5 posts tagged “turnitin”

This was a paper Vickel Narayan and I presented at the eFest meets Teaching & Learning conference, UCOL 2009. It was an interesting experience at a vibrant conference. A time for firsts, it was Vickel's first time to present and write an academic paper for a conference, and it was the first time that we had written and presented together. I felt that we both learned a lot on the way, from each other, from the feedback we gathered from the audience (see below), and from reflecting on how well it went on the day.

It was an interesting audience, and it was great to have much more of a discussion underway throughout the session. There appeared to be a lot of sharing of experiences, strategies, and problems faced, which saw the audience fully engaged. Throughout the session there was also a couple of people Tweeting about main points, and I found this was a great way, afterwards to see how people had interpreted what had been said, and what they saw as central points. It was also great to find out, for example, that the mindmap I had made building on previous work I'd done in 2006, was in fact useful and did illustrate some key factors behind why learners plagiarise.

All in all, judging from the comments, the discussion, and the feedback, I think the audience went away with some new ideas and approaches, as well as affirmation that they 'not alone'! :-)

To access the accompanying handout: http://www.scribd.com/full/20133056?access_key=key-2kh798rentwwpywxfd9l

To access the full paper: http://www.scribd.com/full/18077894?access_key=key-2d8r0452hsbwlgdffwx7

Feedback

• Excellent; general overview; positive approach to manage plagiarism
• Session was great. Just enough time to have our discussion!
• Liked the suggestion: getting students to have constructive dialogue about plagiarism
• Love the handout w the links. Thanks heaps. T
• I enjoyed the session but needs longer time for discussion
• Plagiarism is a lot more than I realised
• Important - see a way to move from punitive to formative
• "Use a free tool for formative use" - this was a new idea for me! Thanks for all the links - I will use
• Good to see Turnitin as a formative tool rather than punitive
  
• Turnitin as a tool - not the answer
• Thanks for the references
• Cultural issues seem to be the main factor but I value the deterrence factor and want to improve arguments

Abstract: Plagiarism is a global issue that needs to be addressed by all educators and learners. This paper considers a simple definition of plagiarism, and then briefly considers reasons why students plagiarise. At Unitec NZ, Te Puna Ako: The Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation (TPA:CTLI) is working closely with faculty, managers, student support services and library personnel to introduce strategies and tools that can be integrated into programmes and curricula whilst remaining flexible enough to be tailored for specific learners. The authors therefore provide an overview of one of the tools available to check student work for plagiarism - Turnitin - and describe the academic Professional Development (PD) approaches that have been put in place to share existing expertise, as well as help staff at Unitec NZ to use the tool in pedagogically informed ways, which also assist students in its use. Evaluation and results are considered, before concluding with some recommendations. It goes on to theorise how blended programmes that fully integrate academic literacy skills and conventions might be used to positively scaffold students in the avoidance of plagiarism. Conference participants will be asked to comment on and discuss their institutions' approach to supporting the avoidance of plagiarism (including the utilisation of PDS and other deterrents), describe their own personal experiences, and relate the strategies they employ in their teaching practice and assessment design to help their learners avoid plagiarism. It is planned to record the session so that the audience's narratives can be shared with other practitioners.

Please cite as: Owen, H., & Narayan, V. (2009, 29 Sept - 01 Oct). Pedagogy, Policing or Preventing Plagiarism? Experiences with facilitating Professional Development and Turnitin. Paper presented at the Teaching excellence - excellence in teaching: Teaching and Learning Conference Meets eFest 2009, Universal College of Learning (UCOL), Palmerston North.

My colleague, Vickel Naryan and I, have now facilitated several sessions with a variety of faculty which have focussed on the discussion of what plagiarism actually comprises, the complex reasons people plagiarise, and how to assist the avoidance of plagiarism. One of the reasons that we designed such a session (with a suite of associated resources in Moodle, including use of blogs) is to stimulate discussion around these key concerns, and then, and only then, lead into discussion and use of the plagiarism detection software, Turnitin. To introduce some of the underlying gnarly ethical questions of using plagiarism detection software as a punitive tool, we show a short video from Fox News and then encourage a discussion that is inevitably lively, rich, and often passionate.

The latter part of the workshop is centered around setting up a Turnitin account and assignment. Faculty are encouraged to submit a piece of their own writing, and some of the participants describe in their blog postings feelings of fear, anxiety, and anger when they receive the report. We wind up with a final discussion where opinions range between Turnitin, if used in a pedagogically sound way that assists students through multiple revisions of work, might be a useful tool, to real concerns around the ethics of its use.

The article linked to here "(Mis)Trusting Technology that Polices Integrity: A Critical Assessment of Turnitin.com" critiques the tool, and discusses some of the issues and concerns that have been raised by Unitec faculty, including, for example, what message the use of the tool by an institution actually sends. Makes for really good reading! (Many thanks to Vickel, who found the article.)

Friday 15th May saw Vickel and I facilitating our second Turnitin workshop - this time with faculty from Early Education. Learning from the last workshop we took a spare projector and speakers, which is just as well as the sound wasn't working in the lab!

Everyone arrived with varying amounts of trepidation. After an initial icebreaker activity to find out what everyone was hoping to get out of the session we moved onto the first hands-on activity. Having logged into the Moodle Turnitin site, participants typed their definition of plagiarism into their Moodle blog along with why students might plagiarise and how they could be supported to avoid it, andthey then checked each others' postings. There appeared to be a sense of enjoyment around sharing postings and ideas that led to a discussion around other types of plagiarism that included collusion, images, diagrams, and a quick overview of creative commons licensing.

The group watched a Fox News clip around Turnitin and discussed their reactions to it. This segued nicely into a hand over to Vickel who took everyone through the steps of setting up accounts, demonstrated how to read a Turnitin report, and then encouraged people to submit a piece of their own writing.

The session closed with a lively discussion around the potential of the Turnitin as a formative teaching tool, as well as around some of the considerations and issues it raised.

May 4th dawned sunny and cold - an auspicious start to a day when Vickel and I facilitated our first Turnitin workshop with faculty from the Department of Landscape Architecture. Little did we realise - we had checked the room out the Thursday beforehand but Gremlins appear to have been mucking around with the projector... The fun began. We set everything up, only to find that the projector would not work with either my laptop or the desktop. Fifteen minutes later and everyone was getting restless (six of the participants having arrived). We decided to go for plan B and wing it. We logged everyone into computers (some of which were not working - and we didn't have the passwords for the Macs), got them into the Turnitin Moodle course and into their Moodle blogs.

The definition of plagiarism was not tough, and most people came up with something, and checked each other's blogs out - which seemed to go down reasonably well. However, as there was no screen,

and it was difficult to summarise and segue into the next topic area - avoidance of plagiarism. Same thing - participants looked at the task, popped their ideas into Moodle. Shared, and I showed them where to look at the resources. I need to think of a way to celebrate their knowledge of plagiarism, and tie the session closer to Turnitin...any ideas? :-)

Next everyone watch the Sky News video around the student who sued for having his work put into Turnitin. This led to the most animated discussion so far, and we talked about the ethos of creativity, ownership and sharing. Some of the issues identified led into Vickel's practical bit that followed.

Everyone set up a TII account for themselves, created a course and set up an assignment. Unexpected 'learning' bonuses came with some of the experiences from hands on tasks. It was great to have two facilitators as one of us was able to help participants who were facing problems, while the other continued with the session.

All in all, not too bad a session all things considered. We got some great feedback about the session itself, and what we can do differently next time we offer it.

Moral of the story - always take a portable projector with you :-)

Abstract: Sensitive consideration of general guidelines at the planning and subsequent stages of implementing an innovation, as well as the development of associated 'support' programmes, can lead to greater uptake (Bonk, Cummings, Hara, Fischler, & Lee, 2000). This report considers some underlying considerations and then suggests and critiques two approaches to developing a programme for educating students (and staff) about academic conduct/misconduct and possible strategies to avoid plagiarism.

Please reference as: Owen, H. (2007). Approaches to developing a programme for educating students (and staff) about academic conduct and misconduct using Turnitin. Auckland: Unitec New Zealand.