Plagiarism & citing resources

A couple of interesting sites I came across recently:
Glasgow Metroplolitan College's library guides in multiple languages and podcasts about plagiarism: http://www.glasgowmet.ac.uk/
aboutus.aspx
Queensland University of Technology's CITE/WRITE site: http://www.citewrite.qut.edu.au/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Bee on my apple blossom, May 2008.

Student plagiarism in an online world

Gerry McKiernan has highlighted a new book about plagiarism, which sounds very interesting (though expensive). It has contributors particularly from the UK and the Australia/ New Zealand, and also the USA and other parts of Europe.
Roberts, T. S. (2008) Student plagiarism in an online world: problems and solutions. Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference. More info at http://www.igi-pub.com/downloads/
pdf/Roberts_brochure.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: a friendly fish in the pool in famous Ubiquitous Chip restaurant in Hillhead, Glasgow - it knew it wasn't going to get eaten.

Information Literacy in the Web 2.0 Environment

Gerry Mckiernan announced that he'd be speaking at the 3rd International Plagiarism Conference, Transforming Practice for an Authentic Future, June 23-25 2008, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. The website is at http://www.plagiarismconference.co.uk/
Gerry is talking about "The Learning and Teaching Challenges and Opportunities Associated with the Development of Information Literacy in the Web 2.0 Environment" and he's put out a call for suggested websites, references etc. If you want, you can (this being Web 2.0!) add comments to the blog he just started up in this area, namely: http://infolitweb20.blogspot.com/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Primula, Hailsham, April 2008.

Plagiarism in schools

There are interesting posts in the lis-infoliteracy discussion list and on Moira Bent's information literacy blog, sparked by a BBC story which covered a survey carried out by a teachers' union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (there were 278 respondents, teaching sixth-formers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland).
BBC. (2008) "Teachers voice plagiarism fears." BBC news. 18 January. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7194772.stm
There's a bit more information, including responses to the key questions, on the ATL site at http://www.atl.org.uk/atl_en/news/
Media_office/releases/plagiarism.asp
Photo by Sheila Webber: Old man's beard in sunlight, Lewes, December 2004.

Academic integrity

The 3rd Asia-Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity will be held at the University of South Australia in December 2007, and the conference organisers are inviting nominations for the awards of Best Original Academic Integrity Resource and also Best Annotated Bibliography of Online Academic Integrity Resources. The successful candidates will be given a grant to cover registration forthe conference. Further details and nomination forms can be found at http://www.unisa.edu.au/educationalintegrity/
conference/awards.asp The conference website can also be found at http://www.unisa.edu.au/
educationalintegrity/conference/
Photo by Sheila Webber: view from Peveril Castle, August 2007

Some recent articles

Free on the web:
Hughes, Hilary E. and Bruce, Christine S. and Edwards, Sylvia L. (2007) "Models for reflection and learning: a culturally inclusive response to the infomation literacy imbalance." In: Andretta, S, (Eds) Change and challenge: Information literacy for the 21st century, pp. 59-84. Adelaide: Auslib Press. Available from QUT e-print archive: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00007038/

Irving, C. and Crawford, J. (2007) "Information literacy: a framework for life." Library and information update, 6 (7). (Discusses Scottish Framework and the background to it) http://www.cilip.org.uk/publications/
updatemagazine/archive/archive2007/
july/Irving%20and%20Crawford.htm

Priced:
Bombaro, C. (2007) "Using audience response technology to teach academic integrity: 'The seven deadly sins of plagiarism' at Dickinson College." Reference Services Review, 35 (2), 296-309. "This paper seeks to explore the successes and challenges associated with teaching first-year students a session on plagiarism avoidance through the use of an audience response system."

Emmett, A. and Emde, J. (2007) "Assessing information literacy skills using the ACRL standards as a guide." Reference Services Review, 35 (2), 210 - 229. "The purpose of this study is to obtain preliminary evidence over a three-year period on the efficacy of a curriculum designed to foster information literacy skills in graduate students in a chemistry bibliography course."

Mizrachi, D. and Bedoya, J. (2007) "LITE Bites: broadcasting bite-sized library instruction." Reference Services Review, 35 (2), 249 - 256. "This paper sets out to describe a successful collaboration between the UCLA Library and a campus-based student television production team to create and broadcast a series of short library commercials."

Photos by Sheila Webber: Top photo - trying to pick cherries from top of tree through the bedroom window; 2nd photo - the tree, before the pesky birds ate most of the cherries.

Survey of plagiarism penalties

This was published last month:
Tennant P., Rowell G. and Duggan F. (2007) Academic Misconduct Benchmarking Research Project: Part I: The Range and Spread of Penalties Available for Student Plagiarism among UK Higher Education Institutions. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: JISC PLagiarism Advisory Service.

http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/
AMBeR/index.php

It identifies that "The regulations that recommend penalties for plagiarism among higher education institutions (HEIs) vary substantially throughout the UK .... almost a third of HEIs use guidelines that fail to advise academic staff which penalties are appropriate for particular cases." Certainly when there ISN'T consistency and clear guidance within a university it can be problematic (I hasten to add we have a policy here at Sheffield, although guidelines are being clarified further: I think it has to be an ongoing thing).

Photo by Sheila Webber: Rose (perhaps "Peace"?), Firth Court, Sheffield, July 2007.

Plagiarism and IL

Yesterday Bill and I were talking to an academic here in the Marketing Department (I'm still at Strathclyde) about helping to deter plagiarism through information literacy - it might lead to a session with staff and teaching assistants in a couple of months time. Obviously were were talking about how this can fit in with an overall approach and conception of IL, and (at a nitty gritty level) some of the activities to do with sel;ection, evaluation and synthesis that can help develop students' understanding.

On this topic: last year I flagged up the 2nd Plagiarism conference that took place in June 2006 beforehand, but I don't think I ever mentioned that the full text proceedings are available online at http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/conference2006/proceedings.html

Just to pick out one of the papers: Gourlay (2006) reports on a survey (questionnaires with some follow-up interviews) at Napier University. Students identified searching for academic material, paraphrasing, and writing in an academic style. A quote from the conclusion points up the problems that students have, when at school they haven't been pulled up for things which count as plagiarism at University "The survey and interview data reveal widely differing transition experiences among respondents. However, a common theme was a sudden change in academic culture and expectations in terms of writing when making the transition from school or college to university. Some students reported that the expected norms of academic writing at university were not expressed to them, and that they have developed as writers through trial and error." (p10)

Gourlay, L. (2006) "Negotiating boundaries: Student perceptions, academic integrity and the co-construction of academic literacies." In Proceedings of the 2nd International Plagiarism conference. JISCPAS.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Thistle, Glasgow, June 2007.