Student plagiarism:
deterring it,
detecting it,
dealing with it
Jude Carroll, Oxford Brookes University
This is my plan for this lecture……
-Defining plagiarism. What kinds of student plagiarism are a problem
in 2007? […..in Belgium?]
-An approach based on learning, not on punishment. A holistic
approach is needed to deal with plagiarism.
I will describe what is needed in a holistic approach. We must
- teach students the necessary skills
-design programmes and design tasks to limit copying
- ensure effective detection
- agree how much plagiarism makes a ‘case’ for action
- match the level of plagiarism with the consequences
Appropriate policies are central to a holistic approach. I will make
some recommendations for policies for 2007 plagiarism.
Defining plagiarism
[translation] ‘Plagiarism is any identical or
lightly altered use of someone else’s work
(ideas, texts, structures, images, plans
etc) without adequate reference to the
source’
KU Leuven, 2007
‘lightly altered …someone else’s work …adequate
reference of the source’
How can work
belong to others?
What is ‘adequate’?
What sources need
reference?
How much do
I alter to make
work mine?
‘work’ What
is that?
What explains our interest in
student plagiarism?
Academics give credit for learning
Learning is demonstrated by understanding
Understanding is demonstrated by change (in you
or in the work)
So……
No change, then no understanding
No understanding, then no learning
No learning, then no credit
Do KU Leuven students understand what
plagiarism is?
Students must understand the implicit and tacit
assumptions in the definition
Students must link the idea of plagiarism to their own
everyday decisions as students……
Students must discuss and explore their ideas (and their
false ideas)
Activity: Which are plagiarism?
Transparency……….
The reader must know what the [student]
writer is doing with sources, with others’
ideas
Students need to learn to show credibility
and to borrow authority
‘If the person marking your work cannot tell
whether they are marking your work or
someone else’s work, that person might
wonder, ‘Is it plagiarism?’
You create a false assumption for your assessor if
you borrow others’ work (published or
unpublished) and do not say right there in the
text where it comes from.’
Misunderstanding what we mean by
‘learning’ leads to plagiarism
Copying from other students
Copying from books, from the internet, from
previous work
Collecting chunks of text from the Web and
sticking them together
Hardly changing the original author’s words or
changing them in superficial ways
[Students bypass any evidence of understanding]
Poor use of citation rules leads to
plagiarism
-Some text quoted, some not marked as
quotations
-Some text cited correctly, some lifted but not
cited.
- Paraphrasing that sticks too closely to the
original text
Wrong decisions and actions lead to plagiarism
-Submitting the same piece of work twice
-Sharing work with fellow students who then use it
to ‘do their own work’
-Over- use of editing & proofreading
-Sub-contracting work which seems ‘not important’
[Marker is not sure whose work is being judged]
Misconduct and cheating leads to
plagiarism
-Paying someone; buying an assignment
-Finding it (or most of it)
-Copying most (or all) and hiding the fact
-Handing in someone else’s answer or work
-Lying about your contribution to the group
-Deliberately disguising your breach of the rules
Acting relies on more than understanding……..
“Ok, here is an assignment. How do I do it?
……..
Can I find the answer?
Has someone already answered this? Has a fellow student done it?
How hard is it? Can I do a good answer? Is it worth spending the time?
How much time will it take? If I do it, what else will suffer?
If I fake it or copy it, will I be caught?
If I am caught, what are the likely consequences?”
Most students do the assignment.
A growing number answer with plagiarism, intentionally
or unintentionally.
Most worries about plagiarism are about
misconduct & cheating
Most cases of plagiarism come from
misunderstanding and poor use of the rules
of citation and attribution
Q: Are university policies designed to deal
with the small number of deliberate cheaters
…. or the large and growing number of
unintentional cases?
Dealing with plagiarism requires a ‘holistic’
approach
Understanding ‘the rules of the game’
Teaching students the skills
Designing out easy copying; designing in
apprenticeship
A range of detection strategies
Agreeing ‘How serious?’ [High, medium, low?]
Agreeing what proves a case
Procedures that do not punish whoever spots it
Fair, consistent, defensible penalties
Discussion activity
How holistic is your
university?
Where are the strengths?
Where are the gaps?
“I
told them about plagiarism
so they definitely know
about it but I still ”get it.
What’s wrong with them?
‘Teach students the skills they will need.’
If I told you how to play
cricket, could you
play it?
Could you play it well?
What would you need to
be a good cricket
player?
• taking apart; creating &
answering sub-questions
• Analysing
• making judgments about
value, reliability, authority
• Evaluating
• others’ words and ideas
• Paraphrasing and
summarising
• what order to put things
in; subheads, paragraphs
• Structure
• Using others’ authority
• ‘Mining’ texts to support
opinions
• REFERENCING
Focus on course design and task design
find it?
fake it?
make it?
do it?
designing in practice
•
•
•
•
•
Induction
Diagnosis
Skills development
Feedback
Practice
designing out easy
cheating
• Novelty - context/format
• Specificity - local, recent,
personal, individual,
unique
• Higher-order cognitive
skills*
• Assess the process
YES: rank, justify, choose, revise,
interpret, analyse, invent, plan
NO: knowledge (eg. ‘describe,
state’), basic understanding
(‘explain’).
NO: generic application
• Authenticate the
author
Influencing decisions 5: Use a wide range
of detection strategies.
electronic
manual
Proactive
•Using a commercial tool
‘Should I look
carefully at
anyone’s
work?
(Urkund, Turnitin, etc)
•Matching exams and coursework
•Viva xx%
•Meta-writing task
•Keeping the order of submission
Reactive
•Advanced Google
search
• ‘Properties’ function
• checking formatting,
•Using a commercial tool
‘Is this really
the student’s
own work?’
(Urkund, Turnitin etc)
•changes in language
•Changes in referencing
•Changes in formatting, word
processing
•Off the topic
•Too advanced language or content
•Inappropriate words, content
‘Detection’ is a process…..
suspicion
action
investigation
confirmation
Final stages: dealing with
cases
How much evidence?
Classifying the seriousness
Matching penalty to the level of breach
Keeping records
Monitoring
and learning from data