You may know of it among your college friends, or if you're a parent, among your kids' friends: plagiarism is becoming as common as Wi-Fi connections at coffee shops.

The Pew Research Center, in conjunction with the Chronicle of Higher Education, recently surveyed 1,055 college presidents from two- to four-year schools, private and public. More than half of those top officials said they've seen an increase in plagiarism in the past 10 years. Nearly all of them say computers and the Internet have played a major role in the rise in stealing others work and claiming it as their own

The yin and the yang of the Internet and education is profiled in the survey, "The Digital Revolution and Higher Education," which also includes asurvey of 2,142 adults ages 18 and older. Among Pew's key findings:

The public looks down on the value of online courses; college presidents do not."Only 29 percent of the public says online courses offer an equal value compared with courses taken in a classroom. Half (51 percent) of the college presidents surveyed say online courses provide the same value.

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