According the NY Times, undergraduate students are more likely than ever before to copy text from outside sources and pass it off as their own work. The article refers to the comments of lecturers and other university workers and cites a survey, where 40% of about 40 thousand students admitted to small breaches (“copying a few sentences”).

I am not convinced that this article is yet another contribution to moral panic about the Internet’s effect on young people’s education. Sure, everyone uses Wikipedia, and some may think they can get away with it clicking CTRL+C and CTRL+V a few times. Still, I reckon the same could be said 25 years ago when we were doing it with Encyclopaedia Britannica and World Book. One of the article’s interviewees suggests that, because students do not hold a book in their hand, but read it on screen, the text feels somewhat less like it’s the work of another, and requires reference. But I think because it’s on screen, quickly searchable, and not found in a book at the back of the library’s third storey, it’s a lot easier for use to identify plagiarism, especially with respect to Wikipedia.

I would also hazard a guess that about 40% of students in any university in 1990 would admit to doing their own outdated version of copy + paste, at least once during their enrolment, if they knew it was safe to do so.

The article does, however, throw into the ring an idea worthy of further contemplation and conversation. For this new generation of readers and consumers of text, the concept of individual authorship has begun its demise. For Susan D Blum, who is interviewed for the article and is from Notre Dame University, rising plagiarism is an indication of a future where originality and individual authorship are no longer valued. For new generations, once a text is made, it no longer belongs to the author. Creative work, or worthy scholarship, may be found in the mash-up.

Yet the article’s final word is given by she who coins the term “Generation Plagiarism” referring to a cohort of lazy students have been ill-prepared for tertiary life by their high schools. So the moral panic rolls downward.

Hat tip to Gerry McKiernan, whose blog has a wealth of information for those interested in the future of online education and creativity.