ABSTRACT
As we sit around the oval table in the Board Room, having introduced ourselves and our reasons for agreeing to meet on the issue of plagiarism, Kate speaks. She is a very experienced teacher who works in the Faculty of Law. She tells us that she has been teaching for over 12 years at various institutions around Australia and is completing her doctoral thesis. She teaches a large cohort of first-year students-of whom 98 percent are international students. Kate says she takes her teaching responsibilities very seriously and has attended a number of workshops for staff focusing on understanding culturally different approaches to learning in the classroom, including expectations of the teacher-student relationship. She says a central aim of these workshops is to help staff improve communication for students where English is a second or other language. She has also attended the professional development seminars on PowerPoint presentations and
explored thoroughly. She allows plenty of time for questions during lectures and also at the end of the lecture. She is friendly and approachable in manner but also clearly knowledgeable about her topic area. She appears caring and also builds clear and specific guidelines into her classes so that students understand how and when they should contact or meet with her to discuss any issues they may have with the coursework. Kate then says:
Well I think plagiarism is a major concern for this university and us as staff members. I definitely think it’s increasing-certainly there’s more of it around now than when I started here seven years ago. I don’t know about the rest of you but I am really worried about the responsibility on us to police the thing. My cohort has over 260 students and I just haven’t got the time to check absolutely everything! Nor do I think that’s necessarily my job-I’m an academic not a police officer! I am worried about the ramifications if cases of plagiarism get past me, though. I don’t think the university provides enough support for staff if they really want us to take the whole plagiarism issue seriously.
