Despite increased University efforts to educate undergraduates on how to avoid plagiarism and correctly cite sources, academic dishonesty case numbers increased dramatically at the end of the fall semester.
At least 26 cases were referred to the Undergraduate Judicial Board last semester, up from 15 to 20 per semester in previous years, said Dean of Judicial Affairs Kacie Wallace.
"The majority of them were plagiarism cases, although there were some [instances] of cheating [on exams]," Wallace said. "We had the full range of plagiarism of a few sentences to entire papers that have been cut and pasted or downloaded."
Wallace has been holding as many as three hearings a day related to academic dishonesty since the beginning of the semester, and about half of the cases have been resolved. Punishment has ranged from probation to three-semester suspension, but no expulsions have been administered thus far.
The rise of the Internet as the primary place for student research has changed the shape of plagiarism, she noted.
"The Internet presents some dangers and some ease and some accessibility," Wallace said. "Students are writing their papers by cutting and pasting their articles into their papers and then trying to rewrite them."
She added that students are not discriminating between different sources, using an article from a "paper mill" site with the same consideration as one written by someone with a doctorate.
"[They think that] if they find it on the Internet, it must be okay," Wallace said.
Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek said what is most disturbing about last semester's numbers is that Duke's efforts to educate undergraduates do not seem to be working as effectively as hoped.
"As we've done more and more to explain to students what is and is not plagiarism, we don't necessarily see a decline [of] ignorance being claimed," Wasiolek said. She pointed to the creation of the Academic Integrity Council, Writing 20 courses and a new honor code, as such initiatives.
The statistics list all reported plagiarism cases, not necessarily all incidents.
"[The numbers] are kind of shocking," said junior Sunny Kishore, chair of the Honor Council. "Clearly not enough is being done, especially from a student perspective.... [Academic integrity] has to come from the student body itself."
The Community Standard, a combination of the University's old Honor Code and Fundamental Standard, will take effect next fall and is currently in the middle of an "education year." It will allow for some self-adjudication between faculty and students for very minor cases: failing to cite several sentences, for example.
Wallace said only a few of the fall's cases could have been handled individually between a faculty member and the student. Those minor cases primarily received probation punishments, which do not impact a student's day-to-day life, but does generate a disciplinary record and jeopardizes some student privileges such as studying abroad.
Both Wasiolek and Wallace said the Internet plagiarism-detecting site Turnitin.com was used in some cases to identify acts of academic dishonesty but that often, a simple search on the search engine Google was all that was needed to uncover blatant acts.
"For a lot of students, [plagiarism is] the result of poor time management and waiting until the night before to write a paper," Wallace said. "And carelessness runs into a lack of integrity."
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