Here are hits received to my query re Plagerism:
(1) I do a workshop where I cover issues of plagiarism, called Redesigning
Assignments using the Internet. The handouts are online and this link
http://www.eirc.org/redesign.html takes you to some plagiarism resources. I
totally agree, that informing students is a much better route than simply
checking for plagiarism. I feel strongly that using bibliographic tools like
Noodletools (www.noodletools.com) and others that you will find in my
handouts, is a motivational tool for collecting solid citations from
students - learning doesn't have to be difficult!
(2) I can't say enough about turnitin.com. It's
user-friendly with excellent turnaround time (less
than 24 hours). We only check the suspected
papers--not all papers as some schools do. I really
like it.
(3)I learned from a college English teacher friend that if you type a full
sentence in qoutes into the Google search engine (google.com), the source of
the sentence comes up. I imagine this would work with any deep search engine
like alta vista. That's what I tell my students and teachers.
(4)I recently tried a trial of turnitin.com and it worked very well. I
sought the help as it was the end of the semester and was innundated with
requested for help from teachers. The trial was easy to use and we got some
excellent results. I ended up purchasing a site license at the beginning of
this semester and have not had need to use it once! The instructions for
administering the whole school are a little more complicated and by the time
the real need rolls around (the end of the semester) I'm sure I'll forget
how to organize everyone!
Another thing to consider is simply typing in the suspect paragraph(s) into
the Google bar and submit. I've had excellent rresults with that for free.
Good luck.
(5)A science teacher and I experimented with Turnitin. He was moderately
technically savvy, but didn't want to bother submitting the individual
disks. I certainly didn't want to either (I think he expected me to!). Now
an English teacher has given me a brochure for that same service (with a
"cc" to the principal and other English teachers). She is _definitely_ *not*
'tech' savvy! Here's the problem: we have to have the kids submit their
reports in paper and disk format. Then the digital version has to be
uploaded to the service (this is logical - how else can they check it). Then
a report is e-mailed back (or you can check it on-line - or both, I forget).
This is a formidable task, even with 10-15% of your students, especially for
the less-technically oriented. If an individual teacher wishes to do this,
that's fine. But the feeling I'm getting is that this is another service we
(library) could provide! Some services provide a secured site for students
to submit their own disks, which I think would work fine at the college
level, but I can't imagine managing 160-200 students/teacher and expecting
all the students to be able to do this without any help at all.
Another 'solution' is for the teacher to take the offending passage,
highlight it, copy and paste it into Google (or other search engine), place
quotes around the selection and see what happens. I did this for one teacher
in our alternative school and immediately got back several hits (the first
10!). A sort of "do-it-yourself" plagiarism weapon.
The best solution (and this would really require an administrative,
workshop, let's all pull-together environment) is Jamie McKenzie's
www.fno.org site where there's a link to a paper called "The new plagiarism"
in which he espouses that teachers can fight plagiarism merely by providing
students with assignments that don't encourage copy and paste: e.g.. rather
than "all the facts about a city", assign the student to write "Five reasons
I'd like to move to <name of city>" - or "Inquiry Learning". Jamie'd be glad
to provide your school (school district) with an in-service! (he's a former
librarian, teacher, principal, superintendent, so he can speak to all
concerned).
(6) As many of you know I (Steve Garwood)teach a class via EMA, SJRLC and at
various teacher
functions called CyberCheats: Plagiarism and the Internet...
http://reference.camden.lib.nj.us/classes/garwood/cybercheats/
For awhile I've been looking for free places for teachers to evaluate
students papers and get a "plagiarism report" which would state the
likelihood of an instance of plagiarism...I've been doing my own testing of
a site called plagiserve, http://www.plagiserve.com and so far I like it
(and it seems to work pretty well).
Amy Ojserkis
Media Specialist
Belhaven Avenue School
Linwood, NJ 08221
amyojserkis@linwoodschools.org
(609) 926-6700, FAX (609) 926-6705
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=
All postings to LM_NET are protected under copyright law.
To quit LM_NET (or set-reset NOMAIL or DIGEST, etc.) send email to:
listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER:
1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL or 3) SET LM_NET DIGEST
4) SET LM_NET MAIL * Please allow for confirmation from Listserv.
For LM_NET Help see: http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net/
Archives: http://askeric.org/Virtual/Listserv_Archives/LM_NET.shtml
See also EL-Announce for announcements from library media vendors:
http://www.mindspring.com/~el-announce/
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=
LM_NET
Mailing List Home