I agree with Jude that the key issue here is credit: you should not be able to get credit for the same work (verb) twice. When helping to re-draft regulations at a previous institution, we therefore differentiated between work that passed (and gained credit) and work that failed (and did not). So it was fine to re-submit a better version of an essay that had previously failed on the same module, or a different one; but not OK to take an essay that had passed and use it as the basis for another module's assessment.
Jane Roberts BSc PhD FHEA AFSEDA
Staff Tutor
Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology
The Open University in the South West
4 Portwall Lane
Bristol
BS1 6ND
Tel ext: +44(0) 1179 299641
Tel int: 63130
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From: Jude Carroll [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 04 March 2010 17:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Auto-plagiarism
Dear Toby and the list
Two thoughts: I think it is useful to remember that we are not accrediting the words that students hand in; we are accrediting the students' learning from creating that text. The grade recognises the work (verb) that went into the work (noun). A student who submits the same text twice has already 'cashed in' his or her learning for credit - and seeking more is not ok. [ Though this is less clear cut when only a portion is used, I guess. In that case, citing yourself is possible as I have learned over the years ..... it still feels weird]
Secondly, I don't know where the word 'auto-plagiarism' came from though I know it is widely used. Some students mix it up with what they fear might happen when they no longer remember the source and claim things which they *think* are their own ideas. Leaving aside the question of whether this happens in anything like the way that students fear it will happen, the term 'auto-plagiarsm', for me, smacks of that kind of unaware behaviour. It's the main reason I don't like using it - I prefer 'duplication' but know it's not a perfect term, either. Anyone got a better one?
Jude Carroll
On 4 March 2010 17:18, Jon Appleton <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
While agreeing that it appears to be poor academic practice to set overlapping assessment tasks, it can happen for a variety of reasons and Oxford Brookes' regulations (http://www.brookes.ac.uk/regulations/regs_students_assessment.html! - para 4.4) are clear that submitting work that has already been submitted for assessment in part or in whole without referencing it as such is cheating.
One way of looking at it is that we regard submitting for assessment as similar to publishing and if an academic author published an article in a journal, we would expect them to reference that initial article in a subsequent article on a similar topic rather than just copying whole chunks across wholesale (wouldn't we ... ?)
All the best,
Jon
On 04/03/2010 16:55, Dr David Faux wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
We have just had a recent case of auto- or self-plagiarism by a student (the student reproduced some parts of work that he submitted for one coursework for a second coursework) - the matter went to panel and the student found "not guilty". The University of Surrey's academic misconduct regulations and procedures do not mention auto-plagiarism and we feel that some guidance usefully ought to be provided to students and staff.
I feel that this is a difficult issue. On one hand, one might argue that the faculty should not be setting courseworks that have sufficient overlap to allow auto-plagiarism and that the words are the student's words so why should s/he not re-use them? On the other hand, there may be circumstances where auto-plagiarism clearly constitutes an academic offence.
We would not want to devise guidance that conflicts with sector norms. May I ask if your institution's regulations make a specific reference to auto-plagiarism? If so, would you mind sharing this information?
Many thanks
David
_____________________________________________________________
Dr David Faux F Inst P C Phys
Dean of Students and Reader in Physics
Dean of Students' Office, Department of Physics & Advanced Technology Institute
University of Surrey
Guildford, GU2 7XH
Tel: +44(0)1483 686792 (work)
Mob: 07810 404445
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