Your Cheatin' Art

I never cheated in school. Never. I slacked from time to time, but no cheating. I thought that was the norm - but apparently not. My mind has been overwhelmed by all the governmental and corporate lying, cheating and stealing being exposed via the media. Seems like a new story everyday.  But it was extra sad to read this article by Charles Euchner in "The American ." According to some of the statistics in the article, we seem to be breeding a generation of cheaters. The central example in this article is about plagiarized or written-for-hire Art History research papers. According to Mr. Euchner, these types of cheating practices have been made more attractive and tempting by the expedient and impersonal nature of the Web. Apparently professors and teachers are fighting back. They are using various Web-based technologies to catch the cheating students.

There are a lot of interesting legal, moral and philosophical issues to consider in this high-tech cheating scenario, but what captures my attention are the policy-related solutions universities and colleges are considering to help control these burgeoning cheating practices. Solutions range from establishing honor boards and honor codes to stiffening the consequences for cheating. While this might help some, all educational organizations might want to consider examining the basic definition of what constitutes cheating within the context of what has been made possible by new technologies.

In my experience, a lot of organizations, including educationally focused ones, have underestimated the need for deep policy revision as it relates to the use of Web-based technologies. The invention of the World Wide Web offers a serious movable type-type change in information dissemination and communications. This milestone, at the very least, warrants the establishment of an organizational policy task force. This task force would examine how policies and standards may be impacted by the new types of communications and transactions now possible given the existence of the Web. Subsequently, policy revisions should be made to ensure that colleges and universities are protecting their own interests and the interests of those they educate.

And one small tip: when reconsidering policies, universities and colleges should make sure that the room isn't full of only attorneys, Deans, and other ivory tower types, but also students and technologists who can "school" these academics on Cheating 2.0 and the other twenty-first century possibilities of the Web.