Reports of plagiarism have led to stricter enforcement of the honor code in online courses.
Coursera, the platform for Duke’s free online courses which will be offered starting as early as this Fall, has updated its website to better emphasize the honor code. The change was implemented after multiple incidents of plagiarism on essay assignments were reported by students, according to an Aug. 16 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Students now have to a check a box reaffirming their dedication to the honor code before submitting any essay assignment.
Provost Peter Lange said he was not anticipating plagiarism to be an issue with the Coursera courses before the reports surfaced.
“Why would you plagiarize on a course for which there’s no credit?” he said. “We didn’t think about it beforehand because why would we?”
Students reported the plagiarism, which they noticed during peer editing sessions. Eric Rabkin and Charles Severance, both professors from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, noted in the Chronicle of Higher Education that plagiarism occurred in assignments submitted for their classes. Rabkin and Severance could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
Students will now have to affirm the originality of every essay assignment they submit by checking a box which reads, “In accordance with the Honor Code, I certify that my answers here are my own work, and that I have appropriately acknowledged all external sources (if any) that were used in this work.”
Only the three courses on Coursera which currently include essay assignments will be affected by the changes, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education article.
Representatives from Coursera could not be reached for comment.
Dan Ariely, James B. Duke professor of behavior economics, said he, like Lange, had not thought about the issue of plagiarism before it came up. Ariely will be offering a course entitled “A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior,” in the Spring.
Before Coursera updated the site, Lange noted that a “beefed up” honor code would probably constitute most of the preventative measures taken against plagiarism on the site.
“The truth is, in a world in which we’re offering no credit and a very cautious credential... that’s as far as we’re going to go,” he said.
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