HI all,
Am now using my official work email address, but still the same old off the wall, opinionated guff as always. Was musing on "false negative" by which I think people are meaning when plagiarism (may have) occurred but is not highlighted by TurnitinUK. Here is an official definition of the term:
"False negative: A result that appears negative but fails to reveal a situation. An example of a false negative: a particular test designed to detect cancer of the toenail is negative but the person has toenail cancer." -- http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=3376
So, my concern over recent discussions of the "inadequacy" of TurnitinUK (or any other internet-based originality search. Personally I hate the "TII" shortening of the name) is maybe because I am long in the tooth over the difficulties with finding sources for allegedly plagiarised work. I first started in this field training lecturers in the use of Alta Vista and Yahoo (that's dated me) to find web pages manually. It is something of a fine (and possibly forgotten) art nowadays. However, I suspect that it may have something of a resurgence as the inevitable minor flaws in automated detection become obvious.
Recently, I found a Masters student dissertation to have many tiny fragments identified from all over the Internet. All of these were <1% and most of the web sites identified by the TurnitinUK database were now absent, or were otherwise unavailable, being behind an authentication requirement (including an essay bank site). Only by manually searching for terms identified by TurnitinUK did I find that large sections of the student text, identified only very partially by fragments, were from physical books available in the library; that's right, a student went into the library and actually typed in the words. It is quite likely, although supersition on my part, that this was actually done to avoid detection. What twigged me to this was chapter samples on various web sites found by manual search, and then a lot of hard work following up leads.
So, the time honoured photocopying of text books and marking up student hardcopy is not dead. In fact, it is probably a requirement for the presentation of evidence for Unfair Practice Panels in most universities. And so it should be. Even if it takes DAYS of work. HOURS of time that would be better spent on more productive activities. Presnetation of evidence is itself becoming something of an art form, and transferable skill. Don't rely on the crutch of software solutions alone. Dust off those old skills and remember it is an evolution of predator and prey. If anyone would like some training in these skills, I still have my old notes somewhere. Self-plagiarism? Or effective recycling...
--
Dr. Mike Reddy, Future Technology, Games Development and A.I., Department of Computing, Newport Business School, University of Wales, Newport, Allt-yr-yn Campus, PO Box 180 Newport South Wales NP20 5XR
Technoleg y Dyfodol, Datblygu Gemau a D.A., Yr Adran Gyfrifiadureg, Ysgol Fusnes Casnewydd, Prifysgol Cymru, Casnewydd, Campws Allt-yr-ynn, Blwch Post 180, Casnewydd, De Cymru NP20 5XR
Tel/Ffôn: +44 (0)1633 432452 Fax/Ffacs: +44 (0)1633 432307 Mobile/Symudol: +44 (0)7971 170 199
Email/Ebost: mike.reddy @ newport.ac.uk (remove spaces/dilëwch y bylchau)
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