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> > I've been following the postings about putting student work on the WEB. I > am beginning to feel like an old cynic because the first thing that occured > to me was that if thousands of us adopted this idea, students would quicly > (quickly) realize there were tens of thousands of FREE PASSING PAPERS out > there for the taking. When I was an undergrad, fraternities at UCLA used > to keep these kinds of files, and of course commercial "research" companies > in Los Angeles marketed "recycled" papgers as well. This wouldn't be a > problem for those of us who assign very specific topics, but for anyone who > gives students free choice of topic, it would be inviting trouble, especially > for the weakest or most anxious students: those most likely to take advan- > tage of the WEB, and those most in need of the writing practise. As I recall, > this was a significant problem at UCLA, not because a great many of the > students were at risk academically, but because so many wanted into professionalschools, and grad schools, and would do anything to get there. Am I being > entirely too cynical? I DO like the idea of having students work toward > publication. Bob. > It strikes me that this would be a problem only when "papers" appear mysteriously on the web for marking, just as they appear mysteriously in our briefcases at the end of a term. When papers have no history, when they are just generated to fill a addignment slot, then you're right, downloading just saves students the trouble of copying them from their roommate. This is why web publication, like any other form of publication, MUST be the culmination of a complex process of drafting, exchanging drafts, responding, commenting, exploring--a process in which the instructor is intimately involved. The product is just the icing on the cake. If it comes out of this sort of intimate process, plagiarism is much less likely to arise. And if it does--how wonderful to be able to invoke a webcrawler search to turn up the sources our students have copied from rather than having to slave away in the library!