I'm involved along with my colleague John English in an approach which has some similarities with that mentioned below but which takes as a starting point the assumption that the students arrive in our institutions with a range of understandings of plagiarism. Some have no understanding of plagiarism and some have an understanding which matches the university's. However, the majority seem to have already developed an understanding which is not the same as the university's but which is so deeply held that they initially need this understanding to be directly challenged. Therefore before using our VLE quizzes we provide the group with a 'plagiarism experience'.

The 'plagiarism experience' involves the students writing a short essay during their first few days of study and then receiving different forms of feedback on the writing. One feedback opportunity occurs during the first tutorial in which students voluntarily receive and discuss their essay feedback in front of their peers. Of course at first the volunteers are a minority but as the students realise that they are in a safe environment and that they have nothing to fear, more opt to discuss their writing in front of the group. Part of the exercise involves the students explaining what had been acceptable or unacceptable writing practice prior to university. This means that even those who have produced acceptable writing and those who choose not to receive oral feedback can begin to reassess their understanding of plagiarism in the light of the discussions. It is with this experience that we then follow a similar process to that described below with an online quiz focussing on source use followed by another on a wider range of academic writing issues. The current use of the approach is entirely formative but I can see how it could be used for the purpose described below.

As I have mentioned already, the approach was developed from our knowledge that plagiarism has a variety of meanings to our new students but it is also underpinned by our belief that some of our students need to experience plagiarism before they can start to appreciate what it constitutes.


Chris Ireland
Academic Skills Tutor
The Business School
University of Huddersfield
Office: Academic Skills Unit (LAG/02B)
Telephone: +44 (0) 1484 473023
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web1: http://www2.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/about/student_info/acu.php
Web2: http://del.icio.us/chrisireland


-----Original Message-----
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Harbord
Sent: 12 May 2010 09:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Plagiarism Tutorials

While we are on the subject of (1) teaching them how not to plagiarise and (2) making sure they cannot claim ignorance of the rules when the time comes, I had the idea in a chance meeting with a head of department the other day for an online interactive tutorial in correct source use.

Rather like the excellent website Alex Barthel recommended last week http://www.uts.edu.au/teachlearn/avoidingplagiarism/index.html the tutorial would ask students to look at samples of source use together with the original source and decide whether or not the example amounted to correct use, poor use (but not plagiarism - eg. putting your citation at the end of the paragraph), mild plagiarism (eg. forgetting the quotation marks on a short, attributed phrase) and serious plagiarism (eg. a large chunk, unattributed, from a source not in the reference list). Maybe that's too much to ask students to decide, but it's come up because of cases we had recently where students were rather harshly treated for a first offence that plausibly stemmed from genuine ignorance.

Instead of seeing the answer on the page, the students check an answer and move on to the next question. The system stores their answers and at the end submits a report to the student and the department. If the student performs well, s/he clearly understands source use (at the level of plagiarism) and needs no further help. The tutorial score can then be used later as evidence if the student plagiarises and claims ignorance.

Conversely, a student who gets questions wrong can go over those questions with a member of the department or of the writing programme and receive explanations and further help, then possibly test again.

My question is, does anyone on the list already run a system like this? if so, would you let me (perhaps everyone) know about it and whether it is effective? If not, then when I have developed one, I'll let you know :-)

Thanks,

John


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