One submission for two courses

[marshwiggle]

This issue came up in one of the posts over the weekend that seems to have gotten lost, but it seems worthy of more discussion.

There is a general prohibition against submitting one assignment (paper, etc.) for two different courses. There are a few points which potentially bear on that.

Checks like turnitin are used to prevent plagiarism, and would flag the second submission as matching the earlier one in a different course.

The point of looking for plagiarism is to ensure that work was produced by the student and not someone else, so if there's no question as to whether this is the student's own work, then this has nothing to do with whether it has been submitted elsewhere.

Students who argue they should get grades based on how much effort they put in are told that what is important is to meet the requirements; work itself is not explicitly rewarded.

If the student's work meets the requirements for each of the two different courses, then there is an apparent inconsistency; work that doesn't meet requirements doesn't count, but work that does meet requirements but was done for another purpose doesn't count. So, while the amount of effort is not explicitly rewarded, it seems that lack of effort, even when requirements are met, can be explicitly penalized.

For courses with overlapping content, exclusions usually prevent students getting credit for both, so most cases of material potentially being submitted in more than one course would be prevented by these exclusions.

The most obvious scenario for work being submitted for two courses without overlapping content is for a paper, report, etc. in one course being used in some sort of technical writing course as well. In that case, if the writing course was focused on planing and revising, i.e. the process of writing, while the other course is based on the content of the writing, it seems that the document produced under these circumstances would be better than either of the documents normally submitted for either course.

Prohibitions are typically against submitting one document in two courses; that doesn't address documents produced for some other purpose.

If a student was taking a creative writing course, and had a hobby of writing short stories, essays, etc., it would be possible to submit something written previously but which had never been submitted elsewhere for the course. Even though it was written before the course even began, that would not be considered academic misconduct.



Given all of those points, (and there are no doubt others as well), what is the moral principle by which a student, producing work of their own, which meets the requirements for more than one course, should not be normally permitted to submit it in each course?

[Aster]

Yes, submitting a duplicated assessment from outside a university course has always been a greyer area than most of us would like it to be.

I believe that most of our concerns in this context have more to do with curriculum equity than with plagiarism. But duplicated work is just so less common than plagiarized work, that most university academic dishonesty language has not carved out specific language that explains the problems in submitting duplicated work from outside the curriculum. 

"Work" in regards to a university course would intend "work" performed within the curricular confines of the course itself. Not "work" within the university, or "work" in any other context.

There are intrinsic academic complications with submitting duplicated work from an external source. A big one is that there is no direct oversight mechanism process for one professor's class to know exactly how the assessment system worked for a student in another professor's class. Did the student have help? Did the student have more time to complete? Did the student get to redo submissions into a polished product? These are all valid equity concerns from a curriculum perspective.

Another concern with submitting external duplicated work is with evaluation of the process used to originally create that work. While some courses may not specifically score this, the process as to how a student performed his/her work is very much important to the teaching and learning process. Those formative processes are managed and controlled within a specific course. Those formative processes are often lost or highly incomplete with externally duplicated work. And it makes office hour consultations extremely awkward.

ME: "Why did you use these references? They aren't on the approved list. We did not cover those in class."
STUDENT: "I wrote this paper for another class."
ME: "That is not appropriate. Can you tell me why?"
STUDENT: "Because... um... uh... that paper was for another class...?"


I would also argue that submission of duplicated work is a curriculum assessment problem, and that there are valid ways to correct it, if the professor wishes to put in the effort.

Solutions:
* Conduct assessments within the classroom (e.g. Inverted Classroom Model). For writing classes, break up the writing assessments into smaller pieces (e.g., scaffolded models) that can be performed during class time.

* Tailor assessments to be highly specific to the course, rendering the likelihood of a duplicated assessment to be virtually nil (outside of a student retaking the same course).

* Communicating and coordinating one's course assessments with those of your peer faculty. Keep one's ears to the ground.

[spork]

^ basically agree with all of this

[. . .]

 if the professor wishes to put in the effort.

[. . .]

We have constructed a system (the curriculum and its delivery) to maintain the fiction that every individual faculty member's contribution to student learning is unique and essential. This is why there is no institutionalized process to ensure that assessed work is highly specific to each course, etc.

[mbelvadi]

I completely agree with posters who point out that this is a curriculum issue - if a student CAN submit exactly the same work for two different courses, then there's too much overlap in those two courses for it to be academically legitimate for a student to get credit for both even if they don't copy themselves.

Also the term I hear for this issue to supposedly morally justify it is that it's "self-plagiarism" which is one of the most ridiculous oxymorons I've ever heard, much less seen taken seriously.

Count me among those who think that a policy of banning students from reusing their own work has no moral justification.

[the_geneticist]

My university's student code of conduct explicitly says that students cannot submit the same assignment in two different classes.

Honestly, a well-scaffolded assignment would mean the student would have to do the work in both classes anyway.  If all you are asking is a final draft, and there is no similar policy, I'm on the side of the student. 

If we say we value the process of creating an assignment/essay/lab report and not just the final version, then you need to include a few "work in progress" check points (outlines, lists of references, figures/data tables, etc.).

[Wahoo Redux]

I completely agree with posters who point out that this is a curriculum issue - if a student CAN submit exactly the same work for two different courses, then there's too much overlap in those two courses for it to be academically legitimate for a student to get credit for both even if they don't copy themselves.

I had this one time and plagiarism software picked it up.  "Self-plagiarism" is not a big problem in writing courses, but it is a problem.  The issue is not curricular, it is simply students trying to use something they already wrote in another class and passing it off, which generally doesn't work. Generally, unless a student flunked or dropped out of the exact same class previously, they will turn in a paper that looks a little bit like the assignment but is not the assignment.  This has been my experience.  I have had other papers not caught by the software for which I've commented, "This appears to be a paper for a [XXX] class" and then graded them appropriately, which is to say, with a poor grade.  In other words, students will try to use past material in a class, but it generally does not work too well.

On other occasions I have read papers that look like, say, a history or a business paper that has been rehashed to look like the assignment.  But if the software does not pick anything up, what is one to do but grade the assignment on its merits, which again are not generally very good.

The problem is, did the student self-plagiarize, or did they just write a bad paper that does not follow the confines of the assignment?  Or did they try to write a paper like the one they wrote before rather than reading the specifics of current assignment sheet?  These things happen too.

So I, at least, don't see a curricular problem but a simple problem with students trying to pull a fast one (nothing new there).  Sometimes it will work, as will paying someone to write a paper for you, sometimes it will not.

At least we have software now.  In the old days instructors used to email papers around asking if anybody recognized it when they were suspicious.

[RatGuy]

I don't blame the student in my case — after all, I've seen the work in the scaffolding and it's all fine.

My problem is an instructor in a first-year class who
a) has an assignment so bland that mine could be plugged in and still make an A (this was an intro to research class and apparently the instructor didn't care how the research came about)
b) assumed my policy was his policy, even if that policy runs counter to that of atuswbt handbook, college academic misconduct rules, and (I've come to learn) the policies of the first-year writing dept

[darkstarrynight]

As someone who used to work in an academic integrity office at my previous institution, I can share on this. That institution had the policy that students could submit work to two courses if they had the permission of both instructors. While it could happen in the same semester, there were situations in which students had a paper from a previous semester that would fit an assignment in the current semester, so they would still be required to contact the previous class's instructor for permission as well as the current instructor's. I do not suggest this is a perfect solution, but it does remove concerns that arise from something like TurnItIn if the current instructor is unaware of the previous course's assignment.

[aside]

As someone who used to work in an academic integrity office at my previous institution, I can share on this. That institution had the policy that students could submit work to two courses if they had the permission of both instructors. While it could happen in the same semester, there were situations in which students had a paper from a previous semester that would fit an assignment in the current semester, so they would still be required to contact the previous class's instructor for permission as well as the current instructor's. I do not suggest this is a perfect solution, but it does remove concerns that arise from something like TurnItIn if the current instructor is unaware of the previous course's assignment.

My institution has a similar policy, but only requires permission from the instructor of the current course, not the former course.

[apl68]

As someone who used to work in an academic integrity office at my previous institution, I can share on this. That institution had the policy that students could submit work to two courses if they had the permission of both instructors. While it could happen in the same semester, there were situations in which students had a paper from a previous semester that would fit an assignment in the current semester, so they would still be required to contact the previous class's instructor for permission as well as the current instructor's. I do not suggest this is a perfect solution, but it does remove concerns that arise from something like TurnItIn if the current instructor is unaware of the previous course's assignment.

My institution has a similar policy, but only requires permission from the instructor of the current course, not the former course.

As someone who used to work in an academic integrity office at my previous institution, I can share on this. That institution had the policy that students could submit work to two courses if they had the permission of both instructors. While it could happen in the same semester, there were situations in which students had a paper from a previous semester that would fit an assignment in the current semester, so they would still be required to contact the previous class's instructor for permission as well as the current instructor's. I do not suggest this is a perfect solution, but it does remove concerns that arise from something like TurnItIn if the current instructor is unaware of the previous course's assignment.

Unless it's a small school where everybody is easy to get to, I'd think it might be easier to just do a new assignment than to try to get both profs to agree to that.

[marshwiggle]

As someone who used to work in an academic integrity office at my previous institution, I can share on this. That institution had the policy that students could submit work to two courses if they had the permission of both instructors. While it could happen in the same semester, there were situations in which students had a paper from a previous semester that would fit an assignment in the current semester, so they would still be required to contact the previous class's instructor for permission as well as the current instructor's. I do not suggest this is a perfect solution, but it does remove concerns that arise from something like TurnItIn if the current instructor is unaware of the previous course's assignment.

What possible objection could a former instructor have? If a student wrote an essay or short story for a course, should they have to get the prof's permission if later in life they want to publish it???? Does it cease to be the student's own intellectual property once its been submitted for a course???

[darkstarrynight]

As someone who used to work in an academic integrity office at my previous institution, I can share on this. That institution had the policy that students could submit work to two courses if they had the permission of both instructors. While it could happen in the same semester, there were situations in which students had a paper from a previous semester that would fit an assignment in the current semester, so they would still be required to contact the previous class's instructor for permission as well as the current instructor's. I do not suggest this is a perfect solution, but it does remove concerns that arise from something like TurnItIn if the current instructor is unaware of the previous course's assignment.

What possible objection could a former instructor have? If a student wrote an essay or short story for a course, should they have to get the prof's permission if later in life they want to publish it???? Does it cease to be the student's own intellectual property once its been submitted for a course???

Good point. I think it may help, for example, in the situation that the student had an academic integrity violation in the previous course, and the current instructor would not know that.

[mythbuster]

I'd appreciate the heads up as faculty, so I could make my assignment more distinctive the next time around. It also would alert me to possible submissions from the other class in the future.

[marshwiggle]

I'd appreciate the heads up as faculty, so I could make my assignment more distinctive the next time around. It also would alert me to possible submissions from the other class in the future.

Perhaps, but should the failure to sate this constitute academic misconduct? Should it make a student liable to expulsion?

[Kron3007]

I was speaking to a student recently who told me a similar issue they had, but even more gray area.

They had failed or dropped a course and had to repeat it.  For one of the assignments where they got perfect the first time, they submitted the same version the second time.  They were reprimanded for it and now have it in their record as academic misconduct.

To me, this is a little crazy but that was the judgement.  I don't see how repeating this assignment would have contributed to the student's learning.