August 9, 2008

Student Put Ashore From Semester at Sea for Plagiarism

A student from Ohio University was expelled from the Semester at Sea program and put ashore in Greece for violating the University of Virginia’s honor code, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The University of Virginia is an academic sponsor of Semester at Sea. The student plagiarized three sentence fragments and a summary of a movie from Wikipedia, according to the Times-Dispatch. A University of Virginia spokeswoman said that all students were thoroughly briefed early in the voyage on the honor code and its sanctions, which involve expulsion for just one violation. The student said her actions did not involve dishonest intent and were the sort of trivial violations the honor code is supposed to exclude. —David L. Wheeler

Comments

1. I’m a student on Semester at Sea, and let me tell you: I doubt the accuracy of this story. I don’t doubt that the student got kicked off (she did), but I’m sure it had to be more than “three sentence fragments.”

   Plagiarism is a big problem—not just on Semester at Sea, but on land-based campuses worldwide. I’m sure (as are the professors, I assume) that MANY people’s papers were “assisted” by Wikipedia. In order to be expelled from the ship, the plagiarism had to have been so smack-you-in-the-face obvious that it’s really kind of sad and pathetic.

   Semester at Sea is an amazing program; the vast majority of the people on the ship—students, staff, and faculty—are equally amazing.

   But then there are the ones who drink all the time, panic at the last minute when they realize they got drunk instead of writing a simple, short paper, and then blatantly steal their work from the internet. And to them I say: “Enjoy your flight home!”

   — Sailor Moon    Aug 10, 02:30 PM    #

2. Sounds like a pretty severe sanction even if she knew going in that expulsion in a foreign port was a possibility. However, it is good to know at least one American academic institution is serious about plagiarism. Where I teach the problem is widespread. Students rip entire essays, book reviews, etc. off the Internet and submit same for a grade. One student, who received a much deserved F for an Internet cut-and-paste job, was offended that I thought she would be so blatant. “You we’re blatant,” I said, and showed her where I found online the exact essay she had turned in. “But I’ve never been to that website,” she said, as if that proved her innocence. Whatever . . .

   — Georgia teacher    Aug 11, 06:54 AM    #

3. I meant to write, “You were blatant.”

   — Georgia teacher    Aug 11, 06:58 AM    #

4. It is possible in the world of today for young students to make mistakes on sources…if something is common property err general domain and free and clear to use then one could spend a lifetime sourcing said material…example 2+2=4 is in the general domain…would I have to source said material??? I believe dumping students offshore in foreign lands before a “honour trial” might be in violation of fundamental basic law…err one is innocent until proven of being guilty…to allow one instructor to decide guilt or innocence aboard ship is in my mind against all academic rules used in America…if not against ship rules used @ sea…in my day (1977-1988) it was any student who used a computer was suspect by the old teacher who always thought computers “be wrong” and that the typewriter was the only correct way to present a paper using only treeversion sources…please let us remember one is innocent until proven guilty either in a “honour trial” or a Court of Law…allowing one person (the instructor) to dump kids offshore in foreign lands is sort-of-like the old Captain who was the boss on the Bounty back in der dayze…

   — voice-of-reason    Aug 11, 07:58 AM    #

5. Voice-of-Reason: This young lady’s material was likely reviewed by services such as “Turnitin.com” for 3rd party accuracy; she would not have been kicked out of the program for a minor (read “one phrase”) infraction, and there would have to be a 3rd party service to verify her misconduct in our sue-happy society.

   Facts (2 + 2 = 4) are permissable; this is a case of the expression of information. The use of another writer’s work – even Wikipedia “writing” – is the use of someone else’s words. Another writer’s “voice” – the unique expression of ideas using language – has been stolen.

   So, where should responsibility begin? A student is informed of the honor policy, and then abuses it. At most Universities it is stated that whether “intentional or unintentional,” it is the student’s responsibility to know what constitutes plagiarism. Severe though the consequences may be, the student was informed of the policy. No one should feel sorry for this student – feel sorry for the society that will have to put up with her and others like her who believe that cheating is permissable, and there is no need for personal responsibility. A program, and University, only remains honorable to the degree in which an honor code is upheld.

   — Anna    Aug 11, 08:24 AM    #

6. I hope Semester at Sea doesn’t do Alaska cruises. . . but the prospect of becoming a snack for a Kodiak bear might well be ethically fortifying.

   — Hnaef    Aug 11, 08:25 AM    #

7. Thank you Anna for your thoughtful remarks. All I have to say is – “kudos” – with all of the ethical problems we have as a society, I think institutions of higher ed. have a responsibility to uphold the standards set by honor codes.

   — Jean    Aug 11, 08:47 AM    #

8. Once stunned by how deep plagiarism runs in the classroom, I now grade under the mentality that every student plagiarizes and that it is my job to exonerate the innocent. And subscribing to Beccaria’s philosophy that it is the certainty of punishment rather than its severity that deters crime, I immediately bring all cases of plagiarism to judicial affairs without thinking twice about what could happen to the student. A time-consuming way to teach, yes. A hard line, yes. But in my mind, protecting honest students is paramount.

   — DLS    Aug 11, 08:53 AM    #

9. Concur w/ Anna’s assessment. The student knew about the Honor Code going into the program. She violated the honor code and should pay the consequences. Students need to be responsible for their actions. This may be one of her best lessons learned from the Semester at Sea experience!

   — Tom G.    Aug 11, 08:54 AM    #

10. Just a clarification here.

    The article says shes a student from Ohio University, but then states that she broke the University of Virginia’s honour code.

    Well which university does she attend? Or is the program jointly run by the two of them?

    As for the chick, dumping students in foreign countries is the best penalty for Plagiarism that have seen yet.

    — Man in Your Back Pocket    Aug 11, 09:15 AM    #

11. Given the information provided, the punishment sounds far too harsh. At least she wasn’t keel hauled.
    She seems to have fallen into the nasty concept of “We will make an example of them” used by those in control who don’t know how to properly control and in a civilized manner.
    Well, in Greece this lady may find her Onassis, buy the whole ship and fire the lot responsible for this heavy handed version of Justice”.
    I shudder that any consideration was even given by the Lords & Masters of the ship that a 22 old Jewish woman be dumped in Egypt.

    — AW    Aug 11, 09:15 AM    #

12. Man in Your Back Pocket –

    University of Virginia is the academic sponsor of Semester at Sea, so students earn UVa credit and are subject to the UVa honor code. In cases like this, there may be additional sanctions from their home university.

    — Sarah    Aug 11, 09:28 AM    #

13. Special rendition, anyone?

    — Sandy    Aug 11, 09:43 AM    #

14. The story as written is clearly incomplete. But it seems some readers take it at face value. We should not jump to any conclusions about anything going on here. The only thing which made this ‘newsworthy’ is that the expelled “student was put ashore”. Without more information, the story falls into the categories of gossip, sensationalism, and being judgemental.

    — Chris    Aug 11, 09:51 AM    #

15. Hmmmn…Informing people of policies and then holding them accountable? Teaching students that behaviors have consequences?
    What will happen next? The return of D and F grades?

    — Tomas de Cali    Aug 11, 09:57 AM    #

16. Chris and others:
    I read the article and your comment as coming from two totally different planets. Unless Chris was there and perhaps was a practioner of the same kind of immoral activities, I feel the story here is not who was put ashore where, but in fact, why. The morals of our society, as reflected by academic plagarism have reached an all-time low. The information age is not enriched by plagarism – only those who practice it seem to feel there is a benefit worth the risk. Rather than the nearest port, how about a dinghy at whatever point at sea the immoral behavior was identified and confirmed?

    — SIGMUND    Aug 11, 10:20 AM    #

17. Cue the plaintiff’s attorneys…three, two, one, SUE. “My poor little baby, thrown off a ship in a foreign land! How cruel! How unusual! How much money wil UVA pay me to ease my pain?”

    And we wonder whatever happened to personal responsibility…

    — gs    Aug 11, 10:24 AM    #

18. Let’s get real folks: she was not made to walk the plank or stranded on a desert island. She was taken to the airport and put on a plane after careful examination of the facts and potential legal liabilities by school administrators. Her parents were notified to meet her plane.

    Semester at Sea has earned my respect by taking this action, and I expect that of all students on board the party boat. Would that other schools had as much resolve.

    — Mervyn Emrys    Aug 11, 10:28 AM    #

19. Why does this article only talk about one student? Two were expelled from the program according to the Washington Post article.

    — rfh    Aug 11, 10:36 AM    #

20. To clarify, I was not there. But I think there is more to the story. The student’s record is protected by federal law, so other than some general comment, I am not confident that the UVA spokeperson really said anything specific about why this student was put ashore. But I am confident that this was not an arbitrary action. I’m in agreement about sticking to an established honor code. All I’m saying is that we don’t really know what happened other than the student’s removal from the program.

    — Chris    Aug 11, 10:39 AM    #

21. Good for Virginia. As was said of another seafarer who was the author of his own misfortune, “Il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.”

    — Gustave    Aug 11, 10:52 AM    #

22. Recently, one of my grad students turned in a paper in which the writing in one section was so much better than what the student normally produced that I immediately typed in a couple of phrases from her paper into Google. What I saw were the exact two paragraphs in a brief article. We could easily have stopped this student in her tracks and she would never have gotten that Master’s degree. What I did was this: I told her that her paper contained plag. material and that she might want to check that out. I did not say specifically what the plag. material was. She returned the document to me about 20 minutes later with the offending paragraphs deleted. She never said a word about her behavior and I, being new to the university, said nothing either. The student knew the policy on lifting the work of others but went ahead and did it anyway.

    My guess is that there is, as many posters have said here, very likely much more to the UVA story than was reported.

    — Ann    Aug 11, 11:53 AM    #

23. Ann, I’ve done the same. Even a good student might take a shortcut like that with a deadline looming. It’s the ones who swear they don’t know what I’m talking about that drive me nuts.

    — Georgia teacher    Aug 11, 11:58 AM    #

24. I find the “single sanction” archaic, but there are so many student friendly safe guards to the UVA policy that to be found responsible suggests that this was indeed a blatant case. Wikipedia…really? Of all the online databases available, our young scholars resort to an open source rag like Wikipedia. This sounds like a case of lazy scholarship coming back to bite them.

    — Observer of Unfortunate Trends    Aug 11, 12:03 PM    #

25. Though I suppose the student could always have claimed that she was the author of the Wikipedia material in question. Who could prove that she wasn’t?

    — Gustave    Aug 11, 12:15 PM    #

26. Gutave, you rascal, you! I think you may have hit on an idea (excuse!) that could spread through higher ed like wildfire.

    — Tomas de Cali    Aug 11, 12:42 PM    #

27. As a secondary educator, I applaude this measure. Students MUST understand and accept the consequences of their egregious choices. Two years ago, I chaperoned a group of seventeen high school students on a twenty-eight day exchange to Germany. On the third day, two students violated our alcohol policy (“surprised?”). To the dismay of the Germans and the student’s parents, my colleague and I promptly put the seventeen year olds on a flight home, no refunds! Of course, we had clearly outlined the rules prior to our departure. The student’s parents were tremendously out spoken about the “severe consequences.” As if they “came out of the blue?” Please!!
    To those of you in higher ed, I want you to know secondary educators consistently speak about the spectrum of behaviors potentially able to implode one’s post secondary experience. Academic integrity is at the TOP of our list.

    — CF    Aug 11, 01:06 PM    #

28. Shakespeare would say this is much ado about nothing . . .

    We can get ourselves into a hissy fit about student behaviors, or we can construct situations that ensure valid effort. I tell students that I divide the grade by the number of people who wrote the paper. Works like a charm.

    — Cathie M. Currie    Aug 11, 01:27 PM    #

29. I was a student on Semester at Sea this spring, and I agree with comment #2 Sailor Moon — overall the program is excellent, but there are a lot of people who treat this study abroad program as a semester-long vacation (it’s not) and don’t give their studies the same attention they would (I hope) at their home institutions.

    That said, internet is not free on the ship, but there are a few free sites you can access and Wikipedia’s one of them. That definitely doesn’t justify plagiarism, and I’m sure it wasn’t just a sentence fragment or two that was pulled, but I’m just putting it in context for the landlubbers who have free and fast internet access all day long. This spring, we got 250 free minutes (for the entire 109-day voyage) and had to pay out of pocket for more online time . I bought a twelve-hour package that lasted me the rest of the semester for $250 — getting an internet satellite signal on a ship isn’t cheap, and they don’t have bandwidth to allow everyone on all the time as much as they want, so they have to limit it.

    Hopefully this incident will make everyone see this program as a legitimate academic endeavor instead of a semester-long booze cruise, because I’m getting really tired of having to justify my academic interests in places beyond my own country’s boundaries to people who assume the only reason you’d ever leave the USA is to go on a beer-soaked vacation. Semester at Sea rocks if you’re not wasted all the time. It’s been so incredible to see everything going on in the Beijing Olympics and know that I was just there a few months ago, but at the same time, I remember people sleeping on the buses as we drove up to the Great Wall because they had gone out to a bar the night before and had prioritized that over being awake enough the next day to see one of the wonders of the world.

    — Danielle    Aug 11, 02:32 PM    #

30. Ayeeeee, would this rotten wench not take her forty lashes ‘for walkin’ the plank on my ship, matey? Arggghhhhhhh!!!!!

    — Saltnpepperbeard the Honest Pirate    Aug 11, 02:56 PM    #

31. Is it because students are so unfamiliar with the proces of citing the works of others? Perhaps we should require each class of students to demonstrate their ability to cite correctly by doing cite drills the first week of classes?

    I encounter professors who have no clue how to cite the works of others, even when I explain I can’t post their work until they do – what’s really at the heart of all the cheatin’? Careless or Clueless?

    — Patt, it's Dutch...    Aug 11, 04:33 PM    #

32. Ms Currie (#30),

    Although I agree that your innovative methods of dealing with cheating are commendable, your comment that this issue about cheating is “much ado about nothing” (and Shakespeare wasn’t even addressing such an issue) verges on ill-advised and blatantly wrong.

    — Ole Perfesser    Aug 11, 05:32 PM    #

33. “to allow one instructor to decide guilt or innocence aboard ship is in my mind against all academic rules used in America…if not against ship rules used @ sea”

    ROTFL at this. I find it a charming notion that there are extensive international agreements of law vis a vis academic expulsion of plagiarists at sea. Aside from some legalities regarding whether someone is put off in the middle of the ocean, at best you might get “what the Captain says goes,” which could potentially be much less sound than “what the academic institution’s previously stated policy rules” in such a case.

    — Aghast Avast    Aug 11, 06:51 PM    #

34. Single sanction or zero tolerance policies are fundamentally flawed, allowing for no situational flexibility. We cannot know the details of the infraction or the process involved. However, it is difficult not to believe that this could have been an effective “teachable moment” for the students involved as well as the academic community as a whole. Failing the assignment or the course, along with a community discussion on plagiarism could have furthered the understanding of all students on the seriousness of plagiarism, and helped underscored the academic intent and seriousness of the SAS program, which unfortunately UVA appears to deem necessary.

    — Paul    Aug 12, 10:13 AM    #

35. I’m on Semester at Sea right now…and I think the penalty of the crime is pretty harsh, but that’s the rule and she knew that. I also like eating the cheesburgers on Semester at Sea…they are delicious! Semester at Sea is a good time! Mango smoothies are the best!

    — Tom Paulson    Aug 12, 10:17 AM    #

36. Nobody has yet addressed the student’s own response to being caught plagiarizing. According to the article’s author, she said “her actions did not involve dishonest intent and were the sort of trivial violations the honor code is supposed to exclude.” I think the combination of her action and reaction would be enough to convince me that this student was not going to learn much from the incident unless the consequences were serious.

    — amac    Aug 12, 11:19 AM    #

37. Until we see the paper and then the alleged “sourced” phrases, its hard to decide how harsh this students penalty is. I just hope its not an attempt to make example of one for others to see.

    In the past, under the previous sponsor, Univ of Pittsburgh, each voyage administration and faculty staff was different. It would be unfortunate if this student was expelled because of a strict staff this semester.

    Hopefully the U of Va has set in place a policy/“code” which provides uniform standards and penalties for all voyages across the board………and that they are applied equally.

    Maybe the Administration would clarify the extent of the Wikipedia copying.

    While I’m still undecided, a research paper in one’s own words,should cite sources and references.

    Current students: make no mistake, people have been (and it looks like will continue to) be sent home mid-trip.

    SAS is a culturally rich, life altering experience. There isn’t much else comparable IMHO.

    — D,o,w,n,s,F90    Aug 12, 02:11 PM    #

38. Ole Perfesser: Shakespeare has often been accused of plagiarism. Evidence does suggest that he . . . hmmm . . . borrowed, lifted, used . . . other people’s writing without due credit — although, if true, it may have been a collaborative ghost writing scheme. But some scholars would demand that I walk the plank for even mentioning the possibility that the great bard did not write each and every word on his own. Truth Will out? Not yet, if ever.

    But on your chastising me on the much ado issue — making much ado about anything rarely impresses youth enough to forego enticing questionable behavior — in fact, adult moralizing can encourage it. Setting limits generally ends bad behavior — except for the really damaged, and those few need our compassionate help. We are educators, and some students do not learn on the first try. Our job is to make sure that they never succeed in their misbehavior — and that they learn to do what is right.

    The military academies have an entirely different reason for their policy for expulsion for any code violation — the cadets are already members of their military corp and, therefore, are public servants. Most college students are not yet so encumbered, nor so honored, by a sworn duty to serve and protect their nation.

    Back to the boat. I would have opted to have the student rewrite the paper, using a typewriter if one could be found or hand printing —- in the bilge — with her parents’ written permission and at least two proctors at all times. I would have brought a good book and stayed in that bilge until she was done. (Before anyone gets upset about abuse — the bilge is usually fairly spacious in a boat of this size, and kept spotless.)

    — Cathie M. Currie    Aug 12, 08:49 PM    #

39. Data always helps. The following text regarding one of the students is quoted verbatum from WTOP —
    http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=1456338:

    Students ejected from Semester at Sea for plagiarism
    By ZINIE CHEN SAMPSON
    Associated Press Writer

    “The professor alleged that she used three phrases identical to those on the online entry about the movie: “when the Germans attacked the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa,” “German speaking minority outside of Germany” and “who had been released from a concentration camp.” “

    — Cathie M. Currie    Aug 12, 09:17 PM    #

40. This seems a litte severe, however if she was given the rules and guidelines at the beginning, she knew she should not have copied anything directly. Also, when the Professor gave the opportunity to confess, she knew she had, but chose not admit to doing so or thought a few lines would never be noticed.

    A few lines or an entire paper, she still copied material that was not her own. If the rules were stated that you would be expelled for doing so, she should have known what the consequences of her actions could be.

    — Martha Sue Breeding    Aug 13, 09:48 AM    #

41. There has to be more to the story. A certain level of due process, contact and arrangements with parents to get student home from Greece etc. If not, this is a good attorney’s dream case.

    — kyle David    Aug 13, 09:07 PM    #

42. Let’s face it folks, many students are lazy and believe that if they attend school, that’s good enough—like buying a degree. I’m shocked to read that a graduate student plagiarized, and no, it’s not bad teaching. Students learn all about properly citing in their composition courses.

    — Master of Prose    Aug 14, 06:07 PM    #

43. What we seem to forget is the fact that 18-20 year old minds are not as well organized as we in academia are about Information Literacy. Our students are often given sketchy instruction, yet they are expected to be fluent in a language that is highly specific to academia. And we use ‘judgments’ to tell them they have broken rules they only dimly comprehend.

    It is the responsibility of the academy to train students to speak “academic,” yet we assume they know it from the start. I do not pretend to know the details of this case, but I have seen and heard enough of similar complaints about students’ alleged disregard of the “rules” to know that we short change the very population we are here to TEACH. If we teach students to negotiate academic discourse in ways that empower them to be smart and informed, we will no longer need to have these agonizing discussions that reveal a deep divide between the digital native we teach and ourselves.

    We educators need to do a better job of helping students negotiate the very complicated intricacies of academic discourse. To assume a single session with a librarian or a handbook will cover the complexities of what we have spent years mastering puts the novice in an untenable position. “Talk like us, but guess how it goes.” What this episode exposes, more than anything else, is how we shortchange our students by assuming “someone else” (Eng. Comp?) has covered this. It is not enough to cover the material; the entire academy has to step up and help students rehearse and practice a skill we in academia have honed over decades.

    — Teachable Moment    Aug 14, 09:06 PM    #

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