THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
KNOWLEDGE TEAM
Draft minutes of a meeting of the Knowledge Team held on Friday, June 10,
2005 at 12:30 – 2:00 pm in the Conference Room, 4th Floor, Main Library.
1.
Present:
Dr Anthony W. Ferguson (Convenor)
Dr John Bacon-Shone
Dr Bruce Cheung
Professor Francis Chin
Dr Colin Day
Dr Bob Fox
Dr Nancy Law
Mr Tommy Liu
Mr Rex Lui
Dr Elaine Martyn
Dr Nam Ng
Dr John Nicholls
Mr David Palmer
Mr Peter Sidorko
Mr Benny Tai
Ms Lillian Wong
Ms Antonia Yiu
Dr Y.C. Wan (Secretary)
Apologies:
Dr David Johnston
Professor Thomas Kvan
Mr Andrew Lih
Ms Tina Pang
Dr Frank Tong
Ms Carmen Wong
Dr Allan Yuen
Minutes
Dr Fox remarked that he was concerned by the language used the
Turnitin@HKU Experiment: Final Report (submitted by Turnitin Project Team
during the last KT meeting), which he felt emphasizes the wrong things. He
added that the mention of Turnitin as “plagiarism detection software” is wrong
and instead, it is “text comparison software”. The reason is that much of what
Turnitin reports on is not plagiarized material but the same text as in another
paper. He suggested that Turnitin should be publicized as a formative tool to help
students rather than a summative policing tool only and that he was worried by
the direction KT seems to be heading in within Turnitin.
Members exchanged their views and made the following comments:
- The mention of Turnitin as “plagiarism detection software” reflects how the
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software is actually used. It is necessary to alert the teachers about the
“misuse” of Turnitin.
It is necessary to refer to minutes of previous meetings on the position of KT
on Turnitin.
Awareness of plagiarism should be part of the package of the educational
process.
Apart from serving as a tool for teachers, Turnitin should also be introduced
to students so that they can do their own checking before handing in the
assignments.
In addition, Dr Martyn conveyed Mr Nigel Bruce’s suggestions that the minutes
should include the following points:
1) Turnitin needs to be used sensitively, and care taken to distinguish between
citations, references and quotations and actual plagiaristic behaviour, as
Turnitin does not make that distinction.
2) Turnitin should be used as a carrot, not a stick – as a part of a formative
process of developing students’ ability to write in their own words, rather
than a summative identification of academically “criminal” activity.
3) Turnitin is especially useful if teachers “turn in” the specific assignments
they expect, or have asked, students to draw on. The chances of picking up
meaningful reliance on sources would then be much higher – and the process
more meaningful.
The Convenor noted that Mr Palmer conducted an originality study of 19
recently received HKU theses using Turnitin and highlighted two cases which
are found to have a high degree of similarity with published material. He also
noted that the Turnitin funding proposal has not been submitted to the university
and he will send the draft to concerned members first to seek a balance between
different viewpoints.
2.
Matters arising from the last meeting
(a) Communication with DVC about future of KT
The Convenor distributed his paper Knowledge Hub, Policy Group and
Team during the meeting and remarked that it is a summary version of a
longer paper he submitted to DVC Wong on previous efforts to coordinate
the use of ICT in teaching/learning at HKU and IT milestones. The paper
was subsequently passed to PVC Malpas who suggested keeping the
Knowledge Team going to maintain coordination in ICT issues.
Dr Bacon-Shone asked about the merging of two computer committees
recently. Dr Ng replied that these committees focus on IT infrastructure and
services at large and the use of ICT in teaching/learning belongs to a
separate area. Dr Bacon-Shone commented that KT is unique in such a way
to pull together the ICT things embedded in the Libraries, CC and CAUT.
The Convenor remarked that Turnitin project provides an opportunity to
enhancing coordination and he will apply for university development fund
to start the project.
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(b) Endnote: pricing options
Ms Yiu presented her paper Subscription to Endnote Floating License:
Proposed Budget (distributed during the meeting), which gives a quotation
of HK$28,626.00 for subscribing to 10 Endnote floating licenses and further
details about the floating license setup and arrangement.
Members exchanged their views on whether ten floating licenses are enough
for the trial period. Some suggested 10 floating licenses are not enough
particularly during peak hours and when Endnote is taught on a class.
Others remarked that students on an individual basis do not use Endnote at
the same time and it will be better to subscribe to a small number of licenses
and monitor the usage.
To help KT make a decision, Ms Yiu will contact the Endnote Hong Kong
distributor for additional quotations of subscribing 10 to 100 floating
licenses, at incremental steps of ten. She also suggested starting the
subscription in the new semester since a new version (version 9) of Endnote
will be released sometime in September.
3.
Learning platform – 2 years experiment finished
The Convenor thanked CC for supporting two additional learning platforms, ILN
and SOUL, since early 2004. He noted that the experiment will soon be over and
suggested setting up a taskforce led by Dr Johnston to study the way forward.
Dr Ng noted that WebCT will soon be releasing Campus Edition version six,
which is an intermediate step between the old version that HKU is now using and
WebCT Vista, which is costly to subscribe but powerful. This new version
incorporates key modules of WebCT Vista and thus provides more features than
the one HKU is using. However, it is less costly as WebCT Vista and its annual
subscription price will be about 10% more of that of the old version.
He added that about 1,100 courses, out of about 2,000 courses run by the
university, are on WebCT. Responses to the two additional learning platforms
have not been good and only ILN received some enquiries from teaching
departments, such as Architecture. For commercially available platforms,
WebCT and Blackboard are most popular ones but their annual license fee
amounts to about one million Hong Kong dollars.
Members exchanged their views and made the following comments:
- The use of ICT in teaching/learning happens not only on individual level
where the main concern for KT should be how to provide support to these
individuals but also at the university level. The problem is how we can bring
these two levels together.
- Ask CityU for a report on their study of WebCT and Blackboard and why
they ultimately chose Blackboard. It is important to look at what our sister
institutions have done.
- Three key issues affecting the selection of a learning platform at HKU are
money, pedagogy and existing user base.
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Rex noted the computer and English courses he is taking are on WebCT.
Tommy also added that a number of courses that he is taking are on WebCT
and they are used most frequently in downloading the course notes.
The Convenor concluded that he will communicate with Dr Johnston about
chairing the taskforce. He will also draft the taskforce’s terms of reference
and circulate it to members.
4.
University-wide copyright page demonstration
Ms Yiu gave a demonstration of the “Copyright in Teaching and Learning
@HKU” web site (http://lib.hku.hk/copyright/), which is to draw together
pertinent information about copyright and thereby provide a venue for members
of the University community to become acquainted with the related legislation
and guidelines. She added the contents of the web site were prepared by Ms
Irene Shieh, Law Librarian.
KT members welcomed the copyright web site and agreed that it will be useful to
teachers and students. The Convenor thanked Ms Shieh for her good work in
putting together the web site. [Post-meeting note: Ms Yiu will liaise with
External Relations Office to add the pages to the university web site.]
5.
English proofreading for students – should the university take a stand on this?
The Convenor noted that some companies offer English proofreading services to
students and wondered if the university should take a stand on this.
Members commented that it will be fine for students to get these services from
outside since sometimes teachers are too busy to proofread their papers. It will
not be a problem as long as students are writing the papers themselves. However,
sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between polishing English and writing a
paper on a student’s behalf.
6.
Any other businesses
Dr Martyn remarked that she received 14 replies from the recent “Portfolios for
Teaching and Learning at HKU” survey. She distributed the questionnaires to
members and requested them to send the questionnaires to their colleagues.
Dr Bacon-Shone asked if CC had been asked to create staff e-portfolios. Dr Ng
replied yes and said that CC had only a few more weeks to complete the task.
7.
Items delayed to the next meeting
(a) Brainstorming – what can we do to the “hot issues”?
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8.
Date of the next meeting
Members agreed that the next meeting be held in September 2005. Exact date is
to be confirmed.
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