The on-ground and distance education program will use Examus in administrating online tests. This tool is “a web browser-environment to carry out online exams safely. The software changes any computer into a secure workstation. It regulates access to any utilities and prevents students from using unauthorized resources.” Examus tool is compatible with Microsoft Teams, NATI ESL’s course learning management system. In addition to exams and to further prevent online plagiarism, instructors will be encouraged to design and develop diverse various learning activities, such as group and individual projects, small group discussions, case studies, recorded presentations, and lab projects.
NATI ESL school endeavors to develop the creative instincts in its students and help them effectively communicate their ideas. Towards this end, North America Technical school is obligated to maintain high academic standards, and will not tolerate plagiarism or any other form of academic cheating.
A substantial component of cheating consists of plagiarism or using someone else’s work without proper attribution and pass this material off as one’s own. This may consist of one incorrect citation or the wholesale theft of a piece, but whether this is done intentionally or not, it is academically dishonest, and no amount of justification can excuse someone from stealing another’s work.
NATI ESL students need to understand that plagiarizing written material serves no purpose other than to detract from the intellectual worth of an assignment, a course, and, ultimately, an education. Regardless of the extent to which it is done, a student who plagiarizes shirks an inherent responsibility to submit an assignment based on honest research and obtains a certificate or diploma that ultimately has been devalued because it is based on fraud.
Students are inclined to plagiarize because of:
- poor time management and organizational skills
- a perception of unrealistic deadlines for papers
- their believe that instructors are giving them too much work to do
- a lack the patience and commitment to engage in honest research
- their coming from a country where plagiarism is not an academic issue
- confusion about how to properly cite sources
- being subjected to pressure from peers and family
- competing for jobs and scholarships
- having poor research and writing skills
NATI ESL school wants its students to understand that they must resist the urge to seek the easy grade by stealing the intellectual property of someone else. Specifically, plagiarism, which consists of reproducing the ideas, words or written statements without giving credit to the author and may take the following form:
- using another person’s theories or opinions without proper attribution
- quoting another person’s actual oral or written words without proper attribution
- paraphrasing someone else’s actual oral or written words without proper attribution
- resubmitting a previous academic work as a new product
- using any facts, statistics, drawings or graphs that are not common knowledge
Electronic plagiarism has become increasingly prevalent with the growth of digital information, bulletin boards, information servers, and electronic mail. This problem is compounded by students’ inability to critically evaluate internet sources and there is a perception that online sources are public knowledge and therefore not subject to the rules governing standard citation practices. Be-cause there is no quality control on the internet, students feel free to download papers from paper mills, simply change authors’ names and then submit these same papers as their work. The ease of cutting and pasting resources, the proliferation of digital web-based documents and high-speed access to resources at any time have makes it easier for students to plagiarize.
What follows is a glossary of terms that will help explain what plagiarism is and how it can be avoided:
Attribution: ascribing the work or ideas to an author or artist.
Citation: quoting or giving intellectual credit to another’s work or ideas.
Collaboration: working together with someone in a joint intellectual effort.
Copyright: granting an author, composer, playwright or publisher the legal right to exclusively publish, sell or distribute a literary or artistic work. A copyright is the legal protection of work and provides for the originator to be paid for and control the use of his/her creations.
Common Knowledge: facts known by a large number of people that do not have to be cited. For example, it is well known that an untreated metal oxidizes when exposed to moisture, but explaining that it is caused by atoms losing electrons and gaining a positive charge is not common knowledge, and so this would have to be cited.
Cyber-Plagiarism: copying or downloading in part, or in their entirety, articles or research papers from the internet, or copying ideas found on the Web without giving proper attribution.
Deliberate Plagiarism: the wholesale copying of someone else’s paper with the intent of representing it as one’s own.
Intellectual Property: a creative endeavor that can be protected by copyright, trademark or patent.
Paraphrasing: often used to clarify the meaning it is a restatement of a text or passage in another form using different wording, but it still must be cited.
Paper Mill: an agency that for a fee provides pre-written term papers and other so-called educational tools through the internet.
Plagiarism: stealing or passing off the ideas or words of another as one’s own without giving proper credit; committing literary theft; presenting as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
Public Domain: refers to ideas and works that belong to everyone and are free to use without having to cite for attribution. The only material not in the public domain is that which has been copyrighted, and, therefore, protected.
Unintentional Plagiarism: carelessly paraphrasing or citing source material where improper or misleading credit is rendered.
Student Problem Resolution: concerning due process, NATI ESL school will adhere to the following procedures when an issue of plagiarism comes to the attention of the instructor.
- If an instructor suspects plagiarism, he or she will assemble the evidence and speak with the student and advise the ESL Program Coordinator. If the student’s explanation is satisfactory, the matter should be dropped there, but if the issue cannot be resolved and the instructor is satisfied that plagiarism occurred, then the student will receive a zero on that portion of the grade.
- If this is a repetition involving the same student, the matter should be reported to the ESL Program Coordinator, who will investigate the documentation provided. If the student is found guilty, the ESL Program Coordinator will then submit a failing grade for the respective course.
- If this is a third incident involving the same student, the student will fail the course and the matter will be forwarded to the ESL Program Coordinator, who will place the student on suspension.
- If this is the fourth incident involving the same student, the matter will be referred to the NATI ESL Executive Director, who will determine whether expulsion from NATI ESL is in order.
Plagiarism can be avoided if a student approaches a project ethically and is determined to submit his own work without stealing the intellectual efforts of others. The keys are to keep one’s notes organized, know the sources of the information used and acknowledge these sources in footnotes or endnotes. Whether it is deliberate or unintentional, plagiarism suggests laziness, carelessness and the intent to deceive, and it is unacceptable to NATI ESL in any form. If the student has some confusion about how to properly cite sources, then he can consult a style manual or his instructor. This is particularly important when dealing with online sources, which, because the URLs are unstable and often long, complex and confusing, can be especially difficult to cite. Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of the student to become familiar with what constitutes plagiarism and not assume that the submission of plagiarized work will go undetected by NATI ESL.