Plagiarism in assessment tasks
Academic integrity and dealing with plagiarism
Plagiarism is understood as “claiming and using the thoughts or writing or creative works of others without acknowledgment” (UC Assessment Policy).
It takes many forms, such as copying another students’ assignment or using unacknowledged text in an assignment which matches publicly available material. James, McInnis and Devlin (2002) describe the most common forms as:
- cheating in an exam by copying from other students or using unauthorised notes
- submitting assignments completed by another person
- quoting or paraphasing material from a source without acknowledgment
- multiple submission of the same assignment (correctly cited and referenced) for separate units/marks.
Universities have always had to deal with plagiarism but what makes plagiarism a critical contemporary issue is the advent of new technologies that have led to a proliferation in plagiarism: it is not a new problem but it assumes new forms and is enabled by new technologies.
Marginson (2006) notes that up 14% of Australian students may plagiarise: in his view, it has contaminated essay marking and there is sometimes a culture of silence around plagiarism within universities.
Plagiarism is a complex issue and there are many factors that may drive it, including poor study skills, reduced time for study because of increasing involvement of students in part-time work while they are at university, a culture that accepts some degree of plagiarism, inappropriate assessment design such as reuse of old assignments and exams, the growth of sites that provide assignments for students, and more intense levels of competition, expectations and time pressures generally.
James, McInnis and Devlin (2002) recommend a four part strategy to minimise plagiarism and it is a useful framework to review the promotion of academic integrity at the University of Canberra.
- Development of policy at every level - institutional, divisional, school level
- Educating students about conventions of authorship and acknowledgment
- Designing appropriate assessment to minimise possibilities of plagiarise
- Installing visible procedures for monitoring and detecting plagiarism
Policy
Policy around plagiarism at the University is located in two policies:
An important element is an assignment cover sheet that requires students to sign and date the following declaration:
I certify that the attached assignment is my own work. Material drawn from other sources has been acknowledged according to unit-specific requirements for referencing.
Educating students
Teaching students about academic integrity and how to acknowledge sources within particular disciplines, is a proactive way of minimising instances of plagiarism, and is good teaching practice.
You may like to inform students about RefWorks, A web-based product for creating personal bibliographic databases that is supported by the UC Library. EndNote is a similar system, possibly better for post-graduate study and research.
The following plagiarism tutorial, available by courtesy of the Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence at the University of South Florida, is described by its developers in these terms:
This tutorial is designed to teach students and inform instructors about the difference between plagiarism and paraphrasing. It focuses primarily on the use of web-resources in student research. It contains examples of proper and improper student writing, with clear explanations on why the writing is acceptable or unacceptable.
This tutorial was developed by Dr. Eleanour Snow in collaboration with Neil Gomes, Cacilda Barros, and Sayed Alkhabbaz of the Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence and Media Innovation Team at USF.
This tutorial is divided into sections and some of these sections contain presentations, simulations, and quizzes that inform you about plagiarism. The table of contents for this tutorial is presented on this page. You will need the Flash Player to view some sections of this tutorial (click here to download the free Flash Player). You also have the option to download the content of this tutorial as a PDF file in section 9.
Assessment design
From a teachers' perspective, good practice in the design of assessment is an important approach to minimise plagiarism.
James, McInnis and Devlin (2002) identify fourteen strategies that they believe will counter plagiarism through the design of assessment tasks. In their introduction to this section they include the following quote:
"I think that some of the assignments are just asking for students to plagiarise".
- 'Design out' the easy cheating options, for example, using the same essay/prac questions year after year (Carroll, 2000).
- Avoid assignments that ask students to collect, describe and present information as these are more prone to plagiarism than those that ask for analysis or evaluation (Carroll, 2000).
- Randomise questions and answers for electronic quizzes/assignments.
- Ensure assessment tasks relate to the specific content and focus of the subject (and therefore the students) so students are less tempted to simply copy something from the web.
- Set the assignment specification on a unique or recent event on which there is unlikely to be much material available (Culwin & Lancaster, 2001). "I think that some of the assignments are just asking for students to plagiarise” (First year student)
- Use essay/assignment topics that integrate theory and examples or use personal experience (Carroll, 2000), for example, a field trip report, a task with no right answers or a personal reflection on a task.
- Use assignments that integrate classroom dynamics, field learning, assigned reading and classroom learning (Gibelman, Gelman and Fast, 1999).
- Use alternatives to the standard essay, such as case studies, which present more difficulties in locating suitable material to plagiarise (Culwin & Lancaster, 2001).
- Assess work produced in class, possibly with preparation allowed beforehand, to reduce the opportunities to plagiarise (Culwin & Lancaster, 2001).
- A timed open book essay in class is a variation on the above theme (Carroll, 2000). This is possible with large classes as long as the class is in one room at one time or parallel groups have different questions to answer. Administration and marking are considerations.
- Where feasible and manageable, viva (i.e. orally examine) a random selection of the students briefly in order to check what they have learned and that they are familiar with the ideas in the submission (Culwin & Lancaster, 2001).
- Ask students to make brief presentations to the class based on their written assignments (Gibelman, Gelman and Fast, 1999).
- Require all students or a random sample of students to submit essay outlines and/or non-final versions of assignments. Ensure that all students are informed that they may be called on to submit such drafts.
- Minimise the number of assessment tasks - continuous assessment and over-assessment contribute to plagiarism. While three pieces of assessment per subject might ease the emphasis on the exam, this number multiplied by four subjects means a student faces the equivalent task of completing a serious piece of work each week of each semester (Langsam, 2001).
Plagiarism detection
The presence of plagiarism is often indicated by such factors as:
- inconsistencies in writing style/tone
- incorrect details in the bibliography or a mismatch between in-text references and bibliographic details
- inconsistent fonts or embedded links that have been copied and pasted
- errors in citation details
In terms of electronic detection of plagiarism, the most widely used system in Australian universities is Turnitin. This product has been used in the the School of ISE at the University of Canberra and evaluated as a teaching tool for the development of research and referencing techniques; its use, combined with individual academic support, has been recognised as having a positive impact (e.g., Alam, 2004. While Turnitin detects matching text between assignments or external sources, this is not necessarily evidence of plagiarism and often individual academic judgment is still required to review reports that are generated by the program; furthermore, it is a commercial system and there are costs associated with it.
References
- Brown, S. (2006). Addressing student plagiarism. Sally Brown, Pro Vice Chancellor for Assessment, Learning, and Teaching at Leeds Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, believes that the age of technology has not only made cheating easy but has also engendered a sense among today's students that there is nothing wrong with copying and pasting someone else's work into your own. Many students today, she said, simply do not understand what plagiarism is and why it is wrong. Of the several approaches Brown suggested for fixing the problem, the one she thinks the best is designing coursework around plagiarism. By giving assignments that require personal knowledge or that compel students to provide regular accounts of their studies, an instructor can largely avoid the issue of plagiarism, according to Brown. Other strategies include education, punishments, and changing the culture among students so that cheaters are looked down on by everyone. Available at: BBC News, 18 June 2006.
- James, R., McInnis, C. and Devlin, M. (2002). Minimising plagiarism. Assessing learning in Australian Universities. This section of the site, developed under the auspices of the Australian University Teaching Committee and hosted at the University of Melbourne, was prepared by Marcia Devlin and it includes PowerPoint presentations (36 strategies for minimising plagiarism) as well as a PDF file for printing.
- The University of South Australia has developed the following resources for staff and students to assist in understanding what plagiarism is and how to develop ways of avoiding it. they can be accessed at:
Resources on plagiarism for staff and students at the University of South Australia(UniSA)
Online plagiarism workshop. This is also a UniSA resource. The URL is: