If you've never plagiarized, cast the first stone...

[Beverley Stubbs]

I’d like to hear some opinions about plagiarism, academic honesty, honor codes, and responsible use policies. A committee has been formed to write a policy statement for the student handbook and I would like teachers to have the opportunity to contribute their thoughts.

Russell Hunt, in his article “Four Reasons to be Happy about Internet Plagiarism” emphasizes active learning, problem/project/inquiry based learning and cooperative learning. “Information and ideas need to be reformatted, reconstituted, restructured, reshaped, reinvented” and developed in a new form. We shouldn’t be asking our students to ‘repack nuggets of information’.

In September, I saw an excellent video about developing projects that require students to solve problems, analyze information and make decisions. When I track it down, I will share it!! Has anyone else seen the one I am talking about?

There are numerous websites with steps to combat plagiarism. Suggestions include:

1. Design assignments with specific goals and instructions (contextual, specified audience, purposeful)
2. Emphasize the positive use of citation:
• Shows understanding of the topic
• Builds on others ideas to create your own
• Adds authority and evidence to your own ideas
• Distinguishes your analysis from the author’s analysis
3. Follow an inquiry model – include proposal, outline, reflection
4. Improve note taking skills
5. Oral presentations


SO… please share your ideas.

1. Why we need a document?
2. What kind of documents do we want? Honor code? Honesty policy? Responsible use policy? Highlights in curriculum documents? Citation models? Consequences?
3. How will it fit in? 6+1 traits? UoI?
4. What will it look like?
5. Where does it start? PS3?
6. PLUS
7. Note taking, concept maps, graphic organizers, main ideas, paraphrasing – where are these in our curriculum documents?

[Julie Lindsay]

Beverley, I have been giving this some thought and want to share a slightly different perspective. The issue of copyright is interesting in that we perceive something to be plagiarized because it belongs to someone else. We need to be more aware of different forms of copyright and use these with students. The whole area of Creative Commons licensing opens up work of all types for others to use works as long as credit is given according to the type of CC license put on the original.
This article on Creative Commons in Education is worth reading.

Also, the best way to avoid plagiarism is to construct projects and learning situations where text-based regurgitation of information is not the main requirement. The creative use of multimedia and IT-supported artifacts can communicate a message and reflect the knowledge gained just as well as, if not better than a text response.

The other method that I use more and more now is to 'wikify' student output. This means I ask students to collaborate in a wiki environment and help edit the same work in order to foster ultimate originality.

Citations can be used in all examples above to show depth and breadth of research.......

[Nerine Chalmers]

Beverley and Julie - thank you for starting this conversation.

There has been a good deal of discussion among librarians recently on this issue, including a Second Life presentation from Doug Johnson. This link is to a print version of his presentation:
https://dougjohnson.wikispaces.com/
No U-Turn Syndrome (Copyright) Second Life - April 14, 2008

Other interesting links are:
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/files/pdf/Final_CSM_copyright_r...

http://mediaeducationlab.com/index.php?page=274

However, these discussions centre more on what is acceptable for teachers and librarians to use, and on the concept of copyright for various types of media.

Our concern at the moment is with a policy statement for students which will appear in the student handbook. I agree entirely with both Beverley and Julie that our responsibility as educators is to structure student research in such a way that plagiarism is impossible, and students are asking good questions, and finding the answers to those questions - the question is the answer, as Jamie McKenzie would say. (www.fno.org)

I also agree with Julie that the Creative Commons route is one that both educators and students would do well to follow, and I believe that this will take on ever greater importance as we begin to share more freely the work we do, and desire both to make it available to others, and to protect our own intellectual property. However according to Creative Commons, attribution must be given, although the material is freely available for re-using, remixing, and sharing, http://creativecommons.org/

Very young children are very quick to protest if they suspect that one of their peers is "copying" their work. The step from this horrified reaction, to one of pride that their work is worthy of use by a peer, is an important one. By insisting on sources being named, we are instilling in students a sense of pride in their work, and are on the way to enabling students to experience the joy and excitement of discovery that comes with inquiry.

Young children, in the early stages of learning how to research, will often need to find basic information - those nuggets of information that Beverley refers to, but this is never enough – there will always be a need to create something new with that information. Basic to all our work is the understanding that it is vital that our students know how to find information, and how to select the most useful from the plethora of available sources. The information itself is immaterial – the kind of information our students will be seeking in the work place ten years from now may well not exist today, but they need to have the skills to access whatever it is that they will need, and they need to understand and respect intellectual property.

As educators, we need to structure our assignments very carefully indeed – an ideal opportunity for collaboration and creativity on our part. With this comes the challenge of ensuring that it is second nature to our students to take note of where they find the information they use, and to acknowledge the source. Having in place a policy which engages students at all levels, and develops gradually as they go through the school, will make our work easier, and will be less confusing for students.

From a primary school perspective, I believe that our students must understand the concept of really taking ownership of their work - that copying and pasting is never an option; that having undue input from any unnamed source is not acceptable; that a bibliography provides readers with valuable sources for further research, so that students in following years can build on the research currently being done. I believe that this applies in the process, whatever the final product will be, and whatever the tool being used to achieve that product. Whether the students are working individually on a hand written paper, or using a wiki to collaborate with others, or creating a digital presentation, the basic need to acknowledge the work of previous researchers is vital.

If these expectations are clearly stated in a policy document, it gives parents, students and teachers a common starting point and an understanding of what is required in every situation, and will make our goal of an information literate school community that much easier to reach.

[Julie Lindsay]

Nerine

Great response!

I was just thinking about what we are doing with the Horizon Project 2008 where we have a njhumber of students (from around the world) creating content on various wiki pages as a collaborative effort. We are using the wikipedia example as a model to foster originality and acknowledgment of sources. The Second Life page on Wikipdeia is one we use as an example of how a collaborative document can be set out and how footnotes and further resources support the material. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life

[Diana Wolfe]

An excellent answer from Nerine! The question isn't about whether we want students to locate and use ideas/data/snippets from various sources, of course we do. The question is about ensuring that students learn that locating and passing on is not enough- they must craft something new, something unique to them, using those sources and the power of their own brain. School assignments aren't about reporting what someone else did or said, they are about learning from, reacting to, building on, what has come before.
Plagiarism is stealing, no doubt about that, and that is certainly an ethical and sometimes a business/legal concern. Students need to learn about these ethics as part of the process. However it is at least as important that students learn to avoid plagiarism so that they will LEARN while doing their assignments, something they can't do if they're cutting and pasting.

[Candace L. Martin "Candy"]

Where are the students taking responsiblity for all this. Not only should the school have an honor code covering a variety of topics but the students (through an honor committee) should be involved in determining/handing out the penalties. I also agree that teachers need to be rethinking assignments. Beverley I think the video you are referring to so from a video that Julie showed us during our sessions with here at the beginning of the year.

[Sean Davis]

I don't think that simply because we may ourself have done it that we can't cast a stone. After all has a poacher never turned gamekeeper. Does the preacher not admonish in spite of his own sin. that said I think that all of the points are valid, the how and when are important. I think a point to include is what was the assignments expectation. Once the students know what was expected then the level of plagiarism / academic honesty becomes clearer. If you include this in the policy document perhaps you can start it as early as you want.

[Celeste Scholz]

I've been following this dialog with interest. Thanks for the great insights! There are schools that have an Academic Honor Code in place and also an Honor Council comprised of students and teacher advisers who review cases.

One question - will you be considering using an originality check system (like turnitin) to ensure that all students have given credit to their sources in written papers?

Learning how to cite sources properly takes some learning over a number of years and through a variety of teachers. As a former high school writing teacher, I found an originality check system like turnitin puts all students on the same playing field. Earlier I was only able to help those students whom I suspected didn't give a reference to those copied words in their papers. Now everyone has that chance. So using turnitin as a way to teach - not police!