For $9.95 a page, www.essayrelief.com will write a "completely non-plagiarized" essay or paper. Many other Web sites exist where students can have papers written for them.
"With increases in technology, there are new things that instructors and universities in general have to guard against," David Fried, director of Student Rights and Community Standards, said.
While it might be obvious that buying an essay through a Web site is dishonest, many students don't fully understand Ball State University's Student Academic Ethics Policy.
"It's not just at Ball State," Fried said. "It's all over the country. And there's increasingly clever ways in which students engage in academic dishonesty, to the point of where many students would tell you that it's OK, that everybody does it."
The Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities outlines many types of academic dishonesty. Obtaining unauthorized test material, plagiarizing, turning in a paper or assignment that has been used for a previous course and taking a quiz or test in place of another student are all listed as academically dishonest.
The University Academic Ethics Committee handles academic dishonesty cases that are brought to the attention of the university. The committee is made up of seven faculty members, four students appointed by the Student Government Association, a representative of the associate provost and the director of Student Rights and Community Standards.
When students aren't familiar with or when they do not understand the policy, problems arise.
"The thing that students have the most difficulty understanding is what constitutes plagiarism," Mary Kite, University Academic Ethics Committee member, said.
Plagiarism can be described as submitting an assignment that has been created, even partially, by someone else without properly citing the source.
Another part of the code that students seem to struggle with is the re-use of assignments.
Freshman Tyler Martin said students aren't aware that it's academically dishonest to turn in assignments they've done for previous courses.
"My English professor told our class that," he said. "No one in the class knew."
Fried said students don't think this offense is severe.
"You've done a paper for one class, you can't use the same paper for another class," he said. "A lot of students would say 'Well, what's wrong with that? It's still my work.'"
Martin said students miss out when they don't complete new assignments.
"You're not learning by using the same paper twice," he said.
While students aren't informed about what constitutes some types of cheating, at other times they know what they're doing.
Sophomore Tara Presley said students generally don't think cheating is a big deal.
"They'll copy homework from other students and not think it's bad because they're not doing it in class," she said. "They're not doing it where they can get caught. They don't look at it as cheating."
Presley said that it's the student's responsibility to keep cheating from happening.
"It's our responsibility to make the decision of what's cheating and what's not cheating," she said. "I think the only way to really stop that is to encourage students not to let others use their work. It's up to the individual student."
Associate professor Sally Myers said she didn't understand why students would want to cheat.
"I think people are here to learn, and that's just a way not to learn anything," she said. "You wouldn't think that people who are paying for an education would be expert at finding ways not to acquire the information that they're paying to get."
To help students become familiar with the Academic Ethics Policy, Fried said he is starting an outreach program with student groups and academic departments that are interested in the procedures surrounding academic integrity and dishonesty. The program will review the guidelines set forth in the policy.
"Students would be interested in hearing what you can do and what you can't do and what your responsibilities are when it comes to academic integrity and what might happen to you," Fried said. "We're going to make that available to people so that we can help to communicate and better inform people about procedures."
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
