This WSU Newsline Podcast is available at http://www.wichita.edu/newslinepodcast. See the transcript below:

You're listening to the podcast edition of the Wichita State University audio newsline. Learn more about WSU — the home of Thinkers, Doers, Movers and Shockers — on the Web at wichita.edu.

Cheating in school is not a new problem, but it appears to be a growing one. According to a study by Duke University's Center for Academic Integrity, if the cheating rate in the United States continues to increase, nearly 80 percent of college and high school students will cheat in 2010. William Vanderburgh, director of the faculty development office at Wichita State University, agrees that technology has made it easier for students to cheat.

Vanderburgh: "I think cheating is probably a little bit more prevalent today than it used to be, just because technology makes it so much easier for students to cheat. They can go to the Internet, find information that they want."

Vanderburgh says there are a number of reasons students cheat.

Vanderburgh: "I think one of the main reasons that students cheat is that they are underprepared. They don't have prerequisites or they haven't done the work.

"Another reason that students cheat is an overemphasis on credentialing, which is to say students don't often care so much about getting knowledge as getting a degree."

Most teachers agree that the Internet didn't invent cheating, but it sure has made it much easier.

Vanderburgh: "Students often use the Internet as their main or only source of research, and that makes it easy for them to cut and paste information into essays. They also can use cell phones and graphing calculators to bring notes into class in a surreptitious way."

Vanderburgh explains one way professors can help students experience academic success without resorting to cheating.

Vanderburgh: "Students often cheat when they're in a high-stakes situation, where the test is half of their grade, or the essay's a third of their grade. Professors can mitigate cheating in those kinds of situations by offering smaller assignments and more of them over the period of the semester. That way, students can succeed and gain confidence in the material."

And Vanderburgh says professors have ways to deter students who cheat during tests.

Vanderburgh: "I know a lot of professors who just simply ban cell phones during tests, similarly baseball hats. So, technology helps students to cheat sometimes, but it's not the only way."

Even so, some students will try to beat the system and cheat. When that happens, Vanderburgh says, professors usually have a couple of options for dealing with those students.

Vanderburgh: "Professors and departments normally set their standards before the semester begins, but a very typical response would be to fail a student for the assignment or to fail them in the course. Professors also report students who cheat to the department chair and to the dean of students so that those students can be tracked."

It appears that the fight against cheating is an uphill battle. Earlier this year, an Ohio school district says it uncovered a cheating scheme so pervasive that it had to cancel graduation ceremonies for 60 seniors. Superintendent Dorothy Holden said so many students were involved that it was impossible "to separate the wheat from the chaff" in terms of deciding who could graduate. Instead, all students were mailed their diplomas.

The answer, some experts and administrators say, is convincing students that high-tech cheating is still cheating. Parents have long taught their children right from wrong at the earliest ages. It has been suggested that maybe it's time to add a new lesson plan — right from wrong in the digital age.

Thanks for listening. Until next time, this is Joe Kleinsasser for Wichita State University.