It is tattling when it’s kids and broken vases, but it’s something different in the real world. It’s people fabricating validation data and assay results for the drugs your kid needs.
This is why schools have the Tattler Honor Code; people have responsibilities beyond their friends and classmates, they have responsibilities to the entire community. They need professional ethics.
I don’t care if the kid stands up and reports the classmate’s cheating, but how is s/he going to learn to report the co-worker who falsifies data or commits other fraud? It is not easy.
The college I attended had a similar honor code. It was taken quite seriously. Professors were even required to leave the room during exams. I liked the sense that we were trusted. However, I did not appreciate the idea that we were expected to inform on other students if we witnessed cheating. I was fortunate never to observe any cheating by my fellow students, but if I had I would not have informed on them. I was a student, not an unpaid spy.
Now that I am a professor, I would never expect a student to tell me if he/she discovered another student had cheated. As far as I’m concerned, students are responsible for their own academic integrity, not for anyone else’s.
Of course, I take plagiarism and other forms of cheating very seriously indeed. It infuriates me to discover plagiarism. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. In fact, I have completely altered the types of research papers I assign precisely because plagiarism occurs so often. But I am sadly certain that cheating still occurs, and I know I can never detect every case.
I’d like to think I would turn her in but I’m not sure. What I probably would do is anonymously email her telling her that I knew her post was plagerized and give her a chance to take it down or correct the cites. I’d let her know that I felt that otherwise I had to report her because of the honor code and if she made no changes I’d turn her in.
What sort of a topic are you talking about? What is the purpose of the discussion board?
If it is to discuss ideas I wouldn’t have too much of a problem with what happened…
If it is supposed to represent some sort of creation of ideas - then it’s different.
Squealers are never much loved by the community of which they are a part nor by the authorities to whom they squeal. Why is that, I wonder?
Though I can imagine situations where informing the authorities would be the only right thing to do, this isn’t one of them.
I voted for “mind your own business” on this basis. Unless they are doing something weird with that message board, it is unreasonable to hold people’s posts there to the same standards you would an assignment.
Why does he “have to” reply to a message? What exactly is the assignment?
Is this some very basic introduction to computers, where the students are graded on their ability to sign up and post messages to a board? If so, then is the content of the message an issue?If she correctly demonstrates a mastery of the technical details of posting, does it matter if the content of the message is copied? Is she graded on it at all?
Or, on the other hand, if she has to write an original essay, demonstrating her own knowledge and understanding of a particular subject, then why is it required to post it on a discussion board? Why isn’t it an essay submitted on paper?
Classroom discussion boards are a pretty common thing these days. Particularly with online-only courses or giant lecture courses, it’s an attempt to replicate the back and forth discussion you get in the best smaller class settings.
The message board is only accessible by the class members and teachers. Typically there will be regular assignments to write posts based on class material. E.g., once a week everyone has to write a one-paragraph post about on the reading material for next week, and reply to two other posts from other class members. With a few sentences about introductory class material, nobody is expecting completely original ideas, but everyone should definitely be putting the ideas in their own words.
While in theory this should be like any other short writing assignment, in my limited experience nobody takes them seriously. A lot of students write a few barely coherent sentences at 11:55 PM on the last day of the week, and the instructor gives credit for everything that passes a low bar for coherence. Often it works out similar to a “participation” grade for maybe 10%-20% of the final grade, where everyone gets credit if they make even a token effort.
But plagiarism is still absolutely unacceptable. If I were instructor I would appreciate the tip, though a lot of plagiarists are so ridiculously obvious that I wouldn’t need the help. It’s not hard to spot when they copy all the Wikipedia[5] footnote[6,7] numbering[8], and even if they remember to remove that, Wikipedia has a very strange “voice” that’s unlike any normal writing.
It’s fairly common in US colleges and universities (particularly in social sciences) to require students to contribute to online discussions on the course website about the study topic. The professor might say, “tonight, I want everyone to post three questions about today’s material, and respond to three other students’ questions,” or something along those lines. It’s essentially just to make sure the students are doing the reading and/or listening to the lectures. But the assignments are scored; if you don’t do them (or don’t do them properly), your grade will be worse.
For example, in a Middle Eastern politics class the professor asked everyone to think of examples of checks on majority rule in democracies, like the Turkish military (which overthrows the government every time an antidemocratic (read Islamist) party takes power).
I’m with you. I don’t put the same importance on plagiarism that many here do, but she’s putting him in a bad spot with such obvious plagiarism. Maybe even just post it as a ‘friendly’ warning… delete the post, and don’t plagiarize again, or ‘someone’ is going to see it and narc on you to the prof.
My son’s elementary school has a whole ‘tattling vs. telling’ thing, where I think the point is your motivation. If your goal is to get the other person into trouble, it’s tattling, not OK, if your goal is to get someone out of trouble, it’s telling, and OK.
I had to go look it up, not my class so I only know what he bitches about.
The discussion board is 20% of the total grade. there is one almost every week, most are worth 10 points, some are worth 20. For reference point a 2+ page paper is 30 points.
It would be easier to C&P, but that would be a bit …
The students are expected to post an original post by Wednesday of each week. They must respond to at least two other posters and respond to any replies in their thread. The replies must add to the conversation. They should reply to the replies to their posts in the other threads.
The posts should be in their own words. Any sources other than textbook, common knowledge, or what they personally know has to be cited. There is a reminder of the honor code and they are to uphold it.
This is the hardest and most frustrating assignment for my son.
Like August West said above, it makes it hard to do the work when there is nothing to work with. The ones who do write coherent posts are usually so good that there isn’t much to add to them.
While I haven’t read the syllabus or any other instructions for this assignment, I suspect he’s overthinking the replies. He probably needs to respond to posts, rather than add to something that is already complete. Digressions and maybe even opinions would be fine. Say the first post summarizes the conclusions of some research study. He could respond by pointing out the weaknesses of the methodology and bring up a conflicting study that uses a different approach.
I did a year of online graduate classes recently, and all of them had this kind of assignment, and they drove me crazy. It was very difficult to say something substantive in response to most of the other posts that struck the right balance between responding to another student (good) and calling them out or challenging them (not necessarily good in that context).