Only a ‘Netflix moment’ can counter plagiarism
There is an old saying: “cheats never prosper”. If cheating becomes too prevalent within any society, then that society, too, will not prosper
Google searches for “essay writing services” have quadrupled since 2004. April is the busiest month for such searches, August the least. April 2017 was the busiest month ever for this search term, and I suspect April 2018 will be even better. It is no surprise that this pattern faithfully follows the academic calendar, peaking as deadlines loom and toughing when school is out. It is not like academic dishonesty is a new thing; cheats are as old as assessment. It is just that the information age makes some forms of dishonesty much easier to engage in.
In an attempt to encourage my students in their essay writing efforts, I started using social media platform, Twitter, to send motivational phrases and sound bytes. One tweet was: “When you truly write an essay, it too writes you”. After a few seconds, I noticed my tweet had been re-tweeted. I was encouraged by the seemingly rapid response, suspecting that a student was keen to share my academic affirmation with his or her peers. To my lasting disappointment, however, the re-tweeter was actually a shady essay-writing service using an automated process — a bot — that unthinkingly re-tweets anything with the word ‘essay’ in it. An effective way to attract students moaning about their ‘essays’ on social media.
The many forms of academic dishonesty that exist, plagiarism — copying on exams, buying essays — represent a problem very similar to that of ‘digital piracy’, illegal downloading and file sharing/copying. Digital piracy has decimated the entertainment industry. Consider record sales, for instance. Today’s number one singles sell only a fraction of what they did in the 60s and 70s. Video killed the radio star and the internet looks set to end them both.
The entertainment industry, however, is fighting back. The best way to fight innovation is with more innovation. Initiatives such as Netflix are leading in presenting ways of ‘doing entertainment’ that seem to minimise the negative revenue impact of digital piracy.
But what about ‘educational piracy’, academic dishonesty, what are we doing to combat the ease of cheating in an information age? We have developed essay-checking (plagiarism detecting) software, such as Turnit and Safe-Assign. This, however, is not innovation. It is simple automation, nothing has really changed in the way we do things we just do the same old thing only faster. This is just redoubling the old guard.
What we really need is true innovation, we need workflow redesign, we need to fundamentally change the way we do assessments if we do assessments at all. Education needs a ‘Netflix moment’. Innovation need not always slavishly look to digital technology; sometimes old-school methods can provide the innovative edge. For example, with one of my classes, I reintroduced the idea of a group viva voce, where each student was interviewed by teachers and peers on the content of their essay — even if they didn’t write it they needed to know their subject well in order to pass the course. This was also good practice for future job interviews.
Perhaps we need to think even further out of the box. Perhaps, assessment should become the responsibility of employers. In this model, colleges prepare you, and employers examine/ assess you. If you are going to pay someone x thousand dirhams each year, you will be highly motivated to ensure that they can’t fake good on your assessment.
Whatever the answer, we need to find it soon. Academic dishonesty is rampant within some institutions. Ultimately, society will suffer if all of our professionals are under-skilled by having bluffed, faked and paid their way through the education system. There is an old saying: “cheats never prosper”. If cheating becomes too prevalent within any society, then that society, too, will not prosper.