If you’re old enough to read this then you’re old enough to know that cheating at school is wrong. Period.
Despite how obvious that should be, in my administrative roles at more than one university, I have had to face the heartbreaking issue of plagiarism by EMBA students several times. In each case, the initial response of the EMBA student when confronted with the evidence was to claim surprise that his or her actions constituted plagiarism. It would be easy to chalk-up this sort of denial as simply a defensive instinct in dealing with a serious charge but there may be more to it than that.
Plagiarism, submitting the work of someone else as your own, is the cardinal sin of academic integrity. Copying material from online sources is by far the most common form of plagiarism instructors encounter today. Academic integrity is at the heart of every reputable academic institution and central to everything we honor and respect as academics. Of course, every stakeholder in the academy - including students - would not have it any other way.
The first time I ever faced an EMBA student who claimed surprise about what constituted plagiarism, my gut reaction was, “Really?” After all, we were all taught back in elementary school what cheating is and that it’s wrong. We all knew in high school that if you looked at the paper of the person sitting next to you in class during a quiz that you were cheating. We knew that copying was cheating, too, if we chose to write out passages from books in assignments we handed-in as our own work in our undergraduate studies. Accordingly, it should not come as a surprise to any Executive MBA student that copying and pasting text from a web page (or any source) and inserting it into an assignment without an appropriate citation is unacceptable.
To move beyond that first reaction and be more analytical, I have to note that EMBA students face a double-barreled hurdle in avoiding plagiarism: (1) a possible lack of familiarity with using the World Wide Web in an academic setting and (2) established familiarity with using this resource in a business setting.
Academic work submitted for evaluation and grading is expected to be original while a business report submitted for analysis and decision-making is expected to be useful. Copy-and-paste some great information from a web site into a report for your boss and you’re likely to be congratulated; do the same for an assignment in an EMBA program and you’re likely to be expelled.
EMBA students have, on average, 10-15 years of organizational experience prior to starting a program and many have been out of school much longer. In other words, as I write this in 2014, the World Wide Web was less sophisticated than it is today when many EMBA students were last in school. Because of this, some EMBA students have limited or no experience in using the World Wide Web to research academic topics, collect information via this resource for academic assignments, and include the data collected from web sites in academic documents.
For EMBA participants, the use of the World Wide Web with which they are more familiar is a business application or project. It is not necessary for a business report to be an entirely original work in order to maximize its usefulness. Indeed, collecting particularly useful information from other sources may enhance the value placed on a business report and earn someone kudos. (Of course, in a business setting as well, no one should submit the work of others as his or her own.)
These observations are not offered to excuse plagiarism by EMBA students. Indeed, I still find it difficult to believe that anyone in a graduate university degree program can be uncertain as to what constitutes plagiarism. I offer these observations as a cautionary tale for EMBA students: plagiarism is easy and tempting and, as inconsequential as it might be at work, it can end your EMBA dreams in a swift and embarrassing manner. So, do the right thing when preparing an academic submission: be original (professors want to evaluate what you’ve learned) and cite the work of other people when you use it.
Despite how obvious that should be, in my administrative roles at more than one university, I have had to face the heartbreaking issue of plagiarism by EMBA students several times. In each case, the initial response of the EMBA student when confronted with the evidence was to claim surprise that his or her actions constituted plagiarism. It would be easy to chalk-up this sort of denial as simply a defensive instinct in dealing with a serious charge but there may be more to it than that.
Plagiarism, submitting the work of someone else as your own, is the cardinal sin of academic integrity. Copying material from online sources is by far the most common form of plagiarism instructors encounter today. Academic integrity is at the heart of every reputable academic institution and central to everything we honor and respect as academics. Of course, every stakeholder in the academy - including students - would not have it any other way.
The first time I ever faced an EMBA student who claimed surprise about what constituted plagiarism, my gut reaction was, “Really?” After all, we were all taught back in elementary school what cheating is and that it’s wrong. We all knew in high school that if you looked at the paper of the person sitting next to you in class during a quiz that you were cheating. We knew that copying was cheating, too, if we chose to write out passages from books in assignments we handed-in as our own work in our undergraduate studies. Accordingly, it should not come as a surprise to any Executive MBA student that copying and pasting text from a web page (or any source) and inserting it into an assignment without an appropriate citation is unacceptable.
To move beyond that first reaction and be more analytical, I have to note that EMBA students face a double-barreled hurdle in avoiding plagiarism: (1) a possible lack of familiarity with using the World Wide Web in an academic setting and (2) established familiarity with using this resource in a business setting.
Academic work submitted for evaluation and grading is expected to be original while a business report submitted for analysis and decision-making is expected to be useful. Copy-and-paste some great information from a web site into a report for your boss and you’re likely to be congratulated; do the same for an assignment in an EMBA program and you’re likely to be expelled.
EMBA students have, on average, 10-15 years of organizational experience prior to starting a program and many have been out of school much longer. In other words, as I write this in 2014, the World Wide Web was less sophisticated than it is today when many EMBA students were last in school. Because of this, some EMBA students have limited or no experience in using the World Wide Web to research academic topics, collect information via this resource for academic assignments, and include the data collected from web sites in academic documents.
For EMBA participants, the use of the World Wide Web with which they are more familiar is a business application or project. It is not necessary for a business report to be an entirely original work in order to maximize its usefulness. Indeed, collecting particularly useful information from other sources may enhance the value placed on a business report and earn someone kudos. (Of course, in a business setting as well, no one should submit the work of others as his or her own.)
These observations are not offered to excuse plagiarism by EMBA students. Indeed, I still find it difficult to believe that anyone in a graduate university degree program can be uncertain as to what constitutes plagiarism. I offer these observations as a cautionary tale for EMBA students: plagiarism is easy and tempting and, as inconsequential as it might be at work, it can end your EMBA dreams in a swift and embarrassing manner. So, do the right thing when preparing an academic submission: be original (professors want to evaluate what you’ve learned) and cite the work of other people when you use it.
