Thank you very much for providing the additional information Karen. It sounds like this is one more additional tool to try and identify cheating.
The university that I work for uses this software program. Each time a student posts their Discussion Board assignment, the content of their assignment is being "matched" to similar verbiage. It will provide a percentage of how much their assignment may "match" other sources' information. It is the student's responsibility to run the Originality Verification report on their own assignment before posting. If their OV percentage is extremely high, they should re-phrase or paraphrase the sentences to reduce their percentage and thus making the task acceptable for grading. They also must cite their source of information, in order to avoid plagiarism. it works great, but a lot of students do not run their report before submitting the task and that's where the problem lies.
That is a great tool to use to identify plagiarism issues. Can you tell me more about the Originality Verification report?
With each discussion board assignment that a student post, they receive an Originality Verification report where they can check for any similarities in their post. What amazes me is when they have a high OV score and ignores it. Then when I communicate to them about it, they act either surprised or unaware. In the first class session, this is throughly discussed and posted in announcements, emails, Welcome Letter and Course Expectations letter. Wen they do not receive a grade for their post is when they pay attention to the OV percentage score. Then, it does not happen again.
Great points Carrie. There are also many tools that can help a teacher identify work that has been plagiarized.
I agree with this statement. If you as an instructor make it clear what your expectations are with citing works, it will make it less likely.
However, there is always the material that isn't cited that can be in question. That is where it is hard to make a judgement call on the students. It's up to us as instructors to know your students capabilities, and know your material very well.
I agree with you Mai! It is very difficult to know why students don't simply put the information in their own words and then cite the source!
You bring up an interesting question regarding repeat offenders. I think an additional issue might be that the instructors are discovering the plageiarism, but don't communicate it to administration, which means they don't know to track the student to make sure they don't do it again. At my institution, students can be suspended from school if they have a third offense, but the administration needs to know when it happens in order to track.
This is a very interesting discussion.
With all the emphasis on plagiarism and resources available on how to properly cite sources, I do believe that students understand what plagiarism is and the possible consequences. That being said, I am still incredulous at how often students plagiarize.
The most common offense, in my experience, is simply copying and pasting from Internet sources without proper citation. As others have pointed out, the ease with which this can be done probably encourages, or at least does not discourage, this type of plagiarism. Still, I often find that the amount of work that a student has put forth to find the proper websites and the relevant information can be substantial, which makes it all the more puzzling to me as to why a student would put that much effort into the research and yet not take the additional step to put things into his/her own words.
I also find that plagiarism tends to be a repeat offense; that is, the same student will plagiarize again and again. This brings up the question of whether these repeat offenders continue to plagiarize because they have gotten away with it many times in the past. So perhaps instructors are not as diligent in checking for plagiarism as we need to be?
Plagiarism is a very serious thing that students need to learn and I certainly appreciate your perspective. Thanks for sharing it with the group!
This is a very interesting and relevant discussion topic. Those are great tips that took me awhile to learn as well. I think this is something we face each term with a new set of students. I often find that they do not feel they are cheating because of a bibliography, but remind them that if they do not put things into their own words or quotations that this still applies as plagiarism. I have had students get angry even though I talk about it in class, they may not have been in class that day, and things of that nature. I also had a student tell me that he did not plagiarize, but that he paid someone to write the paper and THEY plagiarized. As I'm sure you can imagine, I was speechless and he obviously failed the course.
Students regularly want to "re-do" the paper, but I will not allow this as we talked about requirements throughout term, it is on the syllabus and was discussed then as well as in the student handbook / orientation. As much as I want them to succeed, I simply will not let them rewrite the paper. They receive no points for the work, which often gives them a failing grade and depending on the situation, they may be removed from the school. This seems harsh in the moment when they are claiming they didn't know, but I believe this ignorance often comes out of them being scared about their educational future now that they have been caught. However they did not care about their future when they were taking the easy way out.
With knowledge and experience, I have begun to provide tools to assist with research and paper-writing. We have even instituted a required class to assist with this process. The class touches on research, writing, sources, ethics, and critical thinking. It is somewhat new and I think it is a proactive idea. I am teaching this class for the first time this term and I look forward to being part of solving this ongoing concern.
In my experience there are a few things that should be done. The first is to teach students about plagiarism. Don't assume that students know what plagiarism is or that they have been taught what it is in a previous class. Second, I think it is important to do a review of how to appropriate cite a source. I have noticed that many of my students think that simply having a reference page is good enough, but that citing sources within the text isn't necessary. Third, your institute might have tools that can be used in teaching about plagiarism. And lastly, I think holding students accountable for their actions are important. If you catch a student plagiarizing, it is critical that you take the necessary steps that your institution requires.
I hope this helps!
Michele
I definitely agree with all of the posts here, students definitely do not realize that they are plagiarizing when they take someone's work and copy and paste it into their own document. I had a student in a previous course who copied and pasted an entire article into her document and did not make any attempt to cite it or include a reference in a reference page. She really had no idea whatsoever that she was doing something wrong. Even when I tried to explain it to her, she still did not understand. Even though we, as instructors, discuss this and post announcements and documents explaining it, there seems to be a lack of understanding and responsibility on the part of the student. I would like to know ideas for better engaging and empowering students in discussions related to this topic.
Yes, I would like to believe in most cases that students do not intentionally plagiarize. In my experience, students really don't know that by not citing the source properly, they are plagiarizing.
Taking the time to educate students is a great idea Adib.
I also agree, the internet resources make it easy to retrieve information regarding a subject.
I agree with your post. I find it very helpful to educate my online students about Turn-It-In and the purpose that this program serves. I have found that once you inform students that you are checking more cheating, they are more likely to submit original work.
I believe that students are not always aware about plagarism because many students simply do not know what this means. Therefore, as an instructor, I take extra steps to educate my students about the various forms of plagarism.
Electronic research has made the access to plagiarism much greater and also enhances the chances of getting caught. I have found that the most common form of plagiarism has been "self-plagiarism." Students are re-using material that they have previously submitted in other classes or previous assignments.
I agree with you Ulysses. I also think that students don't realize how easy it is for us to check for plagiarism--about as easy as it is for them to cut and paste from the internet!
I have found that a majority of first time students are not aware about the severity of plagarism.
I think that students understand that buying a paper is cheating, but I agree with you that students don't always realize that plagiarizing work can come down to not citing a source. The idea of intellectual property can be difficult to explain, especially to international students that come from countries that don't recognize intellectual property. Reviewing with students at the beginning of class what your expectations are, including explaining plagiarism is a great idea.
