Plagiarism

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Introduction

Detering and detecting plagiarism and collusion (is a time consuming business). Which can be defined as: Claiming another person's written material as one's own. Plagiarism can take the form of direct, word-for-word copying or the theft of the substance or idea of the work.

And collusion can be defined as: A secret activity undertaken by two or more people for the purpose of fraud.


copying


Also included in this page are references to combating collusion in academic study. This page attempts to help students and lecturers alike, research and understand about this topic, and of the importance of adhering to good scholarly practice in terms of following nationally agreed principles and ethics. Links and pointers are given to research and referencing of studied research articles and generally understanding how and why this is important in our McDonalds (want it now) culture.

This wiki page covers; research, harvard referencing guides, websites to help you understand why & how to reference, cheat sites (page mills)and current text matching tools. Links to resources for the continuing improvement of both writing skills and (how)the related assessment processes needs to be modified to design out opportunities to plagiarise and collude.

I will be moving material from here : http://rsc-elearn.pbwiki.com/plagiarism, which also contains a zip file of a presentation + fee Harvard referencing teaching resources.

Why do we need to do this in education?

  • It is perhaps worth starting by saying that good practice in dealing with plagiarism is also good practice in terms of learning, teaching and assessment more generally. Academic integrity is now a new Academy / JISC initiative in addition to the [www.plagiarismadvice.org internet and plagiarism advisory - JISCiPAS - sevice]. Access the Academic Integrity Servicewebsite and please take some time to read the latest AmBeR report on that page. The Amber report synthesises findings across HE in the UK covering "The Recorded Incidence of Student Plagiarism and the Penalties Applied". Basically the upshot is that there is very little equivalence across the UK in terms of practice and policy. Indivdual HEIs run their own internally agreed policies. There is no single set of guidelines, but plenty of effective practice. Evidence also suggests that students are complaining more and want better VFM.


  • "Setting the same assessment questions year after year, allowing for little individual input and resorting to unseen examinations are not conducive to deeper learning but, unfortunately, characterise many students' experiences". Refs: 
 o http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/ps/documents/briefing_papers/ps0005_plagarism_feb_2005.pdf
 o http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/pub_plagiarism.aspx
 o http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/plagiarismfullreport.doc
  • This short video by Jude Carroll helps to explain the misalignment of student expectations. And.. how we can help to work smarter in designing out plagiarism. This not so far fetched article will also make you think about what academia might be like in the not too distant future. 
 Cheat sites, Paper mills & Essay banks!!

Coupled with the need to promote evaluation, analysis, and synthesis of research at HE level, we are now experiencing the new phenomenom of essays written to order by ghost writers, swapping notes, and entire repositories of "sample" scripts to use by anyone who wants them. All of these opportunities to plagiarise and collude are being enhanced by the use of electronic communications, and the internet.

The UK’s largest essay bank is providing students with an easy way to make money. The company is offering cash in exchange of students' essays, term papers, courseworks and even dissertations. Never before have students had an option to sell their papers for CASH and get it IMMEDIATELY, with such ease. This "sharing site" could be construed as an essay bank? Here's an example custom writing service and another one that claims to be a self service checking site! These are just a few examples to illustrate the scope and potential scale of temptation on offer. Of course most ghost writers offer their services locally and may never be detected, unless institutional text matching tools are utilised. Typical essay bank & ghost writer:

Text Matching tools

one of the top search engines yeilds the best results? See the results of a quick and dirty experiment here.

External links to related resources

additional advice and research about plagiarism mainly based in HE cohorts:


Student guides - referencing / teaching tools


Citation management tools

  • Document it is tool for recording and managing citations, which enables students to learn the rules of correct referencing. It is a passive application that runs within Microsoft® Word and helps students to record the correct information following conventional citation standards.

You can get a free home version from URL REF: http://www.documentit.co.uk/download.php


Promoting scholarly practice / academic writing 

   * Plymouth Uni' project designed so that [http://www.learningdevelopment.plymouth.ac.uk/ students can see examples of 'good' writing

by their peers] along with comments from academics. 

   * The Role of Turnitin within the Formative Process of Academic Writing
   * http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm    
   * http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/skill/plagiarism.html
   * http://www.elanguages.ac.uk/eap/acwrite_weblinks.htm
   * http://www.mantex.co.uk/download.htm
   * http://www.thinkingwriting.qmul.ac.uk/
   * http://www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/ced/themes/plagiarism/resources.html
   * http://www.mantex.co.uk/biblios/art-awtg.htm

effective assessment strategies

Of course, the way to combat the rise of plagiarism is to re-think the assessment process

See also

Links to other pages in the RSC MediaWiki

eportfolios

RSC contacts

Kevin Brace contributed this article. He can be contacted by email and telephone, Kevin Brace [1]. 01902 518931 For more information about the RSC West Midlands, visit our website at http://www.rsc-wm.ac.uk

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