Plagiarism in the digital age

I've decided to write about something a little different today. It's true that this isn't strictly 'health info', but nonetheless I think it's still relevant. I recently read a really interesting article in the New York Times about rising cases of plagiarism amongst students. The author argues that online information is so much easier to cut and paste as students perceive the information as 'out there' - not belonging to anyone, and therefore OK to take word-for-word. One student assumed that information on Wikipedia counted as 'common knowledge' so didn't need to be referenced. I kind of get this. But the difficulty is, how do academics, librarians and other professionals get across to students that it isn't OK? This goes beyond learning how to reference correctly (and that in itself can be a challenge), and it goes beyond changing assessment strategies and beyond plagiarism detection software. What we are talking about here is changing students' beliefs and value systems at a time when these same students are encouraged to use and share information online through catch-up TV, Facebook, Twitter and other social media. I'm not surprised students get confused and anxious about it all.

I don't have any answers (sorry). And part of the problem is that academics often can't agree on what plagiarism is and how to deal with it either. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this issue.