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Aug 15, 2008, 10:39AM

Marooned By Wikipedia

Two American students studying abroad with Semester at Sea were unceremoniously booted from their Mediterranean sail boat after plagariazing from Wikipedia. (Maybe they were just following John McCain's example.) Remember kids, always do original scholarly work or the harsh law of nautical justice will crush you.

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If you don't cite your sources this might be the only way home.

An Ohio University student was left to find her own way home from Greece after being found guilty of plagiarism on a study abroad program at sea.

Allison Routman, an Ohio University senior from Minnesota, along with a student from California Baptist University, were expelled from Semester at Sea, a program sponsored by the University of Virginia, for plagiarizing from Wikipedia.

“When we first arrived at the ship, they explained the honor code to everyone,” Routman said. “But it is a very complex system, especially for those who don't go to U. Va. and are unfamiliar with how it works.”

In Routman’s Global Studies class, the first essay asked students to compare a film to lectures in class and port experiences. Routman wrote about the film Europa Europa. After watching the film, she used the Web site Wikipedia to verify historical terminology and an overview of the plot.

She said when students on the ship heard about what had happened, they reacted with petitions, T-shirts and letters directed toward administrators. Routman assembled the packet of student’s letters and statements and sent it both to the student-life coordinator and to her parents, who forwarded it to Virginia’s campus back in the U.S.

Because of safety concerns, Routman’s parents spoke with administrators to ensure that she did not have to fly out of Egypt. Routman was dropped off at the next port, outside of Athens, Greece, where she was provided with cab fare for transportation to the airport. Routman slept in the airport until her flight departed the next morning.

Discussion
  • It's like Billy Budd for Web 2.0! Except nobody gets hanged and the controversy makes everyone look equally stupid. Honor codes seem to be a major selling point for colleges and universities now, but I can't recall a single example of them actually working well in the press or in my personal experience.

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  • I agree with asamsky: the punishment described seems disproportionate to the infraction. In my own four years at college there was a strict honor code that was regarded as sort of a joke. Most professors were too disinterested in mere undergraduates and didn't pay attention during exams to see students cheating.

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