We teach at Western Governors University (WGU) which has over 110,000 students from every state in the country. Recently, we were part of a student conduct board hearing with a student who allegedly plagiarized four papers. Ava (we’ll call her to protect her identity), was an English Language Learner who was born outside of the U.S.
Here in the US, we know that original work is expected in academia, although it is acceptable to use appropriately cited sources to support one’s points. However, in Ava’s home country, expectations for citing sources were vastly different, and when she realized the implications of violating our academic policies, her tone of voice spoke the universal language of worry, confusion, and insecurity. We had failed Ava as educators, because the support she needed to follow the rules about proper citation was not available. We had to innovate a way to dismantle those barriers.
But first we had to ask, why was there a lack of confidence and overwhelming confusion in the first place? WGU’s student body includes scholars from diverse educational backgrounds—many of them are older students who have had unsuccessful attempts at college in the past. In some cases this leads to poor self-confidence, and occasionally we deal with a subsequent issue in poor academic integrity.
We speculate that as humans we fear failure, so we seek aid from other sources. For some students, this means taking text from other sources, incorporating it into their own papers, and then claiming it as their own work. Plagiarism may or may not be deliberate cheating. While it is refreshing to learn students like Ava are not willfully cheating, intent is not always measurable in academia. We must cut through the emotion wrapped around intent, and instead focus on originality.
Decades of academic tradition overshadow our every step when we enter an institution of learning; the lens of tradition biases our vision every time we pull out an electronic device to tackle coursework. Just because we have done things the same way for years, even lifetimes, is it the best way to learn? Absolutely not. As educators, we know we must meet students where they are in all aspects of academia, including addressing plagiarism and authenticity concerns.
How do we do this? We create essential, just-in-time student resources that engage students in academic integrity. Ava became the human face behind English Language Learners who may need assistance understanding WGU’s academic culture. Inspired by Ava, we created an interactive learning module specifically for English Language Learners, addressing cultural differences and reinforcing the need for original coursework. We then openly marketed this module to our students.
As was standard practice prior to the student conduct board hearing, Ava was contacted by a support specialist, a WGU employee who works with students over the phone and on digital screen-sharing sessions, thereby clarifying academic authenticity requirements. At the student conduct board hearing, we asked Ava what she discussed with the support specialist. She dutifully recited covered items, but again, her tone of voice exposed complex misperception.
