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Imperial CollegeLondon

Supporting academic integrity: Learning about plagiarism

through information literacy

Debbi BodenFaculty Team Leader

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Imperial CollegeLondon

Plagiarism and Higher Education (HE)

• Plagiarism is high on the HE agenda• HE in a moral panic!!

Kent University in the UK

‘A student who admits down-loading material from the internet for his degree plans to sue his university for negligence’

BBC News (World edition)

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Plagiarism at university

• Diversity of background and cultures• Economic pressures• High expectations• Deficiency in writing skills • Information explosion

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Plagiarism at university

•Learned behaviour

•School - cutting and pasting culture

‘Coursework: the charter for school cheats’ (The Independent November 4 , 2005)

•International students

•Language skills

•Fear of failure

•Academic traditions

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Plagiarism at university

• Economic pressures• High expectations• Deficiency in writing skills • Information explosion

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Imperial CollegeLondon

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http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=400110195&tstart=40&mod=1137694468214

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Plagiarism – How can the library help?

• a culture of crime and punishment does not foster learning

• a good policy is necessary but it is not enough to tackle plagiarism

• Institutions must be able to trace back to the very point every student was taught about plagiarism

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Imperial CollegeLondon

Olivia – Olivia who?

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Who is Olivia?

• Olivia = Online Virtual Information Assistant• Online information literacy programme• Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) WebCT

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Imperial CollegeLondon

Objectives

To provide access to an online environment which is

made up of self-contained units that can be used either

selectively according to the needs of the users, or as a

complete linear programme.

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Competency based

• Course based on a set of competencies which incorporated key skills 3 & 4 methodology and salient themes from various IL models Sconul 7 pillars Caul ALA

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Olivia

9 self contained learning units A staff information area A ‘first time users’ information

area Help and contact

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How did we use the IL programme?

• Blended learning Lectures Demonstrations Hands on sessions Self paced learning

• Interactive learning Questionnaires Self test Marked quizzes Online tutorials

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Olivia

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statistics

• Number of courses 2004 / 05 7• Number of courses 2005 / 06 15• Number of students enrolled 2004 / 05 1600+• Number of students enrolled 2005 / 06 3000+• Number of teaching hours 2004 / 05 81• Most popular units

UGs – databases, referencing & the Internet PGs – referencing, databases & information

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Quality assurance

• How do we know Olivia is any good? ‘Has the learner acquired the desired types or level of capability’ ‘Have they benefited from the educational experience?’ Need to think about how we assess whether outcomes have been

achieved

• How do we measure impact of IL? Improvement in quality of students work (academic feedback) Evaluation sheets Focus groups

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What is happening at Loughborough?

• Lunchtime in the Library Subject specific courses Study skills

• Database of the Month Concentrates on particular databases

• Embedding into courses

• Supporting material on Learn & a new tutorial called InfoTrail

• Your Academic Librarians Steph McKeating / Lizzie Gadd & Tracy Marshall

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Final thoughts

• There will always be a few students who deliberately plagiarise

• The majority of students entering HE have a lack of understanding what plagiarism is

• A good IL programme with with support from the academics can help solve many of the issues surrounding plagiarism and help students become effective independent learners

• Contact your library – let them help!

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Imperial CollegeLondon

The Times