Jacqueline Vaughn

The case of the pilfered paper: Implications of online writing assistance and web-based plagiarism detection services

While there is nothing new about academic dishonesty, how it is committed, prevented, and detected has been dramatically transformed by the advent of online technologies. This article briefly describes the concurrent emergence of online writing assistance services and Web-based plagiarism detection tools and examines the implications of both for student-faculty relations, faculty workload, and student learning. Finally, we provide three alternative strategies for deterring, detecting, and documenting all forms of plagiarism.

Funding Fire: A Losing Proposition?

THE CALIFORNIA Journal of Politics & Policy Volume 2, Issue 1 Funding Fire: A Losing Proposition? Jacqueline Vaughn Northern Arizona University Hanna J. Cortner Cortner and Associates Abstract This paper focuses on the politics of raising local revenue for fire protection by examining the issues surrounding San Diego County California’s unsuccessful at- tempt in 2008 to pass Proposition A. Proposition A would have established a special fire protection parcel tax and a regional fire protection agency to coordinate expen- ditures and regional firefighting efforts. In addition to an economy at the onset of a deep economic recession, California’s constitutional requirement for two-thirds voter approval for dedicated tax increases, and conservative voters with an aver- sion to tax increases, supporters of Proposition A faced other issues that may have affected the outcome of the election, including the issues of timing, openness and transparency, accountability and trust, coalition building and political leadership, and demographic cleavages. Keywords: fire financing, parcel tax, San Diego County, fire protection, wildland- urban interface www.bepress.com/cjpp

Philanthropy through Park Partnerships

When President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Act in 1916, he brought 36 national parks, monuments, and reservations under a single federal agency, the National Park Service (NPS). A number of disparate units that earlier had mostly been cared for by the military would henceforth be managed by the new agency to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” 1 What developed over the next century was a complex system of partnerships, internal and external to the Park Service, designed to meet the two prongs of the agency’s dual, and often conflicting, mandate of preservation and visitor enjoyment. As the agency grew from managing the 36 units to today’s 401, so did the array of partnership arrangements. One significant role that many partnerships have assumed is philanthropic, raising money to donate to the agency as a supplement to the appropriations provided by Congress.

Issues, Trends, and New Directions

There is perhaps no better example of a national park that could use some friends than Nicodemus National Historic Site. Nicodemus ought to be an important stop for visitors interested in westward expansion and the history of slavery. It is significant and symbolic because it is the last remaining post-Reconstruction western town established by African Americans. The Nicodemus Town Company was founded in 1877 by six black men and a white land developer who recruited 350 pioneer settlers from Kentucky to move to Kansas, a free state where they could start their own self-governed community. Named after a man said to have come to the US on a slave ship who bought his freedom, Nicodemus’ leaders invited “Colored People of the United States” to settle in the Great Solomon Valley of Kansas, a “Western Eden” that some considered the Promised Land. 1 In its heyday in the 1880s, the population of Nicodemus was about 700 people, with a thriving economy that included hotels, a bank, livery stable, newspapers, and churches. The town’s leaders hoped to have the railroad come through their community, but it passed further south and some residents moved to be closer to the train line. Later, the interstate bypassed the town, too. The population was listed at 59 in 2010, according to the US Census.

The Legal and Organizational Framework

The National Park Service (NPS) administers a very complex, and often confusing, organizational landscape. While many people might readily identify Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Everglades as national parks, they might not realize that in official NPS nomenclature, sites such as the Mount Rushmore Memorial, Gettysburg National Military Park, and the Cape Cod National Seashore are not. Actually, properties labeled “national parks” number only 59 of the 401 official units that are included in what is called the national park system. Making up the other units of the national park system are national battlefields (11), national battlefield parks (4), national battlefield sites (1), national military parks (9), national historical parks (46), national historic sites (78), international historic sites (1), national lakeshores (4), national memorials (28), national monuments (79), national parkways (4), national preserves (18), national reserves (2), national recreation areas (18), national rivers (15), national scenic trails (3), national seashores (10), and other designations (11). 1 Despite the technicality that only 59 units are really officially categorized as national parks, it is common practice to refer to all units administered by the Park Service as national parks. Friends groups and cooperating associations serve all NPS designations.

Cooperating Associations: “The Bookstore People”

Like friends groups, cooperating associations play an essential role in assisting the National Park Service (NPS) and in helping the agency fulfill its mission. As noted previously, they have an entirely different legal basis for their operation, and for the most part have been in existence longer than most friends groups. However, there have been no known studies (outside of the NPS) that detail their operations, nor the challenges they pose for the Park Service. Nonetheless, it is possible to provide a rather detailed perspective on their operations for several reasons. First, there are fewer of them, and their numbers tend to be more stable over time than the ever-changing lists of friends groups with the attendant confusion over who is or who is not a friend. Second, because cooperating associations generate sufficient revenue to require filing IRS forms 990 or 990 EZ, records of their finances are publicly accessible. Third, unlike friends groups that participate in dozens of different kinds of projects and activities that support national park units, cooperating associations’ main functions are educational in nature, centered on the operation of bookstores and the sale of interpretive materials. This makes it easier to compare apples to apples when analyzing how they work. Lastly, cooperating associations have a strong ally organization, the Association of Partners for Public Lands (APPL), that serves as a sort of trade association to promote their interests, and provides more up-to-date information than the NPS makes available for friends groups.

A History of Support for the National Parks

In order to understand how friends groups and cooperating associations support and raise money for national parks, it is also important to take a look at how philanthropic support for national parks has developed. The voluntary action for the public good that defines philanthropy has been woven throughout the agency’s history. Over time, national parks have been financially supported by the railroads, automobile interests, and other tourism-oriented organizations; individual philanthropists and the foundations they represent; the National Park Foundation (NPF), a congressionally authorized group, and it precursor, the National Park Trust Fund Board (NPTFB); corporations; concessioners; and a range of conservation groups and land trusts, including the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and the National Park Trust (NPT). But not all philanthropic work involves dollar transactions. Volunteers play a pivotal role whether or not they are affiliated with a group primarily organized to provide volunteer services, as is the case with the Student Conservation Association (SCA).

Friends Groups: “You Get By with a Little Help from Your Friends”

In Glacier National Park in Montana, visitors can cross the park and the Continental Divide using the Going-to-the-Sun Road, a National Historic Landmark and a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark constructed from 1921 to 1932 at a cost of

George W. Bush's Healthy Forests: Reframing the Environmental Debate

2.5 million. The two-lane road is narrow and winding, one of the first National Park Service (NPS) projects specifically designed for tourists in automobiles when it was conceived by Superintendent George Goodwin in 1917. Considered one of the most difficult roads to snowplow each spring—up to 80 feet of snow can be found at Logan Pass—it often takes ten weeks to plow completely with crews sometimes able to clear as little as 500 feet of snow per day. The Park Service hires seasonal employees who work as avalanche spotters for the crews plowing the road, and once the road is open, an additional 350 to 370 seasonal employees are added to the park’s 135 full-time, year-round staff.1