The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I'm sure most of you are familiar with TurnItIn.com, an internet software that assists teachers in detecting plagiarism.  It can match up sources from thousands of websites and it color codes the matches to show how high of a match it is and which sources were used.  Also, each time a paper is scanned, it produces a record of that exact paper and shows who scanned it. 

I scan all my papers on TurnItIn.com before I grade them.  Three weeks ago, I had a student who turned in a paper, and when I scanned it, TurnItIn.com alerted me that it was nearly identical to one of the papers a colleague of mine in the English department had scanned in.  I knew this professor very well, so I asked her who the student was, and it turned out my student had taken her course the term before this one. 

I reported the student for an Academic Dishonesty violation, but the student gave me a earful, saying how it's not plagiarism if he was the one who originally wrote the paper.  The student is currently appealing my report and we are scheduled to go before the Academic Dishonesty Committee before the term is over.  Sadly, there is nothing specific in the GCCC Code of Conduct that forbids recycling an assignment, so I guess it will depend on how the committee members feel. 

What do you guys think?  Is it dishonest to use a paper twice?  Have you ever done that before?

I was an education major in school (though I decided against that path). I personally don't have a problem if a student uses an original paper twice, provided it meets the criteria put forth. I can see your side of things though, but I'm just not sure I can agree with it.

I don't view it as dishonest at all.

Unless the school or the syllabus has clear and unambiguous policy against doing this then the student has done absolutely nothing wrong.  I did have one professor in college who did include such a policy in his syllabus. 

You're reporting of this as a violation of Academic Dishonesty knowing full well that the student did not violate any school rules or any policy stated by you is a sickening abuse of power.   

If you don't want students to this in future include such a prohibition on the syllabus.  But with this student you should immediately notify the ADC board you are withdrawing the report and apologize to the student.   

If you wrote it, it's yours.  Use it as many times as you like, for any reason.  It's as simple as that.

Gotta say I'm with the majority here. I really hope this doesn't hurt the student in the long run.

In terms of your opinion, I understand where you're coming from, but to say I am abusing my power is a little extreme there.  I feel that this student did not put forth the effort needed to complete the asignment and took the easy way out by using the same paper twice. 

I will admit that I made a mistake by not specifically forbidding this practice in my syllabus, simply because I've never dealt with this situation before.   That is obviously going to change.  This is a learning experience for me regardless of how the ADC rules.

Let me ask you a simple question: did you issue this assignment to keep your students busy, or because you wanted them to demonstrate their knowledge of/competence in a given subject?

If it's the latter, then your student has already demonstrated that (in the previous course).  You should be grading his paper on its own merit.  If it's the former, why not just have them write duplicate sentences and turn that in?

I don't know what the topic of your paper was, but he's clearly already done the research and written the paper.  Isn't that the point of the exercise?

As far as modifying your syllabus to specifically prohibit this activity in the future, instead, why not just make your assignments original enough that students cannot simply submit copies of other papers they've written during their academic career?  If you're issuing such unoriginal assignments, I humbly submit that the blame lies with you.

The only problem with that is it forces the teacher and student into a small box and does not allow for the broad "further in-depth research into any area related to the course material covered in this class" type papers.  Or pick something from anyone of these topics.

For example from my own life, in high school we were required to analysis a poem in junior year English class, any poem in the text book.  I choose my favorite.  In college I had a similar assignment and one of the optional poems was the one I had written about.  The two papers were very similar (I used the feedback from my high school teacher for areas of improvement and wrote a slightly better paper the second time.)  Had the college professor limited the class to one specific poem, odds are I would not been able to do that.  But he would have created an assignment that would be less interesting to all his student (except those for whom it was their favorite poem) and less interesting to grade, because he would have been reading about the same poem over and over again instead of a variety of them. 

Every professor I have ever had has used at least a paragraph of the syllabus to repeat the rules regarding plagiarism, even though totally unnecessary, because the school rules apply even absents it being on particular professors syllabus.  Anybody who has attended college (so that includes all of my professors) is fully aware of assignment recycling unless they are a complete and utter moron or had absolutely no friends in college given how frequently it happens and how openly it is discussed among students.  Thus any professor who does not state on his/her it is prohibited is clearly indicating it is completely acceptable. 

The reason why schools don't have the blanket prohibition in their policies like they do with plagiarism is that not all professors have a problem with it and thus leave it up to the individual professors to set their own policies. 


   

How can you plagiarize yourself?  I don't think it was dishonest at all.  If you write it, it's yours, even if you wrote it a while back.  Unless there is a rule about re-using a previously written paper, the student did nothing wrong.  I would let the student know that in the future, I expect original material, but I would remove the complaint.

If an assignment is similiar to one that I have completed in the past, I have no qalms about re-using my own work.

My assignments are original.  Keep in mind that I teach business courses and the student wrote the paper for an English course that just happened to be on the topic that my assignment was on.


Again, I'll admit that I made a mistake by not specifically prohibiting this behavior on my syllabus, but believe you me, this is the first time I've dealt with this issue as a professor.  I am aware that it takes place and I despise it.  I never did it when I was in college.  And back then, it was a lot easier to "buy" someone else's term paper because the Internet did not exist.     


I'll stop short of saying the student plagiarized, but this is something I despise as well.  To me, submitting the same paper for more than one class represents a lack of effort on the part of the student.  When a student is given an assignment, I expect them to put forth the effort required to complete the assignment each time I assign something. 

The more I look at this and look at everyone's responses, I realize that I may lose out on this one, but I can make changes so that this doesn't happen again.

You still don't get it. 

It is not nearly enough to admit you might lose in front of the committee.  Anything short of immediately emailing the committee withdrawing the complaint and emailing the student and apologizing is being a compete and total asshole.

There was no policy banning this.  You were aware it occurs.  You're lack of saying anything about it on the syllabus was the same as saying it is perfectly acceptable. 

Now you are putting a student who did nothing wrong through the stress because you are on some sort of fucking ego trip. 

If you choose to take this to the committee my hope is that their responses is not only to dismiss your complaint, but to dismiss you as an employee with a hearing in six months to determine if it will also result in a full forfeiture of your pension.  That way you can go the stress he is going thru.  The only difference is he doesn't deserve to go through this stress and you do should be fired. 

While I think this is extreme, I do agree with your general idea Hoodie.  I do believe that Landshark should withdraw the complaint.  Besides not being anywhere near the definition, you will be wasting that committee's time as I believe the outcome will be the same --- dismissal.  Re-using one's own work is something that is standard in the school system.  Plus, I seriously doubt you yourself never did the same thing when you were younger.  You really have to think about the trade-off of following the rules versus hurting a student's reputation and future career (and perhaps your own reputation and future career).

Question for LandShark:

Do you re-use the same syllabus every semester? 

How about exams?  Assignments?

Landshark... I really don't understand your position on this issue. While I've never come across this scenario myself, even in graduate school, I wouldn't have any problem with it and doubt any of the instructors I've had would have had a problem either. If I've already solved a problem, what use is it to anyone for me to solve that same problem again? I'm not plagiarizing anyone, I'm simply using work I've done previously. Preventing me from doing so is, to me, the same as saying that I cannot take any course where I already know a substantial part of the syllabus. I would be reusing my knowledge in that case, regardless of any assignments, and thereby cheating in your book.

What would your position be if a student was given the exact same assignment in two difference classes? With little or no room to tackle a different sub-topic? Should the student ask for a new, unique assignment? Or just fail the course automatically, since any attempt to hand in the assignment would be tantamount to plagiarism? (which appears to be your position).

From dictionary.com:

pla·gia·rism  /ˈpleɪdʒəˌrɪzəm, -dʒiəˌrɪz-/
–noun
1.  the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.
2.  something used and represented in this manner.

------------------------------------------------

This is clearly not a case of plagiarism because (1) the author of the original work authorized the use of it and (2) the author of the original work IS THE SAME PERSON THAT'S USING IT NOW.

If this is your grounds for submitting this case to the committee, you should withdraw your complaint immediately.

Here's what bothers me about this entire scenario. 

The forum's reaction to Professor Landshark's behavior is uniformly negative.  Not one single person thinks he is right.  In fact, the consensus is that his reaction is abusive.  Instead of accepting responsibility for this, Landshark only accepts that he might lose in front of a panel review, and that he made a mistake when constructing the syllabus. 

Both my parents are university professors, as are many family members.  My wife taught elementary education for many years.   Given everything I've been exposed to, I'm shocked at Landshark's behavior, and I question his credentials to teach at the university level.   How can a trained educator risk a student's future by taking such actions without careful consideration?  Not only should you withdraw your complaint, you owe this student an apology.

I can only imagine how this student is feeling now, being bullied by a professor and facing serious repercussions.  Perhaps the university should look into your certification.  Based on this story, I find it hard to believe that you are qualified to teach at any level. 

What I would do:

Talk to the student about it, offline after or before class. Tell him "hey listen, I scanned this using {insert software} and it flagged it, and i found out that you had used this again. I can't penalize you b/c it's against the rules, but be careful b/c this may look strange to another professor if you re-use your own work again - they may not realize you're re-using your own work (vs. using someone else's work)"

I think that's all that you can do here. Don't be one of those professors that thinks the students don't have any other class work or a life (actual job and / or family) to consider. You can't plagiarize yourself, and you can't determine effort that the student put into it outside of class or in another class that you are not teaching - don't ruin or derail this student's academic career by bringing him before some review board.

If you didn't want this specific situation to occur, the responsibility is on you to add it in your syllabus. The student may very well have scanned your syllabus very carefully before submitting this paper. It's not his fault, and it's not your place to do this.

Withdraw your claim now, before students find out about this. Even if you "win", do you think any students would want to take a class with you in the next semester and beyond? Will your college continue to employ you if no students are registering for your classes? Think about that.

Sounds like the student already knows, since he gave the Professor "an earful" and there is a scheduled appeal with the Academic Dishonesty Committee.  It's too late to take back the accusation that the student is "dishonest", all that can be done is to withdraw the complaint and apologize.

What kind of an institution calls the review panel the "Academic Dishonesty Committee"?   Wouldn't Academic Appeals Committee be more appropriate? 

The few educational institutions I'm familiar with appear to use terms like "Academic Honesty Appeal Committee" or "Academic Integrity Committee" for that sort of process.

This situation has me intrigued for some reason.

What class is this for? I want to see the syllabus.

This is dick move man.  You're possibly ruining this kids future for nothing.  You can't plagiarize yourself.  Do the right thing and stop this nonsense.

You teach business, right?  What was the assignment that enabled the student to turn in a paper that was written for an English class?  Was it a stretch on the part of the student, or did it meet the assignment requirements?

I can't go into too much detail without violating confidentiality but it was an assignment that involved a manager making a financial decision for his business unit that he did not have the authority to make without approval from his immediate superior.  This student apparently had a boss that was in that boat and wrote about it in English class.  The majority of the paper was a word for word match of what he turned in for that English class.  Aside from the recycling of the assignment, the assignment did meet my requirements.

Turns out the chairperson of the Academic Dishonesty Committee for this term (they rotate it every term), is a close colleague of mine, and she let me know today that they're meeting with me on Wednesday.  They meet with me first, so I can explain what I found and get their opinion on it, before meeting with the student.  At that time, I'll have the option of withdrawing the complaint or going forward with it (I can't withdraw it until they meet with me).  If I withdraw the complaint, I must inform the student  that I have done so and give him a fair grade. 

If the committee gives me a similar opinion to what I'm reading here, I'll withdraw the complaint. 

I'm curious what kind of confidentiality applies to a professor/student relationship with respect to the subject of an assignment. 

Especially after you came on here and called the student a plagiarist and asked our opinion... 

I was hoping you'd post a link to the syllabus, too...

So, wait... Landshark, you're saying that you'll withdraw the complaint only after the committee rejects it?

Isn't this like resigning after you've been fired?

^^^ It doesn't sound like they will have made a ruling yet so the analogy is a bit off. It is more like going forward with a lawsuit after meeting a lawyer and they advise you not to.

As a current college student, I'd be PO'd if a professor did that after finding out the original work was my own.

If I was that student, there would be a lawsuit in Landshark's future. 

OK.  We're a little off base here.  I'm not saying the student plagiarized because he did write the paper.  However, I consider recycling an assignment a form of Academic Dishonesty (AD is not limited to cheating and plagiarism).  To me, using the same paper for two different courses is like buying two auto insurance policies from two different insurance companies, then crashing your car and filing two separate claims for the same incident. 

If the committee gives me a similar opinion to what's on here after I meet with them tomorrow, I'll withdraw the complaint, and it'll be no harm no foul for the student. 

wouldn't it be closer to tailoring a suit by hand and then wearing it to 2 weddings instead of 1 .. it's not like it isn't your suit

I hope you never get hired at FAU, where I'll be going to school starting this summer.

I can't believe your logic - re-using your own paper for a separate class is like committing INSURANCE FRAUD for you??

How is quoting oneself "dishonesty"? Did the student not cite himself in the "Works Cited" portion of the paper? That's not being dishonest - that's being resourceful. And don't even try to give me the "Well, in the real world, your boss blah blah blah..." stuff - we re-use material and re-use content that we have produced ALL THE TIME because it's A. resourceful and B. time-saving.

The other thing I can't believe is your notion of "No harm, no foul". You've already committed an egregious infraction, in my opinion, and the student already knows that you're trying to put him before some sham of a committee. Even if they laugh you out of the room tomorrow and completely dismiss this entire thing, that student (and every other student in that class) will have lost complete respect for you - and word gets out fast as to which professors to avoid come registration time - which is going to be coming up in a few weeks for the Summer / Fall, actually.

Good luck Landshark - you're going to need it.

You never did answer my questions:

Do you re-use the same syllabus every semester?

I took several courses of the same subject in both high school and college

Such as Economics, Spanish, Physics, US History etc. I am not including math in this because calculus was a continuation of the math in high school not a repeat of the some or all of the same topics as was the case with some other classes. 

One several occasions something such as the following occurred:  I did not read the college textbook assignment and when the  test was administered I answered the questions based on what I remembered from high school.   On one economics quiz in which I did not do the required reading and missed both of the lectures on the covered material I got the highest grade in the class.   I would have to assume by Landshark's logic I cheated on those exams. 

I was really hoping to see a link to that syllabus... What ever happened with that request?

Listen, I hope you don't feel too bashed here Landshark.  At least you had the balls to post about your situation.  All I can do is hope you learn from this incident.  Regardless of your own opinions, there are always consequences for your actions (some of which are completely unforseen).

Lastly, you also never answered my question.  Have you, yourself, ever used a paper or other work-product that you created for more than 1 class?

I assume, and hope, that Landshark will continue to stay far away from providing anything even remotely specific about the case.

^^^ (glove save...and a beauty!) ;)

Like others, I was just curious about how it was worded to allow for this sort of confusion to take place. Is there anything you can think of about a course syllabus from a public college that you would consider either "specific" or proprietary?

Then maybe you can relate a bit.  Let's say you've written a piece of work, then submitted it to two different publications and expect to get paid twice for the same piece.  That's my sentiments. 

To answer Brian's question, yes, the same syllabus is re-used every term, with evaluations at the end of the summer term.  The courses are pretty straightforward across the board regardless of who is teaching them.

To answer Lee's question, no, I never did that when I was in college.  Back then, it was a lot easier to recycle assignments, or even worse, buy a paper written by another student and turn it in for a different course (or the same course taught by a different professor).  The Internet and TurnItIn.com did not exist then. 

As for SunStroke and Jtex, I cannot and will not post a link to the syllabus as it is both proprietary information and has my name on it (not a good idea in my profession). 

Now to answer the million dollar question.  I met with the committee members earlier this morning.  A few of them have worked at other schools that specifically prohibit using the same paper for more than one assignment/class.  However, GCCC does not, and neither does any Florida Community College.  The majority of them felt that while this is close to academic dishonesty, technically the student did not violate any rules because he actually did write the paper originally.  Therefore they recommended that I withdraw the complaint and I concurred.  They also suggested what some of you mentioned (that I state specifically in my syllabus that I expect each assignment to be of original quality). 

The student has my class tomorrow and I will inform him of the situation and grade his paper accordingly. 

Don't most people submit work to different publishers?

Does this mean you're going to give him a shitty grade because the paper was recycled or are you going to grade the paper on its own merit?

What college has a policy that keeps syllabus private, but allows a professor to discuss pending student disciplinary action freely on the internet?

My guess is none.

Can anyone think of single reason not to email a link to this thread to the president of GCCC?  I am sure there can't be more than one teacher with a pending issue of paper recycling in front of the appeals committee, so the president should have no trouble figuring out which of his employees is violating student confidentiality duties.     

This thread is getting more bizarre by the post...

Let me just post something that is on the bottom of every FAU and Palm Beach State College email that I receive - take it for what it says, I guess:

Please note: Due to Florida’s broad open records law, most written communication to or from College employees is public record, available to the public and the media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.

I am really surprised at how many people are outraged at what Landshark did.  I am in school right now, and this is addressed in our Academic Integrity Policy.  I thought based on the reactions here that it was rare, but just a quick Google search makes me think that this is a pretty standard rule.

If in your school the Academic Integrity Policy addresses and forbids this practice than at your school doing so is a violation of your schools Academic Integrity Policy.  And I have no problem with a school or individual professor having a policy regarding this.  However, the policy needs to be stated upfront and not ex post facto. 

The paper will be graded on its own merit.  Because I didn't specifically prohibit assignment recycling in my syllabus for this term, I can't penalize him for re-using his own work.  That's as fair as I can possibly get. 

I will be changing my syllabus to specifically state that this is not acceptable in the future. 

 

Ok, I think Landshark has taken enough abuse in this thread now, I think it's time to let this issue die.

Landshark, I gotta give you credit, you've been nothing but professional in responding to all the comments and some of them blasted you pretty good.  I've seen it go the other way so often, it's a breath of fresh air to see someone try to keep everything above the belt.  Well done.

Just curious if you don't see the parallel between re-using a syllabus (and likely assignments, exams, and other course materials) and re-using a paper.

The students expect the same effort and attention to their individual needs, just as you expect them to put forth effort to fulfill your assignments.  Yet, you have no problem re-using your class materials each semester.

Allow me to weigh in as a college student myself:

I think what the student did is perfectly legal.  He wrote the paper himself.  He did not steal anybody else's work.  He followed all the requirements.

At my school, they tell us to save our assignments precisely so we can re-use them later if we need to.

College students have enough crap to deal with without professors being so finicky.  Coping with the ridiculous citation rules is enough to drive any student crazy.  Why should he have to write a completely new paper and go through all of the hassle when he already wrote one?

What is GCCC policy about professors posting photos taken by others and claiming that they took them?