1 to 1 text copies in IU task [en]

[wizo]

vor 17 Minuten schrieb DerLenny:

Do you think it would be wise to tell the person grading your exam that you caught him plagiarizing?

 

I understand. I don't want to get into a situation where I have to ask a professor whether he copied the contents from a student research project he once supervised without further naming them. Since, as I said, only 3 or 4 students are currently taking the course, this step is also difficult for me. It would only help if IU had a witness protection program and another professor could review the exam. Sounds silly, I know. Do you think the way out is: to finish the project, wait, and later - when there are enough participants - contact quality management accordingly?

 

@DerLennyYou have a good reputation. I can share it with you as second opinion if you don't publicly address the topic with a title or excerpts or names? Maybe I'm just being a sensitive idiot all over the place and care this topic too much?

[DerLenny]

vor 16 Minuten schrieb wizo:

can share it with you as second opinion if you don't publicly address the topic with a title or excerpts or names?

Sure. 
If you like, I can also contact IU. I am uncertain if this is a good idea, though. If there are only a handful of students in that course, they might still be able to trace that back to you.

 

[Gast]

vor 50 Minuten schrieb DerLenny:

Do you think it would be wise to tell the person grading your exam that you caught him plagiarizing?

 

That's beside the point, isn't it. As I understand they do not have a clear understanding of the task at hand. So there is nothing wrong about pointing out that there is an inconsistent and hard to understand task statement. Asking the presumed author to clarify is a normal thing to do, don't you think. At least I have done that serveral times when I wasn't sure about what to do with the task.

 

vor 28 Minuten schrieb wizo:

Since, as I said, only 3 or 4 students are currently taking the course, this step is also difficult for me. It would only help if IU had a witness protection program and another professor could review the exam.

 

That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think ;-). Just ask the prof to clarify the task, proceed with the course and after you've received your grade confront them with what you perceive as the problem.

 

A few months ago I did a similar thing with a course where I thought the course book most likely had been automatically translated, which upset me while working through it (EN -> DE; ironically the author of the original english course book is German 🙄). I asked the prof if he couldn't do better than running his text through Google Translate or DeepL, but he found nothing wrong with it. Fine with me, but at least I confronted him. After the exam.

[DerLenny]

There are two independent issues here.

One is a bad task description.

The other is academic misconduct.

 

 

[Gast]

It's two issues, but they are not necessarily unrelated. Maybe the task statement was created by a third person, so pointing the current person assigned to the course to the issue of its inconsistency also lets them become aware of the assumed bad copy & paste job.

 

No need to spin a conspiracy theory around it. Just go and ask for clarification of the task statement first. That's all.

[DerLenny]

vor 3 Minuten schrieb Explorer:

No need to spin a conspiracy theory around it.

If the IU hadn't had problems like those before, I might be more prone to agree.

 

Right now, I'd rather point out that they really need to establish an anonymous way to report possible academic misconduct. 

 

[wizo]

Thanks for your opinions. After Lenny wrote me a few more things about it in PM, I think I know what happened. The creator worked sloppily and used stuff from other materials (e.g., the thesis mentioned) as example solutions for the project and did not mark them or forgot quoting them at the end. To make it worser, he added "tips" between the examples. That's why it reads so bad. I think @DerLenny agrees with me?

 

I'll keep an eye on it and bring it to the attention of the IU quality department in the new year at the latest. Maybe it will be corrected by then anyhow.

Bearbeitet 9. Oktober 2022 von wizo

[DerLenny]

vor 27 Minuten schrieb wizo:

That's why it reads so bad. I think @DerLenny agrees with me?

Yep.

I also think that @Explorer's recommendation of mentioning that issue in a private message on Teams would help in solving the problem in this specific case.

 

Bearbeitet 9. Oktober 2022 von DerLenny

[Lukas]

Ich könnte mir vorstellen, dass zumindest das Reputationsteam das hier mitgelesen hat. Vielleicht sind sie ja (in ihrem eigenen Interesse) so nett, und leiten den Hinweis an entsprechende Stellen weiter? 

[IU Internation. Hochschule]

Hello wizo,

Thank you for your information and feedback. We are happy to refer to it here.

 

The situation you describe does not meet our quality standards, which is why we want to work on correcting it as quickly as possible. However, unfortunately we still lack key information about this case that we need in order to ask the responsible parties for information.
 

Would it be possible for you to forward us the exact course name with the course abbreviation, @wizo? In this case, we can contact the person responsible for the module and forward the case to our internal specialists.
 

In addition, we would like to emphasize that the mentioning of your name does not have any negative consequences for you and that you are always welcome to give us feedback without any worries. 
 

As soon as we have more information about this case, you will receive an updated answer here.

 

Thank you very much for more information and comprehension.

 

Best regards

Your IU Distance Learning Team