Plagiarism Detection & Prevention

I learned in this week’s resources that plagiarism is a rapid growing problem in many settings today. With the advent of the online technologies and the exponential growth of the World Wide Web comes increased access to information. Unfortunately, this access also can create additional opportunities for cheating and plagiarism. Plagiarism is the misrepresentation of authorship. In the most common form of plagiarism, one author’s words are inserted verbatim in the work of a second author, without quotation, acknowledgement, or attribution. Moreover, each context has its own rules regarding the need for accurate attribution of authorship and those rules are not always obvious to everyone. There are many plagiarism detection software available to online instructors today that include Turnitin, WCopyfind, Edutie, Plagiserve, EVE2, Pl@giarism, Integriguard, NoodleBib 6, PlagAware, Ephorus, PlagScan andUrkund. The software help online instructor to better detect plagiarism by comparing individual student’s paper to Web documents and or essay databases to find and report instances of matching text. Walden University has been using a plagiarism detection tool known as Turnitin that is neat. Learners can use these software as well for self detection and awareness.

According to Jocoy (2006) many instructors view explicit plagiarism instruction as the best means of prevention. Therefore, it is very important for instructors to design meaningful assessments that are aligned with the curricular and instructional goal that can be critical in informing the instruction. She also asserts that it is imperative to incorporate plagiarism instruction into individual courses. I think instructors’ assessments should be designed to educate the learner about copyright laws, plagiarism, cheating, and fair use of information that are abundant out there. Gaining a familiarity of these rules is critically important, as inadvertent mistakes can lead to charges of plagiarism, which is the un-credited use of somebody else’s words or ideas (Stolley et al, 2011). Some learners plagiarize unknowingly due to lack of education therefore, instructors should not assume that learners know but rather teach them because classrooms whether synchronous or asynchronous are diverse and one size does not feet all anymore. As Jocoy (2006) states, many students have yet to develop a clear sense of appropriate Internet use in a written assignment while some lack knowledge about plagiarism. Her research shows that students who did not receive plagiarism instruction plagiarized twice as often as those students who had the opportunity to participate in the plagiarism instruction. Further, the innovation of technology tools in today’s learning environments is a plus to instructors in educating learners. I just researched tons of plagiarism tools such as Turnitin that Walden University has introduced recently. Learners can self-assess themselves by using any of the plagiarism tools because most of these tools are for free and are available online.

The facilitation strategies that I would like to use as a future online instructor would be what is called the participant post. Thus I will encourage messages and participation in discussion forum regularly, which is appropriate to the online learning context. Additionally, I would make sure that the online community meets its members’ needs and the participants express honest opinions. I would not forget the learner-to-learner collaboration where spontaneous moderation occurs among the learners. Further, I would like to engage learners in the learning process particularly at the beginning of the course to help promote effective online community. I will as well make sure I am conversant with any technology tools that learners will be working on in order to better assist them. I will further use one of the plagiarism detection software to help in detecting plagiarism. One thing that I learned in the week’s resources is that learners can be given an open book assignment that allows for collaboration and sharing of ideas without the fear ofcheating or plagiarism (Palloff, R., and Pratt 2011). I remember in my undergraduate program one of our instructors gave us an open book assessment however, it was rather difficult for me although I had the text book and all my notes right in front of me. However, some of my classmates enjoyed open book assessments. I think facilitating this strategy as a future online instructor will be a little challenging as it can better work in synchronous learning environment rather than asynchronous setting.

The additional consideration for online teaching that should be made to help detect or prevent cheating and plagiarism is to make the learners aware that it is okay to support their arguments using outside resource. However, I will emphasize that there is the need to give credit to the author, in order words the resources must be cited so that they will not harm their learning success. Additionally, I will be open to answer any questions learners might have concerning preventing cheating and plagiarism. I will also include a warning in my assignment as Jocoy (2006) asserted. I will use plagiarism software to ensure that original sources are properly quoted, paraphrased, cited, and referenced. Also, as we do at Walden, I will ask that learners turn in their assignments into the plagiarism software that I will be using in the learning program for self detection and awareness.

References


Jocoy, C. & DiBiase, D. (2006). Plagiarism by adult learners online: A case study in detection and remediation. International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning, 7(1), 1-15.

Stolly, K & Brizee, A. (2011). Owl Purdue Online Writing Lab. Retrieved August 4, 2011, from Overview and Contradictions: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/

Palloff, R., and Pratt, K. Plagiarism and Cheating. Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved April 7, 2011, from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4894963&Survey=1&47=6260654&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1