Why should you think about plagiarism and academic misconduct now? 

I know what you are thinking, why talk about plagiarism and academic misconduct when the semester is not even started? Well actually this is the time to think about what you can do to discourage students from cheating and poor academic practice. It might be too late to change some of the assessment to make cheating more difficult (if you are interested you can read the next cheat sheet) but there are still things you can do without having to change your course assessment. 

Among the most common reasons for students to fall into the trap of cheating or handing in work with poor academic practice are 3 you can do something about it with little work involved. So what are these 3 reasons and what can you do? 

The belief of not getting caught 

It is a well-known fact that students tend to cheat when they think that there will be little or no consequences. The belief of not getting caught is among the top 10 reasons that students cheat. So take your stance from day one, don’t just put information on your course outline or Wattle site but make it explicit in your first lecture or tutorial. Talk about your expectations, ensure that they know you will be watching and using tools (like Turnitin) to check their work. Talk about the consequences short and long term if caught. Make a big song and dance about it. There will always be those who will try and cheat no matter what but you will discourage a great many sitting on the fence that do it just because everybody else does. 

Failure of failing  

Together with your tough stance on cheating and poor academic practice you must offer early on paths for students who need help to get it. Again, explain what support is available from a range of services from Academic Skills to Access and Inclusion. Give information about extensions and any other support you might have to help those who are worried about the assessment. Do this often not just on the first lecture. Have a “assessment” slot on a regular basis that you use to communicate help, etc.  This especially if you are teaching a first-year course. 

Poor time management 

Once again this figures in the top 10 reasons for cheating and in fact ghost writing services cash in on the fact that some students leave it so late to do their assignments that often require work written for then just 12 hours before it is due. Like anything else there are some people that are born procrastinators but you can still do something about keeping them on track. You can have an “assessment plan” on your Wattle site with reminders of when they should be starting to do things or what point of their work they should be. You can in your “assessment” slot (I was talking about above) have a quick in person reminder of what they should be doing that week to keep up with their assessment. You can use the Announcements or Forum on Wattle giving regularly a little prompt on what they have learned that week and what they should be doing in preparation for assessment coming up. There is no point reminding students that assessment is due the week before it is due as by then for some it will be already too late. 

Let us know if you would like to have a chat about strategies to reduce plagiarism and academic misconduct at education.cass@anu.edu.au.