STUDENTS, teachers and parents all play a role in reducing cheating and plagiarism at tertiary level, an international conference on the Border heard this week.
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About 100 delegates from Australia, New Zealand, the US and elsewhere attended the 7th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity at Charles Sturt University.
Conference co-convenor Judith Gullifer, CSU school of psychology senior lecturer, said the event discussed the importance of standards and establishing clear, strong systems.
"Academic integrity is a shared responsibility and it starts from when children are in primary school and their very well-meaning parents would help them complete their homework,” Dr Gullifer said.
“Because what sort of message does that give about the work that they're producing?
“So it kind of starts there and continues on all the way through high school.
"When we get to university, how do we use knowledge, how do we attribute information?"
CSU Learning Academy senior lecturer Carolyn Woodley told delegates an increased presence by teachers, be it online, face to face or through appropriate use of social media could help minimise plagiarism.
"If you don't know your student's voice, then you don't know when it's changing, when it's not authentic," she said.
Dr Woodley said sometimes the assignments given to students could increase the likelihood of “copy and paste”.
"If you Google that question and you find that question everywhere, then that's a problem,” she said.
“So, one, it's been used to death, two, it's only asking for recall in an information-rich time; it's not enough just to be able to recall information."
Dr Gullifer said the delegates had been excited by the sharing of knowledge and best practice.
She said the event proved Albury-Wodonga’s capacity to stage such a forum.
"That we in regional areas can host conferences of this magnitude that is going to have such a lasting impact on the way we now move forward," she said.
