Student perspective on plagiarism

Abstract

Autumn 2008, four employees at Østfold University College (HiØ), one with a Master's Degree in Sosiology, one with a Master's Degree in Nursing and two librarians, interviewed 33 Norwegian College students about the subjects cheating and plagiarism. This is the first such survey conducted in Norway. There are plenty of comparable reseach from countries such as the US, Great Britain, Canada and even Sweden, but the Norwegian focus on these issues has been missing until a few years ago. We started working with this subject about two years ago, about the same time as some incidents of cheating at a private College and a University Faculty got national interest, and HiØ started to review some of the effects of the reform Kvalitetsreformen. Our survey is part of this project named "Kvalitetsreformens vurderingsformer i høgskolen" (http://www.hiof.no/index.php?ID=14004=nor). Some of the topics treated in our survey are collaboration and collusion, consequenses of cheating, information given to students about plagiarism and the role of the libraries. We find that students, staff and teachers care about these subjects, but perhaps in slightly different ways and with different perspectives. Our aim is to let the students speak, and try to listen and understand, and hopefully find some ideas or starting points to start work with. Many colleges and universities are starting working with plans to deal with these issues, and we believe it is important to include the student perspective in this work. We are planning to release our research in a report in the HiØ's Report Series spring 2010.