Got a bit intrigued with this article on The Argus UK about a university lecturer bannng students from using Google and Wikipedia, adding that many students don’t use their own brains enough in doing research and analysis.
It has been debated for quite some time that the use of Wikipedia by university students should be discouraged. In recent years, more and more students are relying on the internet for their term papers and doing research. The library has now been ditched in favor of the world wide web.
Prof Brabazon said: “The education world has pursued new technology with an almost evangelical zeal and it is time to take a step back and give proper consideration of how we use it. Too many students don’t use their own brains enough. We need to bring back the important values of research and analysis.” She calls this phenomenon The University of Google.
She said thousands of students across the country, including those at the universities of Brighton and Sussex, were churning out banal and mediocre work by using what search engines provided them.
During my college years, when the internet was sting young and not a lot of information was available online, most of the research that I do came from stacks of books, CD encyclopedias and microfiches. It was tedious, very time consuming, expensive (tons of print-outs) and sometimes the statistical data I gather are outdated.
Back then, I didn’t know Google. I was using Alta Vista and Yahoo most of the time while Wikipedia was not yet born.
“I ban my students from using Google, Wikipedia and other websites like that. I give them a reading list to work from and expect them to cite a good number of them in any work they produce.”
She said young people were finishing education with shallow ideas and needed to learn interpretative skills before starting to use technology.
Compare that to today’s vast resources on the internet. Student programmers can always sneak into Google Code Search and copy a snippet of code, chem students can read up on how to mix nitric and sulfuric acids and end up cooking trinitroglycerin, or totally copy and paste and entire Wikipedia entry on Magellan’s discovery of the Philippines islands.
Of course, not everyone will do that. But, with the right amount of academic pressure, sometimes these kids will do just about anything just to get a passing mark. Most will go the path of least resistance.
Still, I think it’s all up to the students. To those who’ve just graduated recently or are still studying, is the internet a necessary tool in your research?
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What about considering Intute? It’s a free service with thousands of documents that allows academics, teachers, researchers and students to browse for information relating specifically to their field of expertise.
Just came out today:
http://salaswildthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/01/intute-search-engine-for-teachers.html
Now this issue opens up another issue.
How would you define plagiarism? If I change some words to something equivalent or synonymous (so that the professor wouldn’t find it online) and keeping the thought or ideas intact, would that be plagiarism? It still is!
My colleagues and I had a big debate with professors/scientists/researchers about plagiarism last year and we couldn’t resolve the issue. Plagiarism is also very complicated in itself.
okay, i don;t want to start a new forum here…
Interesting topic. I taught a bachelor’s level theological class last year. I actually gave the students and assignment which required them to find internet articles. The reason was I wanted them to get used to using the ‘net for research (some of the students were older and not used to using it). It was a small class, so the students were required to make copies of their work for their peers. The idea was to teach them to use the internet for research and to help each other in the process. Wikipedia articles were not allowed.
I agree with some of the others that there has to be a balance. Just using wikipedia is no good. At the same time, the internet offers a virtually unlimited amount of information–even to those with limited library access.
I used the internet for some of my research back when I was doing graduate studies. The trickiest part was citing it according to the format that my school required.
The book I’m about to publish would not have been possible without internet research. My book is not really an academic work (its a book about relationships), but I did my best to make sure my sources of info were good. I never would have found my stats without search engines.
OK, I’m rambling . . . time to go to bed.
the question is do these teachers ever read the term papers?
the grade of research or term paper constitutes a small percentage of the final grade.
Not unless the student presents a complete plagiarized work, can you justify a failing grade.
Get real.
If I were the teacher, I’ll cut and paste a couple of sentences/phrases from the works of my students to the google search bar. If I see that there is an exact match, even if it is just one paragraph, I’ll let them fail.
Use the same technology hehehe.