Dealing with student plagiarism
Academic responsibilities in a holistic approach to deterring plagiarism
An intensive introduction which aims to give you time and space to explore some of the complex issues around plagiarism over four weeks
Aims
This short course aims to:
- Support the development of your understanding of the complex issues surrounding student plagiarism
- Help you to identify ways your own (and possibly your colleagues') practice needs to change to deter students from submitting work that is not their own
- Help you reflect on and continue to monitor and develop your teaching practice
Expected learning outcomes
By the end of this course you should be able to:
- Explain what plagiarism and collusion is and why students might find understanding a definition difficult
- Identify opportunities for designing out easy plagiarism opportunities and designing in processes and tasks that deter plagiarism
- Explain the benefits and possible problems of using detection strategies, including electronic detection, to identify student plagiarism
Course participants
The deterring plagiarism course has been designed for teachers and trainers who are newcomers to the field or interested in exploring the ideas behind the headlines often encountered in the academic and popular press concerning student plagiarism.
The course title reflects the holistic approach we plan to encourage. Often, people come to plagiarism thinking it's a simple matter of telling students they must not do it, or teaching referencing, or purchasing an electronic detection facility.
Here are some examples of the kinds of experiences and needs we expect our course participants to come with:
- Julia has been given responsibility for leading her college's response to the rising staff complaints about plagiarism. Her college does a range of courses including NVQs and A levels and they have franchised HE courses with a partner university which is also reviewing policies for student misconduct and plagiarism. Julia wants to make sure her own institution works in line with the partner programme but she's worried that the FE students lack the study skills to even begin to move from cut-and-paste to actually writing their own work.
- Diane's institution has a long history of running a small number of specialised courses at a distance. How they can be sure it's the students themselves doing the work?
- Andrew is rewriting the handbook for first years and has been told to 'make them [the students] plagiarism-proof'. He has looked at a half dozen sites aimed at students but wants to develop an integrated package tailored to his own context. He's pretty sure this means moving beyond induction but he is not sure where to start.
- Lana is known to be the one who spots more plagiarism than her colleagues in the department. She is beginning to feel she would welcome discussion with others outside her team about what are appropriate levels of vigilance and how she might encourage her peers to sharpen their detecting skills. She also wonders whether her students do it more or is she just better at catching them.
Online working
During the online activities you will be expected to work through some guided readings, record your thoughts, share your work with others in your group, discuss your work and that of other members of your group, analyse and summarise your findings. Each week your role will change a little, some weeks you might be asked to just share your own experiences, in another you could put forward a proposal on behalf of your group, and in another you might take on the role of the group facilitator.
You will be supported through these scheduled activities by selected key readings, specially developed course resources, a personal tutor and guest experts. The course tutors include experienced professional developers and skilled online tutors, as well as recognised experts in dealing with plagiarism.
The course uses WebCT and you will require access to the Internet for 4-6 hours per week in order to participate.
You will be provided with a course text: A Handbook for deterring plagiarism in Higher Education by Jude Carroll.
Assessment
OCSLD online courses are not formally assessed or accredited. We do offer Certificates of Attendance to those who participate in each of the course's main learning activities.