Online Plagiarism Tutorial: The Politics Experience

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Online Plagiarism TutorialThe Politics
Experience

• Dr Rob Aitken

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Why did we take part in pilot?

• Costs
• Plagiarism cases taking up staff time
• Lost Potential detected too late to change
• Lack of Understanding?
• Didnt know / Wasnt taught defence
• Providing information not enough
• Not read / not understood / not able to put into
  practice
• Academic Practice
• Induction lectures
• New academic essay instructions

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Target Audiences

• Undergraduates
• mostly UK school-leavers
• Political Philosophy MA students
• mostly UK graduates
• Empirical MA students
• about half overseas students, some professionals
  returning to study

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Mode of Delivery

• Undergraduates
• Induction Lecture ? Stand Alone
• Political Philosophy MAs
• Stand Alone ? Seminar Discussion
• Empirical MAs
• During Seminar in PC classroom

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Follow up

• Opportunities to practice / learn
• Not trying to catch students
• Undergraduates
• Spring term quizzes in Yorkshare
• Safe Assignment tool in Yorkshare
• procedural essay submission
• student self-check
• assessed essay
• Dept check for suspicious essays

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Student Responses

• No problems understanding tutorial
• Provoked discussion amongst empirical MA students
• Overseas graduate students keen
• Clarified expectations
• Some graduate students felt persecuted
• Too many meetings stressing plagiarism

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Auditing Completion

• MAs students
• submit certificate with 1st essay no problems
• Undergraduates
• no suitable essay submission deadline
• Submit certificate to office by end of term
• Too long a period
• Cost of chasing up on those who did not
• Future use Yorkshare Gradebook?
• But joint degree students may be a problem

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Overall

• Easy to use
• UG emailed instructions
• No problems with using Yorkshare
• No problems understanding tutorial
• Technical problems
• Student Records problems
• Mark pages reviewed
• Some confusion worth giving instruction to
  students
• Did it work?
• No plagiarism detected this year