Ontology of plagiarism: the non-academic perspectives

Abstract

Existence of plagiarism is an occupation of education in two dimensions: for learning and a mental process construct of lack of acknowledgement of innovations in learning. Unfortunately, the common concepts of plagiarism has not been clarified in learning process. This paper argues that plagiarism is an inherent natural process of learning. With the objectives; to examine the intrinsic nature of plagiarism and to explore the trans-disciplinary existence of plagiarism in human knowledge as categorised by Dewey Classification scheme 000-999. The study applied positivist paradigm and investigated the existence in relationship between learning processes and plagiarism. The study quantitatively measured opinions of 28 participants in these processes using the Likert scale. Dewey Decimal Classification Systems was used to examine epistemic harnessing of plagiarism in the advancement of different disciplines. The findings were that plagiarism is a natural, intrinsic process of learning through which research, innovations and evolution builds on. The paper concludes by putting a case that acknowledgement and development of referencing and citation technologies are evidence of ontological realities of plagiarism and evidence of the learning process.