Instructional Technology
Update:
Technology to Combat Plagiarism
By Nick Laudato, CIDDE Associate Director, Instructional
Technology
After receiving barely intelligible e-mails from some
of your students for the entire term, did you ever suspect that their
final written assignments, pristine and insightful in their use of the
English language, might not be original work?
The Internet has made it very
easy for people to find, copy, and exchange digital resources. The same
individual who wouldn’t dream of shoplifting a music CD from a record
store doesn’t hesitate to download mp3s from Kazaa to burn a music CD.
Because electronic content is easily and “freely” available on the Web,
we somehow assume it is our right to download and use it in any way
that we wish, the intellectual property rights of the author notwithstanding.
In the classroom, this attitude leads to the interpretation that the
Internet is a huge repository of “my” content and blurs the distinction
between researching and stealing, further exacerbating the age-old problem
of plagiarism. Webster defines “plagiarize” as follows:
To steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own;
to use (a created production) without crediting the source; to commit
literary theft; to present as new and original an idea or product derived
from an existing source.
Noting that the Web has made plagiarism easier and more prevalent
than ever, plagiarism.org, an online, anti-plagiarism resource, discovered
that:
- Nearly 80% of college students have admitted to cheating at least
once (study by The Center for Academic Integrity)
- Over 98% of high school stu- dents allowed someone else to copy
their work in 1989, up from 59% in 1969 (Free Press, July 1996: The
State of Americans: This Generation and the Next)
- 54% of students have admitted to plagiarizing from the Internet
and 74% to engaging in “serious” cheating at least once within the
previous school year (national survey published in Education Week)
Perhaps even more disturbing than the suspicion that plagiarism is
rampant is the perception that we don’t care and don’t respond appropriately
to the problem. Again, plagiarism.org reports that:
? 90% of students believe that cheaters are either never caught or have
never been appropriately disciplined (poll conducted by US News and
World Reports)
- 47% of students believe their teachers sometimes choose to ignore
students who are cheating (Free Press, July 1996: The State of Americans:
This Generation and the Next)
- 55% of faculty “would not be willing to devote any real effort
to documenting suspected incidents of student cheating” (Faculty Responses
to Academic Dishonesty: The Influence of Honor Codes, Donald L. McCabe)
Plagiarism certainly did not begin with the Internet, but just as certainly,
the problem has been fueled by the Internet’s capabilities. The commercial
arm of plagiarism.org, called turnitin.com, offers an Internet-based
solution to the problem. After an extended evaluation and trial, the
University has acquired a license that allows every Pitt faculty member
to use this online tool to combat and deter plagiarism.
The turnitin.com service uses “document source analysis” to compare
a student paper against a vast internal database, and uses “Web crawling
robots” to continually search online paper mills, encyclopedias, news
agencies and other online resources. The service returns an “originality
report” to the instructor within 24 hours, and sometimes as quickly
as two hours. The originality report allows the instructor to link instantly
to the referenced source documents and determine the exact nature of
the suspected plagiarism.
During Pitt’s Turnitin pilot, 26 faculty members made a total of 520
submissions to the service, some choosing to check all of their students’
papers and others to check only suspect papers. Fifteen of these faculty
responded to an online survey about their experience with the service.
All respondents indicated they would like to continue to use Turnitin
and would recommend the product to their colleagues. The majority found
it available, reliable, and easy to use. A startling 40% of the faculty
reported that Turnitin uncovered at least one instance of plagiarism
and 94% felt that the service would deter plagiarism.
Using turnitin.com is simple.
where an online form allows you to request an account. CIDDE’s staff
will create your account and, if you desire, provide an orientation
and/or training session. You can then add your own courses to Turnitin,
and assignments to the courses.
When you set up your assignments, you may elect to submit your students’
papers (in plain text, Word, or PDF form) yourself, or direct your students
to submit them using a special course code that you can provide. I’ve
found that the later approach not only saves you time, but seems to
be even more effective in deterring plagiarism, as students are likely
to be more careful when they understand the issues surrounding plagiarism
and are active participants in the process. In my personal experience,
most students seem to appreciate that the service is being used and
that it is ensuring the integrity of the assessment system.
I urge you to take advantage of this service by visiting the Pitt
turnitin.com Web site or by calling Dan Wilson, of the Faculty Instructional Development Lab,
at 412-624-8755 for more information.
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