Plagiarism is fraud. It means taking credit for doing or saying something which was said or done before by someone else. As with the expression of original ideas or inventions, copyright laws protect these intellectual properties (Brown, V., Jordan, R., Rubin, N., & Arome, G., 2010). According to Palloff and Pratt (n.d.), plagiarism is no more common in online learning environments than it is in face-to-face learning environment.
• Lastly, increasing learner’s confidence in their writing skills might reduce plagiarism since this might be unintentional (Elander, J., Pittam, G., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, N., 2010).
Resources
Brown, V., Jordan, R., Rubin, N., & Arome, G. (2010). Strengths and Weaknesses of Plagiarism Detection Software. Education And Training, 11(1).
Effective Peer Critique Video. Laureate Education, Inc.
Elander, J., Pittam, G., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, N. (2010). Evaluation of an intervention to help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by improving their authorial identity. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(2), 157-171. doi:10.1080/02602930802687745
Palloff and Pratt (n.d.). Video “Plagiarism and Cheating”. Laureate Education, Inc.
One of the ways to detect plagiarism is the use of software such as Turnitin. However there are opposing groups to the use of such software (Brown, V., Jordan, R., Rubin, N., & Arome, G., 2010). Instead, changing the way we engage learners in more authentic experiences may contribute to decreasing cheating in the first place.
Ways to decrease plagiarism are various:
• Assignments which would encourage each learner to contribute from their life experiences.
• Increase usage of internet tools: wikis, blogs, email, etc (Brown, V., Jordan, R., Rubin, N., & Arome, G., 2010). • Model contributions to online discussions or through internet tools and provide plenty of practice on how to use the information found on resources – paraphrasing, quoting, referencing.
• Implement peer evaluation as a way to gather not only individual information but in sharing with others what has been learned within the community of learners (As found in Effective Peer Critique video) .
• Presenting specific expectations to learners in reference to what consequences they would face in case plagiarism is detected.• Lastly, increasing learner’s confidence in their writing skills might reduce plagiarism since this might be unintentional (Elander, J., Pittam, G., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, N., 2010).
Resources
Brown, V., Jordan, R., Rubin, N., & Arome, G. (2010). Strengths and Weaknesses of Plagiarism Detection Software. Education And Training, 11(1).
Effective Peer Critique Video. Laureate Education, Inc.
Elander, J., Pittam, G., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, N. (2010). Evaluation of an intervention to help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by improving their authorial identity. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(2), 157-171. doi:10.1080/02602930802687745
Palloff and Pratt (n.d.). Video “Plagiarism and Cheating”. Laureate Education, Inc.
