A critical perspective on current structures governing internet plagiarism: challenges to public relations and journalism education

Abstract

The Internet has raised student plagiarism to a new level. Never before has access to information been as easy, and never before have students had such a capacity to search, order, borrow, copy, cut and paste. This paper offers a critical perspective on current practices that deal with student plagiarism, while placing the issue into the context of current Internet culture. As cyber-plagiarism emerges as a major challenge to universities worldwide, with one US survey indicating up to 70 per cent of students commit academic offences such as plagiarism (University of Alberta, 2001), how is it being tackled? How might it effect the way we teach communications studies and what particular challenges are faced by educators in journalism and public relations? This paper addresses these issues and, finally, considers the need for a new framework to deal with these changing trends in academic culture.