Human Resources ‘Designing out’ ‘designing in’ in the Open University: strategies for dealing with student plagiarism Jude Carroll 19 January 2005

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Four D’s for today Define it Design out easy opportunities, design in checks and verification; designing in ‘learning the rules’ Detect it no ‘blind eyes’ using a range of strategies Deal with it when found

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Defining plagiarism & collusion: big questions ‘submitting someone else’s work as your own for your own benefit’ Why focus on ‘work’? What makes something ‘my work’? How does work come to belong to someone else? What work does not belong to someone? How do you ‘show you know or understand’? Why is HE different from other contexts?

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development ‘Submitting someone else’s work as your own’

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Two different perspectives ‘Submitting someone else’s work as your own work’ (Anon) ‘Creating a false assumption in an assessor by borrowing, without specific acknowledgement, from other published or unpublished work’ (source?)

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Activity: which word is best? Work in three’s for 5 minutes Then How might you use this kind of activity with students?

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Why? Students’ rationalisations & explanations Misunderstanding: Lack of clarity re: definitions, rules Lack of clarity in assignment brief, requirements Misuse:Poor application of rules and conventions Weak academic skills, weak English skills Lack of confidence in self as learner Poor personal planning / time management Misconduct:Too easy to resist Multiple demands and/or bunched assignments Already an established behaviour Huge fear of failure Entirely extrinsic motivation

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Things academics do that make it more likely Too much Bunched assignments Over-assessment Lack of clarityunclear briefs not distinguishing between collaboration and collusion not stressing what is valued and not rewarding it with marks Type of task‘Show you know’ assignments Single-solution assignments Setting already-been-solved problems Not changing the task or brief each time Focus on the end product only Not requiring and rewarding evidence of process

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Task: does your OU experience fit this? Inspect the list of student explanations / rationalisations: does it ring true for your OU students? any to add? Any not at all relevant? Inspect the ‘makes it more likely’ factors which have you experienced/ done personally? which do you know happen in others’ courses? which are the most fruitful for action today? Be ready to report back consensus answers in 10 minutes

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Design in ‘academic apprenticeship’: -early activities to build shared understanding of academic conventions and values -early individual diagnostic activities [testing understanding and skills] -course requirements to know and use conventions - targeted feedback on correct / incorrect use of academic rules of citation, originality, attribution --assessing the student’s use of feedback in the final grade -excellent written support and guidance

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Generic guidance: designing out plagiarism Start early. [Habits & behaviour, once established, don’t change] Acknowledge and work with students’ poor planning. How? Require stages, chunk tasks, create compilation assessments Check things are happening, require evidence of activity [not assessed – perhaps as a requirement] Consider peer review and peer assessment. Make work public and owned; force them to listen to and use the results of peer review; value it Review assessment criteria. Match assessment rewards with stressed values.

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development focus on assignment tasks Novelty: task or format what is required: specific, local, recent personal, individual, unique Higher-order cognitive skills (eg. rank, justify, choose, revise, interpret, analyse, invent, plan; not knowledge (eg. ‘describe, state’) or understanding (‘explain’) or generic application Assess the process as well as (or instead of) the product Authenticate (‘Who did this work?’)

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Task: inspecting two briefs Have a look at both briefs. For each example, identify how students might meet the requirements without learning anything….. List the plagiarism opportunities. Which of the generic suggestions might help here? Make it less likely that students see the brief and think, “I have to make that” rather than, “I have to find that.”

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development It’s hard to spot your own ….. Too close…. or too used to one kind of assessment Wrong time of the year for thinking Not being sure what is possible or permissible Worry about workload need: peer review or outsiders’ eyes

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Dealing with plagiarism: key aspects Making a case: civil law, balance of probabilities Protecting the spotter – time, stress, relationship with students Consistent, transparent, fair Record keeping Monitoring, acting on the data