Attitude to plagiarism in different European countries
Plagiarism is an important and frequently discussed issue, which may have severe financial impacts for higher education institutions across Europe. However, there are different attitudes to this topic in different countries. Whereas ECTS aims to provide an objective measurement of student effort allowing students to spend part of their studies at different institutions and even different countries, the penalties for plagiarism and other types of cheating may be different. Even the definition of plagiarism may be understood differently in particular European countries. One of the aims of the project IPPHEAE is to identify these differences and try to find common solutions for related problems.The aim of the paper is to present results of research focused on attitudes to plagiarism in Great Britain, Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Cyprus and Bulgaria. A questionnaire survey was conducted in these countries among students and teachers. The results are interesting and inspiring and show huge differences in attitude to plagiarism between western and post-communist countries, surprisingly including the Czech Republic in the group of western countries.
Challenges and Prospects in Supporting Institutional Academic Integrity Through Library’s Services in Central Asia Region: Case Study from Kazakhstan
Libraries become increasingly involved in raising students awareness about academic integrity through information literacy program. Commonly recognized as information hubs, the libraries are supposed to provide plagiarism education with access to information related technologies and services such as textmatching software. Supporting academic integrity by libraries in Kazakhstan is framed in the context of cultural, administrative and technological issues. The purpose of the study is to determine the challenges in implementing international policies and practices in preventing plagiarism and promoting academic ethics by libraries. It also intends to identify the prospects of library involvement with academic integrity in the institutional level, emerging on teaching and training practice, librarians-faculty collaboration and policy-making partnership.
Technology and literacy in the twenty-first century : the importance of paying attention
Part critique of existing policy and practice, part call-to-action, this work explores the complex linkage between technology and literacy that has come to characterize American culture and its public educational system at the end of the 20th century. To provide a specific case study of this complex cultural formation, Cynthia L. Selfe discusses the Technology Literacy Challenge, an official, federally sponsored literacy project begun in 1996 that has changed - at fundamentally important levels - the definition of literacy and the practices recognized as constituting literate behaviour in America. Selfe tries to identify the effects of this new literacy agenda, focusing on what she calls "serious and shameful" inequalities it fosters in American culture and in the public educational system: among them, the continuing presence of racism, poverty and illiteracy. She describes how the national project to expand technological literacy came about, what effects it has yielded, why the American public has supported this project, and how teachers of English, language arts, and composition have contributed to this project, despite their best intentions. A primary goal of the study is to make teachers of English and composition increasingly aware of the new literacy agenda and to suggest how they might positively influence its shape and future direction, both in the classroom and community. This awareness is an integral part of educators' larger professional responsibility to understand the way in which American culture thinks about and values literacy.