WHAT TO DO? PALGARISM AND ORIGINALITY IN ONLINE GEOSCIENCE COURSES

Can basic intellectual honesty be measured in face-to-face or online classes? How can we tell if our students are not using other people's work? How can we know if discussion posts come from the student's understanding of ideas or cut-and-pasted words from Wikipedia? Is it possible to know if students understand basic geologic concepts? Cutting edge pedagogy and accepted assessment strategies can measure a particular student's work but do instruments such as multiple choice tests succeed? Psychologists have designed online 'honesty in reporting answers' tests which may or may not measure student honesty. Contracts signed by students in both distance learning and face-to-face classes have not been shown to be anything more than extra paperwork. So, how to tell if students own work leads to comprehension? Presentation and comprehension of fundamental geologic concepts is difficult in the best of introductory classroom settings. In an online setting, where even visual clues that may be seen on student's faces are unavailable, determining student comprehension of fundamental concepts such as Walther's Law is a very difficult proposition. Assigning a guided essay is one way of attempting to determine if students know the definition of the law, can enumerate its applications, and can use its interpretive powers. Student understanding of transgression and regression is essential to integrating time and space and interpreting geologic history of the North American craton, and is therefore an essential skill for science majors as well as a concept illustrative of the way science works for the general student body.