I can remember the first time I heard about people buying research papers. I was shocked that such a thing was possible. This of course was before "Turn It In" existed, giving professors the ability to be able to check your work against existing published documents. It blew my mind that people would actually buy other peoples school work to pass off as their own but I guess it shouldn't have. Cheating is not as uncommon as one would hope. With online learning I would imagine that it would be more common than in a classroom setting since no one is there to see if you are doing your own work or taking your own exams. Having integrity is more important than ever. The sad thing is the only person that suffers when you cheat is yourself. Education seems to be the only place where we spend money and don't really care if we get what we pay for.
One of the hardest things for me has always been ensuring that I take the proper precautions when quoting or citing other peoples work. It is such a fine line. I would never want anyone to take credit for my work so I would not want to do that to others. This lesson helped me better understand when I need to consider work as a direct quote from my material.
I found the research this week to be more challenging than in previous weeks. I wasn't very impressed with the doaj.org site. My search was not very fruitful and it seemed that what did come up was in Spanish or some other language. On the flip side of that, when I went to the Directory of Open Access Repositories I had over 9,000,000 results to sort through. It was the proverbial feast or famine.
The concept of Creative Commons is very appealing. I like the idea that one can obtain material for whatever the desired us is and know clearly what your limits are. The ability to search out material for use in creative or academic projects and know your limits is very useful. I certainly want to spend more time researching this resource as it could prove to be useful in future classes and assignments.
I as you was really disappointed to hear that people would consider buying people’s work. I am not shocked. I know how it feels to have my work stolen. I wrote for a medical journal and the editor sold my work to another magazine periodical as passed it off as his and then collected money for my work. He was eventually let go. The research work is steadily climbing the mountain of challenge each week. I had never used open access articles before last week.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I just bought Endnote that was suggested by the Badke text. OMG, what a great product. It links to word and helps to cite sources, which removes the concern you have about citing correctly!
ReplyDeleteI am going to have to check out Endnote. Sounds like a great tool.
DeleteHello Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteYou brought up an interesting point in your Post about people buying other people's work for a grade. What an outrage and it concerns me that students would really stoop to this level. I believe in hard work and although I may be a few of many it is significant when you think of long term success. Also I have never used Open Access Articles for research before either and I am sure it will benefit all of us as we venture in to new degrees. Good luck in receiving your degree!
Kindly
Raquel Gonzales
Raquel,
DeleteThank you for the comment. Short cuts are very enticing for some people. I'd much rather have the feeling of accomplishment of learning and doing it myself, even if the grade isn't the best.
Hi Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteI too, remember when I first found out that people are actually making money by selling essays. I remember being so upset knowing that I've worked on my essay for hours and someone next to me gets an A+ on their essay that they purchased from someone else. It was not fair at all. First, I never had money to buy one and the few times I did have some money, I was always to afraid to do something dumb so I never did. :)
Lourdes,
DeleteI would rather get a bad grade for my work than a good grade for someone elses. I couldn't live with myself.