensive quoted (or
paraphrased) material, or may
include plagiarism.
 Over 40%: There is a very high
probability that text in this paper was
copied from other sources. These
papers include quoted (or
paraphrased) text in excess.
Interpreting the SafeAssign Score
The SafeAssign score indicates the probablility that the submitted paper contains matches to
existing sources.

17. But, where there is the will…
SafeAssign may miss disguised plagiarism
• Mosaic plagiarism
• Copied language from a single source,
or many sources
• Faked citations
• A purchased paper

18. Questions?
If there is time to share –
What has experience taught you?
FYI…Online & traditional course settings have about the same incidence of cheating.

19. Buying papers
• NBC May 2013: found that 63% of the undergrad
students asked admitted to cheating:
http://www.today.com/video/today/52043286#52
043286
• ABC news report from 2011 on cheating finds that
number as
75%: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/coll
ege-cheating-culture-12389056
Sample sites
• Guaranteed: http://www.evolutionwriters.com/
• I spend more money on pizza night:
http://buyessayscheap.com/money-back-
guarantee.html
• Tempting: http://unemployedprofessors.com/
Everybody does it
• http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Everybo
dy-Does-It-2523376.php
Access to Information
• YouTube provides thousands of ‘How
to videos on cheating
• Access to People
• Collaboration is the norm
GPA Motivates – Mastery, not so much
• Pleases Parents
• Completion of Academic Goals
• Better Job Opportunities
Bottom Line - Professor’s diligence
• Ensure that students know what your
college considers cheating
From the Handout…

20. MORE FROM THE HANDOUT…
To learn more about cheating, go to:
• San Jose State University Equal Time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZbBjBNtuKk
• UCF Professor Richard Quinn accuses his class:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbzJTTDO9f4
• Pros & Cons of Cheating in College:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpwitKo9H3k
• Ten clever ways to cheat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3W_JUS0iVs
• How To Cheat On Any Multiple Choice Test 2013:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok0_K1aVpO
• Or type, “How to Cheat” into the YouTube search engine

21. REFERENCES
Barrett, Dan. "An Academic Ghostwriter Comes Clean." The Chronicle of Higher Education (2012): 1-5. Article.
Davis, Stephen F., Patrick F. Drinan, and Tricia Betram Gallant. Cheating in School: What We Know and What We Can Do. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Book.
Dionne Jr., E. J. "Biden Admits Plagiarism in School But Says It Was Not 'Malevolent'." New York Times 18 September 1987: 1-2. Article.
Distance Education Report - Magna Publications, Inc. "Special Report: Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education." Faculty Focus (2010): 1-20. Journal.
Finder, Alan. The New York Times: 34 Duke Business Students Face Discipline for Cheating. 1 May 2007. News Article. 2 July 2013.
Grijalva, Therese C., Clifford Nowell, and Joe Kerkvliet. "Academic Honesty and Online Courses." College Student Journal 40.1 (2006): 180-5. Article.
Lang, James M., Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 2013. Book
Manjoo, Farhad. Slate - There is no Harvard Cheating Scandal. 1 February 2013. Article. 11 11 2014.
McCabe, Donald L., Kenneth D. Butterfield, and Linda K. Travino. Cheating in College: Why Students Do It and What Educators Can Do About It. Baltimore: The
John Hopkins University Press, 2012. Book.
McCabe, Donald L., Kinda Klebe Trevino, and Kenneth D. Butterfield. "Cheating in Academic Institutions: A Decade of Research." Ethics & Behavior (2001): 1-14.
Article.
McMahon, Regan. "Everybody Does It." San Francisco Gate 6 September 2007: 1-5. News Article.
Novotney, Amy. "Beat the Cheat." American Psychological Association Monitor 2011 2011: 1-2. Article.
Perez-Pena, Richard. "Studies Find More Student Cheating, With High Achievers No Exception." New York Times 7 September 2002: 1-3. Article.
Stein, Joel. "Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation." Time 9 May 2013: 1-9. Article.
U.S. News & World Report. "Most High Schoolers Cheat - But don't always see it as cheating: Study examines prevalence, perceptions of cheating." U.S. News &
World Report 13 May 2010: 1-2. Article.
Watkins, Marshall. Stanford administrators defend Honor Code in wake of Harvard scandal. Stanford, 3 October 2012. Online News.