Plagiarism in a closed world
September 19th, 2008 Posted by: l.dewis
The Register article about plagiarism this week has fuelled a lot of discussion – 58 comments on the original article as I type. The OU student in question found that one of the papers used in the course included plagiarised content. The paper had come from the trusted IEEE journal who then looked into the complaint as reported here.
It’s no surprise that this issue has fuelled debate. If it wasn’t a Friday at 6pm I might write a longer post about the privileged position journals hold in academia and the Open Access movement but I’m sure someone else has already written it better than I.
The thing that most sprung to mind in relation to open content was that if you want to access the paper in question online you need to pay $29. However, the papers that the author let’s say, ‘drew on’, for his work are freely available. It’s very likely that if an informal learner was directing his own learning, relying on freely available work on the internet and judging the quality of the resource on how many times it had been socially bookmarked or rated by other people, the student may have found a better resource to work from than the one offered in the university course. If the course team had used these methods instead of relying on the journal, they might have chosen a different resource (speculation on my part I should add as I have nothing to do with course development at the OU). This is not to say the OU course is questionable. I should stress that the OU produces excellent results and satisfaction levels from its students. But it does raise issues of trust for both students and academics.
This may be an isolated case – I have no idea. But if it’s not, are there disgruntled students out there who are losing trust in the institutions that feed them knowledge? Are they instead using the power of ‘collective intelligence’ online to create their own learning journeys around the web? Will students continue to see academics/librarians as the trusted gatekeepers and signposters of knowledge? And will academics continue to place their trust in journal editors?
Entry Filed under: Communities, SocialLearn, oer
1 Comment Add your own
1. Alvaro | September 24th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Wow, I never knew this sort of thing happened at the OU. I do believe that students are demystifying academics and librarians as the gatekeepers of knowledge when the internet with all its baggage can provide the information relatively easily and in some cases for a small fee. It must feel highly annoying seeing materials of a course paid for pasted on a website charging next to nothing.
That is not to say they should avoid using the OU. Having good tutors and providing further commentary that brings information into a learning context is something I think the OU does well. And that’s where the academics can gain trust again, if it was at all lost.
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