Chapter 6: High Technology and Education

Technology at School
Preventing Access to Inappropriate Material
Use of General Technology Among Teens and Children
Colleges and Universities
Distance Learning
Cheating and High Technology

Knowing how to use a computer or Internet browser has become as important a skill in modern life as knowing multiplication tables. Not having exposure to information technology restricts a person's access to job listings, e-mail communication, and dozens of convenient, efficient computer applications that make work and life easier. Aware of this, high schools and colleges in the late 1990s increased efforts to expose students to computers and the Internet before graduation. Most secondary and elementary schools installed computers with Internet access in classrooms and libraries. Many schools set up programs wherein their students could borrow laptops and handheld computers for extended periods of time. College administrations provided widespread broadband access to students on campus, and many professors required the use of the Internet and computer programs in college courses.

Due in part to these actions, high school and college students were among the most tech-savvy Americans at the turn of the twenty-first century. Amanda Lenhart, Mary Madden, and Paul Hitlin of the Pew Internet & American Life Project (Pew/Internet) note in Teens and Technology (July 27, 2005, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Teens_Tech_July2005web.pdf) that 87% of teenagers between the ages of twelve and seventeen went online in 2004. The percentage of Internet users among teenagers was well above the overall percentage of adult Americans online at the time. In addition, 73% of all teenagers reported owning a desktop computer, 45% had a cell phone, 18% had a laptop, and 7% owned a personal digital assistant (PDA). In Data Memo: Parent and Teenager Internet Use (October 24, 2007, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Teen_Parents_data_memo_Oct2007.pdf), a follow-up study, Alexandra Rankin Macgill of the Pew/ Internet finds that in 2006, 93% of teens were online. In addition, 72% of teens reported owning a desktop computer, 63% had a cell phone, 51% had an iPod or MP3 player, 25% had a laptop, and 8% had a Blackberry or other PDA.

Providing students with access to high technology, however, has not been without problems. The Internet, computers, and cell phones have introduced a great deal of distraction into the life of many young people. They allow teenagers access to illicit material, such as pornography, that they normally could not obtain so easily. In addition, these technologies open up avenues for cheating and plagiarism. Largely because of the Internet, academic cheating and plagiarism skyrocketed around the turn of the millennium. Students appeared to have no qualms about copying text from the Internet and pasting it verbatim into reports and papers.

Technology at School

In February 1996 President Bill Clinton (1946–) signed the Telecommunications Act into law. This legislation ushered in the E-Rate Program, which provided elementary and secondary public schools with discounts of 20% to 90% when purchasing computers for libraries and classrooms. The program had a tremendous impact on computer and Internet accessibility in public schools. In the early 1980s the student-to-computer ratio was well over 100:1. By the 2005–06 school year the student-to-computer ratio in public schools was 3.9:1. (See Table 6.1.)

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) surveys hundreds of U.S. public schools each year to determine the number of computers with Internet access in the nation's elementary and secondary schools. John Wells, Laurie Lewis, and Bernard Greene report in Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994–2005 (November 2006, http://nces.ed.gov//pubs2007/2007020.pdf) that the number of students per instructional computer with Web access in 2005 was 3.8—a 69% decrease in the number of students per computer from 1998, when the ratio was 12.1:1. (See Figure 6.1.) Table 6.2 presents a breakdown of students to Internet-accessible computers by minority enrollment, school size, school locale, and

other factors. Surprisingly, rural schools had more instructional computers with Internet access per student than city, urban, or town schools in 2005. In rural areas, one Internet-equipped computer was present for every three students. In urban areas only one Internet-equipped computer was present for every 4.2 students. Schools with 50% minority enrollment had roughly one instructional, Internet-ready computer for every 4.1 students, whereas schools with less than 6% minority enrollment had one computer for every three students. Larger schools and schools with more impoverished students also tended to have higher ratios of students to classroom computers with Internet access.

Wells, Lewis, and Greene further note that in 2005, 10% of public schools surveyed provided laptop computers for their students to use. (See Table 6.3.) Of the schools that provided laptops to students, 47% reported they typically lent laptops to students for less than one week. (See Table 6.4.) Seventeen percent said they lent students laptops for periods between one week and a month, and 16% of these schools offered use of the laptops to students for the entire school year. The researchers also indicate that 3% of schools that did not offer laptops in 2005 planned to do so during the 2006–07 school year.

Nineteen percent of schools offered their students and teachers handheld computers such as PDAs and advanced calculators. (See Table 6.5.) Unlike trends in laptop programs, a greater percentage of urban schools

(22%) and schools with a high minority enrollment (23%) lent their students and teachers handheld computers than rural schools (20%) or those with low numbers of minority students (21%).

Internet Access in Schools

According to Wells, Lewis, and Greene, all public schools in the United States had Internet access by 2003. (See Table 6.6.) The availability of the Internet in public schools grew rapidly during the late 1990s and then leveled off. Only 35% of public schools were wired in 1994. By 1997, 78% had Internet access, and in 1999, 95% were connected to the Internet. With regard to the type of Internet connection found in public schools, the researchers report that in 2005, 97% of public schools had always-on broadband connections as opposed to dial-up service. (See Table 6.7.) This was a huge increase from 1996, when 74% of online schools used dial-up connections. Wireless connections were also on the rise. Forty-five percent of public schools had wireless connections in 2005. Larger schools were more likely to have a wireless connection. Roughly 40% of smaller schools (three hundred students or fewer) had wireless Internet connections, as opposed to 56% of larger schools (one thousand students or more).

Internet Use in the Classroom

In 2005, 94% of public school classrooms had Internet access. (See Table 6.8.) The number of wired class-rooms had increased fairly steadily since 1994, when only 3% of classrooms had Internet access. (See Figure 6.2.) Wells, Lewis, and Greene note that half of teachers reported using the Internet for instruction during class time in 1999. Only one-third of teachers, however, believed they were adequately prepared to use the Internet to teach classes. To improve this situation, schools began offering their teachers Internet training courses. By 2005, 83% of schools with Internet access reported their school or school district offered teachers professional instruction on ways to integrate the use of the Internet into the classroom curriculum.

Lawrence Lanahan and Janet Boysen surveyed teachers' views on technology in the classroom and reported their findings in Computer Technology in the Public School Classroom: Teacher Perspectives (March 2005, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005083.pdf). Teachers were asked which technologies were the most essential to their teaching. More than two-thirds (68%) reported they needed a teacher computer station with access to e-mail in the classroom. Nearly as many (61%) said access to the Internet in the classroom was vital. Only half (49%) thought the class needed at least one computer for every four students. Even fewer teachers believed that presentation software (35%), a full-page scanner (20%), or a video camera (18%) were necessary. Whether or not actual classrooms had the technologies teachers wanted, 57% said their

classroom technology was satisfactory. Roughly 35% said that their classrooms were not up to date.

Preventing Access to Inappropriate Material

In 2000 Congress established the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Under the CIPA, schools that could not prove they use filtering or blocking technology to keep children from viewing pornographic or sexually explicit Web sites were no longer eligible for the E-Rate Program. Consequently, Wells, Lewis, and Greene indicate that almost all schools with Internet access in 2005 used some type of technology or procedure to control the access students had to content on the Internet. The types of controls used by schools can be seen in Table 6.9. Ninety-nine percent of schools in 2005 employed Internet content filtering or blocking software. Teachers or staff monitored students' activities online in 96% of schools with Internet access. Some 79% of schools required written contracts from the parents, and 76% required written contracts from students stating that students would abide by school rules for technology use. Rural schools were the most likely to use contracts as a control procedure,

with 83% requiring parental contracts and 82% requiring student contracts. Monitoring software, which tracks the Web pages that individual students visit, was used in 67% of schools overall, with urban schools (72%) the most likely to use this technology.

Use of General Technology Among Teens and Children

Computers and Internet Use

Many children and teenagers use computers and the Internet both at school and at home. In Computer and Internet Use by Students in 2003 (September 2006, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006065.pdf), Matthew DeBell and Chris Chapman state that 68% of students in kindergarten through twelfth grade logged onto a computer at home in 2003, and 83% used computers at school. More than one-third (35%) of elementary students in grades one through five used a home computer to complete school assignments, and this percentage increased with educational level; 62% of middle school students in grades six through eight used a home computer to complete school work and 69% of high school students did. (See Table 6.10.) Overall, 45% of all students from nursery school through high school used a home computer to connect to the Internet in 2003. White students were the most likely to use a home computer to complete school assignments and to use a home computer to access the Internet. By far, the activity teens and children participated in the most was playing games. Fifty-six percent of students reported playing computer games at home, with those in grades six through eight playing them the most (61%). The drop in the percentage of game players during the high school years is likely because, besides increased homework, many older adolescents are often involved in a number of extracurricular activities, including part-time jobs, sports, school clubs, and community organizations.

Lenhart, Madden, and Hitlin note that more than twenty-one million young people aged twelve through seventeen used the Internet in 2004. Fifty-one percent said they logged online daily. Furthermore, the researchers find that many teens began logging onto the Internet in junior high; the number of Internet users shot up from 60% to 82% between sixth and seventh grades. By eleventh and twelfth grade, a full 94% of teens reported going online. According to Amanda Lenhart et al. of the Pew/ Internet, in Teens and Social Media (December 19, 2007, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Teens_Social_Media_Final.pdf), 93% of American teenagers aged twelve to seventeen were Internet users in 2006. The researchers also note that daily use of the Internet had increased among teens: in 2006, 61% of teens reported using the Internet daily. Of those who went online every day, 27% said that they only went online once per day, and over

one-third (34%) logged on more than one time per day. Furthermore, Lenhart et al. find that in 2006 nearly two-thirds (64%) of online teens (59% of all teens) were creating Web content, such as uploading artwork, photos, or videos, or maintaining a Web page or blog about themselves.

Teens took part in a number of activities online in 2006. Of teenage Internet users, 81% visited Web sites devoted to movies, television programs, music groups, or sports stars, 77% went online to get news, and 38% bought things online. (See Table 6.11.) Even though more than half (55%) of teens sought information about colleges or universities online, African-American students were the most likely to do so (79%); just over half (51%) of white students used the Internet to gather information about colleges and universities.

Teens and Communications

By 2006 many teens depended on the Internet and other technologies to keep in touch with one another. Table 6.12 and Table 6.13 show the daily communication choices made by teens and rank their popularity among subgroups of teens based on communication technologies used. Overall, landlines were the most popular form of communication among teens, but those who had cell phones preferred them to landlines. E-mail was the least popular communication tool among teens. Only 14% of teens reported using e-mail daily; those most likely to use e-mail were teens who also used social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, but even then only two out of ten (21%) reported checking their e-mail daily.

Lenhart et al. find that nearly three out of ten (28%) teens aged twelve to seventeen were “multichannel” communicators; that is, they had access to several communications technologies, including mobile phones, Internet access, text messaging, and social networking sites. Multichannel teens were more likely to use all forms of communication technology than were s overall. (See Table 6.14.) In particular, multichannel teens (70%) were significantly more likely to talk on their cell phones daily than were teens overall (35%), were more likely to send text messages (60% versus 27%), and were more likely to use instant messaging (54% versus 28%). Interestingly, they were also slightly more likely to meet with their friends in person (35% versus 31%).

Colleges and Universities

College students are among the most wired Americans and are typically the first to embrace new technologies. The marketing research firm Student Monitor (October 2008, http://www.studentmonitor.com/) reports that in 2008, 86% of full-time undergraduate college students owned their own computers before starting college. It also reports that 88% of college students accessed the Internet at least once per day. With a weekly average of nineteen hours, students in 2008 spent twice as much time online as those interviewed in 2000. The 2008 Student Monitor survey also reveals that nine out of ten full-time undergraduate students had a cell phone, which was more than double the rate of ownership measured in 2000.

By 2008 college students had integrated the Internet into every aspect of their life. Experience Inc., an employment services company specializing in graduate recruitment, states in 2006 Media Perception Survey (2008, http://www.experience.com/) that college and university students nationwide spent time online engaged in interactive pursuits such as uploading, downloading, and viewing photographs and videos, reading and writing blogs, and creating podcasts. In 2006, 85% of college students reported viewing and downloading photos, whereas 67% uploaded and shared photos online. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of students said they viewed or uploaded videos online. Online activities drew a larger proportion of students than television, with 43% of students reporting spending at least ten hours per week online, whereas only 17% of students reported watching television at least ten hours per week. The survey respondents indicated that

Google, Yahoo!, and MySpace were the Web sites they visited most often.

Technology and College Academics

The Internet has transformed college life from beginning to end, from the selection process undertaken by high school students considering different institutions to the employment and career services offered online to recent college graduates. In the twenty-first century high school students research colleges and universities online, take virtual campus and dormitory tours, and download recruitment materials and application forms. College students enroll for classes, pay fees, order books and course materials, communicate with teachers and other students, and may even take classes and tests online.

The Internet has also become a primary resource of information for school reports and papers from elementary school through postgraduate studies. According to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), in ARL Statistics 2005–06 (2008, http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arlstats06.pdf), reference queries at university research libraries decreased 46% between 1991 and 2006, whereas the number of students served increased by 24%. During the same period interlibrary borrowing increased 164%, but circulation overall experienced a decline of 8%. Reference queries at ARL institutions peaked in 1996 with a median number (half the institutions experienced more reference transactions and half experienced fewer) of 155,336; by 2006 the median number had dropped 56% to 67,697. The decline in reference transactions can be directly linked to students' ability to conduct their own research via the Internet. To facilitate students' independent research, ARL institutions have increased expenditures on electronic materials, including electronic serial publications, monographs, and other computer resources. Of their total materials budget during the 1992–93 academic year, ARL libraries spent a median of 3.6% on electronic sources; by the 2001–02 academic year the median expenditure on electronic sources had climbed to 19.6%.

College Students and Entertainment

College students use the Internet to communicate with others, to do research, to conduct personal business, and to entertain themselves at a rate higher than that of the adult population overall. In “College Students Embrace the Web” (February 10, 2006, http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8237.asp), Debra Aho Williamson reports on the pervasiveness of information technology on college campuses. According to Williamson, a survey of full-time

undergraduate students conducted in December 2005 by the Simmons Market Research Bureau showed that 94% of students used the Internet, compared to 76% of the adult population overall. In addition, 73% of full-time undergraduate students reported that in the previous thirty days they had used e-mail, compared to 51% of all adults in the survey. Forty percent of college students had used instant messaging, compared to 13% of all adults. Four out of ten (39%) college students stated they had used the Internet for research or educational purposes in the previous thirty days, compared to 17% of adults overall. Nearly one-third (32%) of college students had downloaded a game, whereas only 13% of the adults reported doing so, and a quarter (26%) of students had downloaded music though only 8% of adults reported doing so in the previous thirty days.

Steve Jones et al. of the Pew/Internet find in Let the Games Begin (July 6, 2003, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_College_Gaming_Reporta.pdf), a survey conducted on the gaming habits of college students, that 70% of college students played computer, video, or online games at least once in a while. Seventy-one percent said they played computer games. Video games and online games followed at 59% and 56%, respectively. Jones et al. speculate that these numbers have to do with accessibility of computer games. Computer games, such as Solitaire or Tetris variants, could be played on a laptop in class, in a computer lab, or wherever there was a computer. As to gender, men generally preferred to play video games, but a higher percentage of women played online and computer games. Forty-seven percent of women played online and computer games, as opposed to 31% of men. Jones et al. suggest that women enjoyed nonaction card and puzzle games, and that these games typically could be found on a computer. Online games provide the benefit of anonymity, and many online gaming sites cater to women's interests and tastes. By contrast, video games are often violent, and when they feature female characters, these often typify male fantasies (with exaggerated figures and little clothing) rather than realistic portrayals. Of all the college students who did play games, most believed the experience to be a positive one. Half of the gamers, however, said they used video games as a way of avoiding their studies.

Distance Learning

According to Steve Jones et al. of the Pew/Internet, in The Internet Goes to College (September 15, 2002, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_College_Report.pdf), distance learning was not very popular among college students in 2002. Only 6% of students surveyed had taken online courses for credit, and a little over half (52%) of these students believed the courses were worthwhile. Despite what undergraduates thought of distance learning at that time, the number of people enrolled in distance learning courses offered by postsecondary (i.e., following high school) institutions nearly doubled between the 1997–98 and 2000–01 school years. Tiffany Waits, Laurie Lewis, and Bernard Greene state in Distance Education at Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions: 2000–2001 (July 2003, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003017.pdf) that 3.1 million students were enrolled in distance learning classes. Of these, 2.9 million were in college-level, credit-granting courses. In 2000–01 public two-year institutions, such as community colleges, had the highest enrollment in distance education classes, followed by public four-year institutions and private four-year institutions.

Since that time distance learning has continued to gain acceptance. In Digest of Education Statistics 2007 (March 2008, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008022.pdf), Thomas D. Snyder, Sally A. Dillow, and Charlene M. Hoffman note that in 2005 the University of Phoenix Online, an online institution, was the largest private university in the United States, with 117,309 students. This figure was more than twice the number of students enrolled at the nation's other top-five largest institutions, including Miami-Dade College, which had fall 2005 enrollment of 54,169; Arizona State University, Tempe (51,612); University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

(51,175); and Western International University (50,663). Founded in 1976 as an institution devoted to providing educational opportunities for working adults, the University of Phoenix reports in 2008 Academic Annual Report (2008, http://www.phoenix.edu/doc/about_us/AcademicAnnualReport-2008.pdf) that it served three hundred thousand students, employed twenty thousand instructors, and had an alumni base of four hundred thousand graduates. It offered over one hundred degree programs online and at learning centers throughout the United States.

The widespread use of the Internet and personal computers largely explains the growth in distance learning. E-mail allows for affordable, convenient day-to-day communication between teachers and students. CD-ROMs and the Internet provide the possibility for completely interactive course modules and timed tests. Waits,

Lewis, and Greene note that a full 90% of institutions offered Internet courses where the students could review the course material on their own timetable (in other words, not in sync with everyone else in the class). Forty-three percent of institutions offered synchronous Internet courses where all students in the class were required to go on the Internet at the same time to receive instruction or take tests.

Distance Learning at the Elementary and Secondary Levels

In Technology-Based Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 2002–03 and 2004–05 (June 2008, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008008.pdf), a companion study to Waits, Lewis, and Greene's survey of distance education at the college level, Izabella Zandberg, Laurie Lewis, and Bernard Greene indicate that 37% of school districts and 10% of all K–12 schools in the United States had students enrolled in distance education courses during the 2004–05 school year. An estimated 506,950 total enrollments were counted in the study, which represented a 60% increase over enrollments counted in 2002–03 (317,070). (“Enrollments” refers to the total number of enrollments in all distance education classes and is higher than the number of participating students, because some individuals took more than one class.)

Distance education experiences varied widely according to instructional level: 61% of enrollments consisted of high school students, 33% attended combined or ungraded schools, 3% were in middle or junior high school, and 2% were in elementary school. (See Figure 6.3.) Elementary school enrollments in technology-based education courses nearly quadrupled from 2,780 in 2002–03 to 12,540 in 2004–05. (See Figure 6.4.) Middle and junior high school enrollments increased 137%, from 6,390 to 15,150; combined and ungraded enrollments increased 81%, from 93,760 to 169,630; and high school enrollments increased 45%, from 214,140 in 2002–03 to 309,630 in 2004–05.

Zandberg, Lewis, and Greene find that characteristics such as size, metropolitan status, region, and poverty concentration affected the rate at which public school districts used distance education courses for their students during the 2004–05 school year. For example, rural districts (45%) had students enrolled in distance education courses at twice the rate of urban districts (25%); and districts in the Southeast (46%) and Central states (45%) had students enrolled in distance education courses at a higher rate than those in the West (35%) or Northeast (22%). (See Table 6.15.) The researchers suggest that rural districts used distance education at a higher rate

than urban and suburban districts because students in isolated communities might not have other options. Indeed, J. Carl Setzer, Laurie Lewis, and Bernard Greene note in Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary and Secondary School Students: 2002–03 (March 2005, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005010.pdf) that 80% of districts rated “offering courses not otherwise available at the school” as a very important reason for having distance education courses in their school districts, and 59% cited “meeting the needs of specific groups of students” as very important. Twenty-five percent of districts pursued distance education courses as a way to address issues associated with a growing population and limited space. A smaller group considered it an important way to generate revenue for the district, with 4% citing this as a very important reason for offering distance education courses and 12% declaring it somewhat important.

Setzer, Lewis, and Greene find that that the curriculum area with the largest number of distance education enrollments was social studies, with 23% of all enrollments. Other curriculum areas with high enrollments

in 2002–03 included English and language arts (19%), mathematics (15%), natural and physical sciences (12%), and foreign languages (12%). Approximately 45,300 enrollments (14% of all enrollments) were in Advanced Placement or college-level classes offered through distance education. Nearly half (48%) of districts depended on postsecondary institutions for the distance learning courses used by their students; other entities providing distance education courses included other schools in the district or state, virtual (online) schools, statewide education service agencies, or independent vendors.

According to Zandberg, Lewis, and Greene, 71% of districts that offered distance learning programs for their students in 2004–05 planned to expand their offerings. Many experts predict that distance education will become widely used during the next decade. In The Future of the Internet (January 9, 2005, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Future_of_Internet.pdf), a survey of 1,286 technology experts in 2004, Susannah Fox, Janna Quitney Anderson, and Lee Rainie of the Pew/Internet explain that 57% agreed that in ten years students will spend part

of their day in a virtual classroom grouped with other students by ability rather than by age. Among those agreeing that distance learning will become more prevalent, the survey respondent Gary Kreps of George Mason University and of the National Cancer Institute said, “This is already happening, where on-line education is being integrated with traditional educational programs. I like the combination of educational approaches better than pitting in-person and distance education against one another. I think that electronic education is a wonderful supplement to more traditional educational approaches.” Christine Geith of Michigan State University responded that in ten years “learners of all ages will have more tools at their disposal and larger networks of people from which to learn—often without time or place limitations. Lucky ones will even be in communities or professions in which the traditional expectations for judging quality will be liberated. Unfortunately for the rest of us, a short ten years . . . will not be long enough to really take advantage of the new forms of learning enabled by the internet.”

Cheating and High Technology

Cheating is one of the biggest problems facing academia and includes any instance in which a student breaks the rules for an assignment or test to gain an advantage over fellow classmates. A specific type of cheating known as plagiarism occurs when a student submits someone else's work as his or her own. Plagiarism itself has several forms, including purchasing a previously written paper, copying sentences or ideas from an original source document without proper attribution, or paying someone else to complete the work. In June 2005 Donald L. McCabe of Rutgers University, the founder of the Center for Academic Integrity (http://www.academicintegrity.org/), published the results of a three-year survey of fifty thousand college students at sixty campuses across the country. Of those who admitted cheating in 2005, a quarter said they had cheated seriously on a test and half said they had cheated seriously on written assignment. The Josephson Institute of Ethics states in 2006 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth (October 12, 2006, http://charactercounts.org/pdf/reportcard/reportcard-all.pdf) that one-third (32.9%) of high school students had copied a document from the Internet for a class assignment and that six out of ten (60.2%) admitted to having cheated on a test at least once in the previous year.

The Internet and other types of information technology have only served to fuel the cheating epidemic in the United States. Phones with text messaging allow students the opportunity to communicate with outsiders or others in class during a test. Companies that specialize in writing papers for students, commonly known as “paper mills,” can now deliver papers discreetly to students via e-mail. In general, the Internet provides an endless source of documents and papers from which students might copy material. Catching plagiarism on the Internet, however, involves combing through countless articles and Web sites. The issue of plagiarism from Web sources is further complicated by the fact that the Internet has obscured the distinction between what information requires attribution and what is public knowledge. McCabe's study reveals that 40% of students had used the cut-and-paste technique and that 77% regarded the practice as “trivial or not cheating at all.” The problem appears to have gotten worse. Only 10% of college students admitted to using the Internet to plagiarize in 1999. Of high school students surveyed, roughly 40% admitted to using the Internet to plagiarize.

To catch plagiarizers, some schools are using high-technology online services such as Turnitin.com. This online service receives papers from students and teachers and scans them into a database. The papers are then checked against more than nine billion Web pages, previously submitted student papers, and a number of books and encyclopedias. Turnitin.com indicates in “Quick Facts” (August 1, 2008, http://www.turnitin.com/static/pdf/Turnitin_brochure.pdf) that it handled 130,000 papers daily in 2008.

As of 2008, Princeton University and many other leading schools were still not using antiplagiarism services, holding to the belief that their campuses did not foster a culture in which cheating is acceptable. According to Emily Sachar, in “Ivy League Shuns Anti-plagiarism Tool as U.S. Cheating Rises” (Bloomberg.com, October 10, 2006), Peter Salovey, the dean of Yale College, said, “This is not a campus characterized by any kind of cheating culture or a culture where students are attempting to cut corners. I would rather create a culture of integrity and honesty and expect the best.” McCabe, however, maintains that academic cheating will escalate if schools do not confront the issue. He told Sachar, “Unfortunately, inaction in the face of cheating leads to even higher levels of cheating.” According to McCabe, students are more likely to cheat if they see others are getting away with it, and some students go further, believing they have to cheat to stay competitive.