Plaigiarism
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Why do we need to do this in Higher 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:
- http://www.academicdb.com/
- http://www.professays.com/
- Another mode of "pay for plagiarism" in growth is contract cheating!
Text Matching tools
- The most popular UK text matching tool is Turnitin
- A comparison of the most popular text matching tools http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2007/09/test-of-plagiarism-detection-software.html
- Is this a nifty free Word plug-in to help students or a sinister way of beating the system? You decide.
- FREE http://www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker/ (based on Google)
External links to related resources
additional advice and research about plagiarism mainly based in HE cohorts:
- a new plagiarism blog I discoverd (June 09) witrh some useful updates an articles contained therein.
- I interviewed Ms Carol Bailey, senior lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton. Carol discusses her use of the text matching tool Turnitin, and how the system helps her detect and deter plagiarism and collusion. Carol also describes how her students learn about correct referencing and paraphrasing from the originality reports and the “digital” feedback she gives them. http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.org.uk/mashe/?p=192
- http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/assessment/plagiarism/index.html (Prevention & detection)
- http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/resources/guides/plagiarism.htm (a one page introduction)
- http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/roadmapmethod.php (Plagiarism Advisory Service Roadmap)
- http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/designingout.php (Designing Out Plagiarism)
- http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/plagiarismvideos.php (a selection of useful videos)
- http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/documents/HE%20in%20FE%20Case%20Studiesreport.pdf (a HE in FE case study)
- http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/brookes.pdf (A Good Practice Guide)
- http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/pub_plagiarism.aspx (JISC research 2005)
- http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=306 (Teaching Students about Plagiarism)
- http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/trns/plagiarism/index.html (Plagiarism: a guide for law lecturers)
- http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/resources/plagiarism/review.php (Designing a Plagiarism Review)
- 2008 UK conference proceedings and papers
- "Plagiarism: A Cut and Paste Generation", which was broadcast on Teachers TV and is now available to view at: http://www.teachers.tv/video/30749
Student guides - referencing / teaching tools
- New service called Writecheck by TII , contains useful guides
- Information Literacy website that has begun to collate plagiarism and referencing resources
- http://hsc.uwe.ac.uk/referencing - nice interactive guide for students
- http://www.cte.usf.edu/plagiarism/plag.html (an excellent USA interactive tutorial)
- http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds/slc/resources/writing/plagiarism/plagiarism-tutorial (another excellent UK interactive tutorial)
- http://asp.wlv.ac.uk/Level3.asp?UserType=11&Level3=2173 (Read Write Pass) a student guide on academic misconduct).
- 2 documents covering reference citation and report writing here > http://www.harper-adams.ac.uk/libraryservices/guides.htm
Citation management tools
- The citation machine http://citationmachine.net/index.php (free)
- 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
- The Harvard Vault is another FREE tool from Cov'y Uni' to help you construct your List of References : http://home.ched.coventry.ac.uk/caw/harvard/index.htm
Promoting scholarly practice / 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
- Summative e-Assessment Quality
- Scoping a Vision for Formative e-Assessment
- Browse through the JISC funded projects under the e-assessment programme
- A JISC guide has some handy case studies that [discusses effective e-assessment http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/InfoKits/effective-use-of-VLEs/e-assessment]
- This e-futures guide also contains some handy tips
- My shared bookmarks on Computer aided assessment and assessment tools and tips.
See also
Links to other pages in the RSC MediaWiki
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.jiscrsc.ac.uk/westmidlands

