With the Internet, BlackBerrys and cell phones, all kinds of information is available at the push of a button - even answers to a difficult test. Welcome to a new age of academic dishonesty: the high-tech age.
Students have new methods of cheating that they didn't have just a few years ago: Web sites, cell phones, two-way pagers and PDAs. Even iPods with wireless headsets can be used for dishonest purposes. Whatever high-tech medium students choose, it sure beats writing the answers on the back of their hands.
"[Cheating] is a real problem [at ASU]," says Barbara Colby, director of academic affairs at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
"I think it is because students have such easy access to the Internet," she says. "It's on their desk right in front of them."
The incentive to cheat
Internet access isn't just available to students on laptops anymore. In recent years, cell phone browsing has become more common.
Today, nearly every wireless provider equips its phones with instant access to the Internet. Search engines are just a few pushes of a button away.
A New York Times article discussed this growing problem last May, reporting instances of high-tech cheating at San Jose State University, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
Students at these campuses were caught reading notes loaded onto their Sidekicks and using a spell-check feature on a laptop for a spelling and grammar test. Some students even used their cell phone cameras to photograph pages of notes.
Ron Yasbin, dean of the College of Sciences at UNLV, says many students think it's OK to use technology to get answers. "For these students - and they are not a majority - every new gadget is another way to get better grades," he says.
And this problem isn't just apparent on a few campuses - it's happening at ASU.
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication professor Craig Allen says the Academic Senate researched high-tech cheating on campus in 2005.
"My feeling is that across campus, the problem is felt to be rampant," Allen says. "Though there was little direct evidence, the committee believed that technology was contributing to academic dishonesty."
Mary-Lou Galician, head of Media Analysis and Criticism at the Cronkite School, agrees that technology has made cheating easier for students.
"It's sad that students who spend the time figuring out how to cheat could better spend the time studying and empowering themselves in a genuine way," Galician says. "[They are] cheating themselves even more than they cheat their professors and classmates."
But for those honest students who work diligently to achieve success, cheating can be a sore subject.
"The majority of students are disturbed by this small minority," Yasbin says. "And the fact that in many cases, they get away with cheating."
Old-school cheating
Despite all the new technology available to students, some still prefer older methods of plagiarism. But even one of the oldest cheats - the downloadable term paper - has gotten a facelift.
Gone are the days when students visit a Web site to pick out a paper to suit the subject. There is now a lucrative market for "custom-made" term papers. For as little as $10 a pop, students can sit back and relax while someone they don't know writes their papers for them.
The problem has gotten so big that college administrators are pointing their fingers at high schools. Colby says some college administrators want high schools to teach students the consequences of plagiarizing before they reach college.
"In some ways, what happens in high school does affect what students bring to their undergraduate experience," Colby says.
Web sites such as Go-Essays.com and SuperiorPapers.com promise A grades, but professors at ASU, like Karen Bruhn in the Barrett Honors College, have caught on.
"I think it's the professors who are taking advantage of technology like TurnItIn.com and other search engines that match up the electronically submitted papers with things on the Internet," Bruhn says. "These services maintain a large database, so if a student uses a paper by a friend who goes to another university, we can still catch it."
Why we cheat
In a time when cheating and plagiarism have become common among students, many of them are blaming the intense amount of pressure that school and the looming job market present.
David Callahan, author of "The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead," says students feel more pressure than ever to succeed.
"Students can feel that the deck is stacked against them, and that can provide a rationalization for cheating," Callahan says.
"Today, tuitions are higher and many students work to make ends meet. Grades are more important because many undergrads plan to go on for advanced degrees or depend on grants and scholarships that require maintaining a certain GPA."
But ASU professors are not letting the high-tech cheating boom affect the school's integrity. As stated in ASU's academic integrity policy, there is a zero tolerance policy for cheating. Students receive the grade 'XE' on their transcript, signaling they failed the class because they cheated.
According to ASU's Student Judicial Affairs Web site, the XE grade remains on the student's transcript permanently. Any student with an XE grade is banned from representing ASU in student office or extracurricular activities.
Other penalties could include rejection from professional programs, suspension or expulsion from the school.
Earlier this semester the Cronkite School took the University's policy a step further by giving students no hope of a second chance. The policy reads:
"If any student is found by the committee to have engaged in academic dishonesty in any form - including but not limited to cheating, plagiarizing and fabricating - that student shall receive a grade of XE for the class and will be dismissed from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Reinstatement will not be considered. There will be no exceptions."
Cronkite School Dean Christopher Callahan says the policy must be strict.
"The reason is simple: We are a professional journalism school," Callahan says. "Our ethics and values reflect those of the journalism profession. Fabrication and plagiarism are considered high crimes against journalism."
David Callahan says policies like that of the Cronkite School should make students think twice about cheating.
"Honor codes work," David Callahan says. "Schools with strong honor codes have less cheating."
David Callahan suggests that ASU could use its students to help solve the cheating problem. "These [honor code] systems work best when students take the lead in their creation and enforcement," he says.
High-tech helpers
But for some faculty, a stated policy is not enough security against cheaters.
Galician and Colby both teach large classes in which cheating is more likely to go unnoticed, even during proctored exams.
Galician has chosen to use the new SafeAssignment program, which compares students' assignments to Web sites and past papers in checking for plagiarism.
"It is a tool for instructors to teach students how to write and cite properly," says ASU Director of Learning Technologies Ruvi Wijesuriya.
Wijesuriya says that the program's first semester at ASU has been a bit rocky. Teachers are responding to the program with very good reviews, but problems with SafeAssignment servers have been reported. Wijesuriya attributes these problems to unprecedented growth in the program's clients.
"Technical issues aside, it's a great tool," Wijesuriya says. "Instructors feel it will be very helpful in their coursework."
Galician says the program also affects students - and it works.
"It seems to me that most students would be more careful when they know that this process is in place," says Galician. "I'm sad to say that [SafeAssignment] has aided in identifying academic dishonesty in my classes, even when students were clearly warned that it would automatically do so."
More than 500 schools in 35 countries are currently using Safe Assignment to oversee student assignments.
Another measure ASU administrators are considering is putting surveillance cameras in classrooms, Allen says.
Regardless, ASU will continue to fight academic dishonesty.
Colby stresses the importance of continually making people aware of the problem - be it faculty, teaching assistants or students.
"I think the word will get out that [academic dishonesty] is not something we're going to tolerate," Colby says.
Despite her confidence in ASU's pursuit of honesty, Colby is reluctant to say the end of cheating is on the horizon.
"I don't think [cheating] will ever go away," she says. "Unless we change human nature in some way."
Telling the truth
Students weigh in on cheating on campus
SPM surveyed 17 students in a journalism class. These students, who have been on campus for an average of 2 1/2 years each, anonymously answered our questions about their experiences with cheating.
Have you cheated at ASU?
Yes - 7
No - 10
If you have cheated, how did you do it?
"I've shared answers for online homework with a friend. I've also had friends do my homework."
"I've worked with friends on homework when I probably should have done it myself. I don't regret it; that class was really hard!"
"I'm sure I have plagiarized some things copy and pasted from the Internet."
"Yes - not on exams, but on 'individual' lab reports."
"On exams, discretely. Just a glance over. Or I would write the words/terms on the desk."
"I used some information a friend of mine had for a paper. She offered to help me. I still feel bad about it, and it was in my freshman year and now I am a senior."
Have you ever used electronics to cheat (i.e., using your cell phone's camera to snap photos of notes or using a PDA for Internet access during an exam)?
Yes - 0
No - 17
"No, I haven't. Good idea."
"I don't trust technology in the first place."
"Too much work. I don't desperately need to cheat. The electronic stuff takes more energy, so [you] might as well learn it."
"I'm not that creative."
"I have bad luck, so I'd get caught."
Do you feel students are pressured into cheating? Or is it an easy way out?
Yes, pressure - 9
No, easy way out - 7
Both - 1
"There's more pressure so people feel like they have to. It's tempting."
"There is a lot of pressure. Some of the requirements [in college] are insane."
"No one is pressured into cheating. They do it if they're unprepared or if they can get away with it."
"I think people all want good grades and don't always have time to study."
"I have certainly been tempted [to cheat], but I'm too afraid of a bad mark on my academic record. For a student like me who is focusing on journalism and planning on going into law, it is especially important to hold on to high ethical standards. Bad habits have a way of sticking around."
"Some people don't take school seriously and are lazy. Others may be too overwhelmed with school and work."
What do you think ASU should do to help solve the cheating problem on campus?
"[Set an] academic policy [that if] you get caught, you get kicked out of your department."
"Zero tolerance is good because that's the way it should be."
"Make legitimate tools to do well in school (mentors, study habits, accessible electronic journals) more accessible and advertised."
Reach the reporter at: si.robins@asu.edu.
