Preventing Plagiarism Development of resources for students 27th June, 2018 Dr Jane Thomas and Carrie Grainger

Plagiarism This project aimed to develop accessible resources for students to stop plagiarism. A PowerPoint with audio resource was developed A definition of plagiarism is in the resource we will show you Too much time is spent by academic staff dealing with plagiarism and often the issue is ‘study skills’

The student view Analysis, for 2107/18, from the UWL student attainment project: ‘not understanding how to reference or about plagiarism and the consequences’ was a key academic concern for 84% of students This was the 2nd highest academic concern out of 10. Based on student feedback from 505 students in 17 modules from levels 3, 4 & 5, which were selected because of their large attainment gaps for either Ethnicity, IMD or Age Note that it is a sample of our students' responses from these particular modules and is not necessarily representative of the whole student body

Timeline of the plagiarism prevention project 1. The public health team refer around 2-8 students for plagiarism per semester. Aside from other considerations, this is an inefficient use of academics’ time. 2. A resource was needed that we could be sure all students would see. Those students most in need might be least likely to use low profile resources (Tudor Heart, 1971). Tudor Heart, J (1971) The inverse care law, Lancet, 1, 405-412.

Timeline continued 3. A draft set of slides was developed in semester 1, 2017/18 and shown to a group of MSc Public Health and Wellbeing students. These students commented on the draft. A student agreed to do the voice-over. 4. The resource was placed in a level 4 module before assessed course work was due, and set to statistics tracking

The resources Here we will show you: 1. The resource before comments and 2. The resource after student input

Outcomes The views on the Blackboard site that had the resource had a reasonable usage However, the initial referrals for academic offences, which can result in a recommendation for study skills support, from this group were 3. Although, these were not recorded as having opened the resource Future actions are discussed on the next slide

In future Next semester we will show the resource to BSc students in class before assignment preparation starts We will ask students to view the resource on Blackboard the week before showing it in class. This is an encouragement for all students to use Blackboard more often We will continue to track plagiarism referral statistics and assess the impact of the resource We will extend the project to other courses. There has already been a lot of interest from lecturers in using the resource. Interested lecturers should contact jane.thomas@uwl.ac.uk

References Barbour, R. (2008) Doing Focus Groups, London: Sage. Bradly, C. (2011) Plagiarism Education and Prevention: a subject-driven case-based approach, Oxford: Chandos. Devlin, M. (2006) Policy, Preparation, and Prevention: Proactive minimization of student plagiarism, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 28 (1): 45-58 Hubbard, K. et al (2017) Undergraduate students as co-producers in the creation of first-year practical class resources. Higher Education Pedagogies, 2 (1): 58-78 Kitzinger, J. (1995) Qualitative research: Introducing focus groups, British Medical Journal, 311(7000): 299. Naidoo, J. and Wills, J., (2010) Developing Practice for Public Health and Health Promotion, Amsterdam: Elsevier Tudor Heart, J (1971) The inverse care law, Lancet, 1, 405-412.

Acknowledgements Additional to those listed in the resource, we would like to thank: Florence Makinde, Dr Muili Lawal