Plagiarism

Plagiarism

by Chemical Moose -
Number of replies: 14

Anybody got any suggestions for cross referencing assignments submitted in Moodle against each other and the web?

I teach at a large secondary school and at present it doesn't appear as if the budget will extend to one of the major commercial products. Would very much appreciate any suggestion.

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In reply to Chemical Moose

Re: Plagiarism

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
There are some open source plagiarism checkers.  I would research that before going to commercial ones.  Maybe you can lead the way for a moodle-integrated plagiarism checker.

Here is one general article on the subject.
www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/pdf/lancaster.pdf

And here is a group working on the problem with a variety of tools.
http://cise.lsbu.ac.uk/tools.html

There is also another good one that I saw demonstrated but I forgot the name.  Basically, it does a good job of checking all text submitted at your school to make sure classmates don't copy from each other.  It does not do automatic searches of external databases or the whole internet like TurnItIn tries to do.
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Plagiarism

by Miro Babinsky -
Do you mean http://plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu/links.html ?
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In reply to Miro Babinsky

Re: Plagiarism

by Ger Tielemans -

Wrong, wrong, wrong, the only signal you give is: "Never trust your students"

The second part is that you are naive: nowadays you can hire students on the web to do your homwork (like in the movie)... plagiarism will not detect this fraud.

Why not approach it from a positiv perspectiv: design assignments you cannot steal from the web.

"Grab three book reviews form the web and discuss which one you find the best".. etc 

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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Plagiarism

by Jeff Wood -
Ooooh... I like that idea Ger.

Do you mind if I use it? (Didn't want to plagiarize wink)

Jeff
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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Plagiarism

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
Strategies to prevent plagiarism
  1. Design assignments that are unique, personal, or project-based (as per Ger's post)
  2. Teach how to cite other's opinions (paraphasing, quoting, etc.)  This takes a long time to learn.
  3. Use local plagiarism checking software.  I am still searching for the open source version of MyDropBox.  Can't find it on a web search.  But we need something to check even unique projects because students share reports within the school.  Good idea for a future moodle plugin.
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Plagiarism

by Ger Tielemans -

Strange indeed, as academic you are are trained (part of APA style) to steal, sorry cite/quote/refer..

reasons to be not so naive, even with assignment trics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essay_mill

but why doing all the effort to sheet one by one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploma_mill

Exceptions? When I had to visit as teacher-trainer a country near the border of India, I got the warning to go ONLY to Western (European) medical doctors, not the locals. Checking it there at the University I got stories... (I must admit after a good meal with several wodka's)

So, not free either: http://www.turnitin.com/static/pdf/datasheet_Moodle_9-05.pdf

Cheaper: https://www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?item=1877-1

for the informatics students: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=89859

For this one you must give up Moodle, so no chance: http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobalt http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/boss/

And then the ugliest website of the world, so much information that there is no room for layout: http://www.harrold.org/rfhextra/citation.html#plag

interesting paper: http://imj.gatech.edu/papers/EDMEDIA-04b.pdf.gz

 

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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Plagiarism

by James Phillips -
Ways to avoid plagiarism:
  1. Design assignments that have their own personal flavor, or involve some kind of project. 
  2. Teach ways of quoting other's opinions (quoting, paraphasing, etc.)  This can be quite hard to do without getting caught out.
  3. Use local plagiarism software.  There are probably some opensource projects out there but MyDropBox is probably the best of the bunch. Watch out for people that just cut and paste from other people though. They could be anywhere!

Apologies in advance! I have been working WAY too much recently and couldn't resist doing the above just to entertain myself. I am more than aware of how childish it was wink
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Plagiarism

by Frances Bell -
I do have a funny story to tell about this.  Last year, I was teaching research skills to Y1 undergraduates and dreamed up an exercise (after various support lectures, tutorials and online quizzes) where students wrote a 500 word article for a student magazine explaining what plagiarism was and how to avoid it.
Imagine the fun conversations I had with the minority who plagiarised the explanation of plagiarism.evil
I think they now have some understanding of what plagiarism is, and I am just hoping they will avoid it in future.
BTW my plagiarism detection software was my nose and google.
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In reply to Frances Bell

Re: Plagiarism

by Dr S Bhatia -
Ok
This is the kindda topic that has me ranting and raving. (I'll spare you the details though)

Being a psychotherpaist, I always approach plagiarism in a very constructive way.
I fully agree when the reply above says that the message is: don't trust your students.
Correct. Why do you wish to check for plagiarism. You may check cut-paste things from your site. But what about a similar act from a site dedicated for this purpose.
e.g. NIMH, NICE website give full data freely from web and also allow its reproduction. That won't be plagiarism, yet the student may not have put in any effort.

No. This is reaching the same place as ART's discussion about a teacher losing her job coz she took children to a museum where they saw a nude painting.

The grassroot inculcation of independence AND pride in that independence has to be executed by the teacher. That's your basic job, not teaching the details of french revolution or Bohr's equation.
A teacher, if he prides himself/herself in being one , let's his students be. He will encourage a student requiring improvement in such a way that the student does not feel chided. And he also let's it be known that instances of plagiarism do occur, but he doesn't mind if the student has honestly read that plagiarised stuff and understood it. Convey this but don't try to test it.

You are the critical people in developing a whole generation which needs to develop pride in its existence and believe that they can deliver the goods; and even if they don't they are ACCEPTED AS THEY ARE. Don't let them feel let down because they did an assignment badly. That's where WE promote plagiarism because we tend to reject the person (and not the assignment) when someone executes a shoddy job. To satisfy OUR expectations, they plagiarise.
(Similar idea has been expressed in Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance)

Students Will take you for a ride for a semester or too. But slowly, they'll stop that. They'll know who they have been fooling all this time.
It takes patience, and no immediate results are available at hand. But remember, trust will not only stop plagiarism but also produce better citizens, less liable to be insecure, anxious, depression prone people.

and lastly, if you'll put this to statistical significance, you'll find that those who tend to cheat, find ways and means of doing it anyway while those who don't, don't.
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In reply to Dr S Bhatia

Re: Plagiarism

by Frances Bell -
One of the difficult things about plagiarism is defining what it is as your comment about the NICE web site shows.  Research and scholarship obviously requires using the ideas of others, and giving them credit for it.  I don't regard first year undergraduate students who need help in doing this as cheats  even if that is what you inferred from my post.

I genuinely did have a laugh with those students about the irony of plagiarising  a  definition of plagiarism, and I truly hope that they were not pyschologically damaged by this experience. This work was deliberately a very small part of what the were asked to do and none of the students failed the module as a result. I know that they would be very likely to be damaged (psychologically or otherwise) by ending up involved in my university's disciplinary committee for plagiarism.  Avoiding this was one of the purposes of the exercise.
You said "And he also let's it be known that instances of plagiarism do occur, but he doesn't mind if the student has honestly read that plagiarised stuff and understood it."  I think that if a student uses a definition of plagiarism without attribution when asked to explain it in their own words but with reference to what others have said, then that is a pretty clear indication that they did not understand what they have read.
I think that you are reading far too much into what I said - I don't reject them as people if their work falls below a standard.
BTW I also enjoyed reading Catcher in the Rye and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenancewink
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In reply to Frances Bell

Re: Plagiarism

by Dr S Bhatia -
Frances

The reply was not actually meant for your post

It was a very general comment because I feel that WE are the guys who create plagiarism by having GREAT EXPECTATIONS. IT was not at all meant to be condescending towards your experiment with plagiarism. Infact, yours is exactly the attitude that I'd appreciate.

If possible, get hold of a book called 'Ignited Minds' by our president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (a nuclear scientist, btw). I say this because if you are my kind of guy as far as books are concerned, you may enjoy it. (as p.s. 'notes to myself' by hugh prather would be another eye opener if you have never read 'Bhagvad Gita')
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In reply to Dr S Bhatia

Re: Plagiarism

by Frances Bell -
Hi Dr Bhatia,
Great to meet a fellow bibliophile and I am glad that you weren't replying to my post.

I can see you are someone who goes in for robust communication, so here are two robust comments:
1. I am not part of your 'we'  who creates plagiarism, and I am not sure who is around here.  On the contrary, I believe that students can be let down as much by too low expectations as they can by too high expectations.  Many women have experienced the deadening effect of underestimation of potential IMHO - I know that I have.
2. Be a bit more circumspect with where you click reply - random replies and robust communication style do not go together

big grin
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In reply to Frances Bell

Re: Plagiarism

by Dr S Bhatia -
Guilty on count 2. black eye....mercy

point 1.

On the contrary, I believe that students can be let down as much by too low expectations as they can by too high expectations.  Many women have experienced the deadening effect of underestimation of potential IMHO - I know that I have.

AS one professor used to insist, if he did not understand our point then we must say- Sir, i failed to make myself clear.
So here i say that i failed to make my poitn clear.
You are correct that  students can be let down as much by too low expectation because once again, the same mechanism is in force that was working when the teacher trashes their assignment for being below par. The individual feels rejected and usually fails to understand that it is the single instance of bad assignment that was trashed, not him/her.

The teacher or anyone in authority has to walk a fine line. Too low expectations tend to say-''I have already written you off. You are no good''
High expectations and trashing says:'' you are below what is expected of you. You are no good''

In fact, in this view, having higher expectations is better than having low expectations.
But what i had meant was NOT to have expectations. Let them perform at their own level and gently goad them to next higher level from the one they are performing at now.

p.s. when i say 'you' occasionally, I don't mean Frances. I mean general community.

n.b. by calling my communication robust , i guess what you meant was  'not mincing words, bordering on rude'....didn't you?smile but whats the point of having conversations without passion  big grin 

regards and ciao
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