Academic Honesty Essay 5

Academic Honesty In this technologically advanced era distance learning is common among students and colleges. Distance learning is more common than regular classrooms. There always has been pressure on students to excel in their academic studies. Students were taught early in their academic lives that lying, stealing, and cheating were bad and there were serious consequences for these actions. Engraving academic honesty in students’ brains by the time they make it to college started at an early age. [Academic dishonesty is a concern for teachers, students, and institutions.] (Grijalva, Nowell, & Kerkvliet, 2006) Because students and facility do not interact directly with distance learning classes, it is often perceived that academic dishonesty will be more abundant in these situations. Online distance learning programs are largely unsupervised and students are often not aware that they are committing academic dishonesty. Researching this issue was not hard to do. Two exceptionally well written articles were found using the keyword search phrase academic honesty in distance learning. The first article Pragmatic Methods to Reduce Dishonesty in Web-Based Courses (Chiesl, 2007) was published in the fall of 2007 was found in the EBSCOhost database and the second article Academic Honesty and Online Courses (Grijalva, Nowell, & Kerkvliet, 2006) was published March 2006 was found in the ProQuest database. Neither article is peer reviewed. The most common academic dishonesty factor known among universities is plagiarism. Plagiarism should be avoided at all costs. Students can take precautions to avoid academic dishonesty. Understanding plagiarism and how to avoid it are both the student and faculty’s responsibility. Most universities have installed plagiarism detection software as a tool for their students. Although this software is available the student still needs to know how to reference sources and cites correctly. Students should

References: Chiesl, N. (2007, Fall). Pragmatic Methods to Reduce Dishonesty in Web-Based Courses. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 8(3), 203-211. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Grijalva, T. C., Nowell, C., & Kerkvliet, J. (2006, March). Academic Honesty and Online Courses. College Student Journal, 40(1), 180-185. Retrieved from ProQuest.