IBL News | New York
Cheating and plagiarism on peer assignments prompted complaints among Coursera’s students, who blamed the learning company for not addressing the problem.
“People either copy from their classmates or from the Internet. Submitting blanks give them the ability to see other assignments. Flagging has no effect,” said a user named “Moocer” at the Coursera Community forum.
A learner called “Chee Yang Ng” wondered why Coursera is not taking any action. “ They know academic misconduct is the major obstacle to the credibility of their courses, but why aren’t they doing anything about it,” he said.
The same frustration was shared by Luke Lau, who asked Coursera to handle “this case of academic dishonesty.”
The discussion at Coursera started a week ago when a user opened a thread titled “How do we make certificate more creditable when there is a serious violation of intellectual property on Coursera?” claiming that his work was plagiarized. Chee Yang Ng said: “I cannot express how disappointed I am, not only on the violation of my intellectual property but also on the system failure of the platform that makes me question the quality of the education provided by the platform.”
“Keep in mind that Coursera is a for-profit business, not an educational institution,” concluded Moocer.
No one from Coursera answered, including the community manager of the forum.
The discussion generated twelve replies.
Plagiarism and cheating have been constant on MOOC platforms, although the problem has been kept inside doors.
