Tech Tools, Documentation and Plagiarism Prevention

Tech Tools, Documentation and Plagiarism Prevention An SSS Lunch’N’Learn Wednesday May 29, 2013

With the implementation of the new AER policy, deliberate teaching of appropriate, subject-specific documentation rules and techniques is going to be more and more important. Since now catching cases of plagiarism will result in a re-do of the assignment, rather than a simple zero-grade, helping students to make the right choice from the get-go will make our lives easier! The goal of this Lunch-and-learn is to provide you with more familiarity with the tools we already have available. It is an approach which focuses on teaching what is appropriate and why, rather than policing offenders.

The Top 10 Reasons Why Students Plagiarise • They are used to a collaborative model of knowledge production. • They are learning and do not understand how to effectively paraphrase yet. • They do not understand that they need citations for facts, figures, ideas, and images, as well as direct quotations. • They are sloppy or careless. Neglect during the notetaking process leaves them unable to source accurately. • They do not understand why sources are important. • They do not know how to integrate source material into their own argument • They are providing facts, “the truth” or an answer that they consider static knowledge belonging to everyone. • They lack confidence in their own thinking. • They panic due to time management or other anxiety issues. • They are lazy and looking for a short cut. From : http://academicintegrity.depaul.edu/Top10.pdf

Key Principles of Proactive Plagiarism Reduction:

6. Use Turn-It-In as a developmental tool to review rough drafts and help students understand where they may be plagiarising, even unintentionally. 7. Explicitly incorporate evaluation of research notes and documentation into assignment rubrics to emphasize the importance of these inquiry skills. 8. Help students make the right choices by teaching them to use the tools already available to them (such as the research note-taking templates). 9. Help students make the right choices by teaching them about the utilities built into the Virtual Library databases. 10. Collaborate with your teacher-librarian in design of assessments, and instruction into research-inquiry, note-taking, and documentation skills, to set students up for success.

How you can help…. • While it is rare to have a student hand in a paper with someone else’s name on it, it is still often obvious to us that the work students are turning in is not their own. • So what can we do to avoid having to spend our time proving the student has cheated?

Assessment design…. • Make it so hard to plagiarize they may as well have written the paper—require a proposal, outline, annotated bibliography, multiple drafts at stages before the due date kept as a portfolio for cross reference with the final product • Evaluate their process skills as well as the final product—research and inquiry outcomes are not just about product • Design assessments around specific, focused questions or issues and avoid hot button issues or general common topics on canon literature as there is so much existing material on those topics the temptation may be too great • Use the process to get students working ahead so they do not panic-plagiarise • Flip your classroom so that the product is created under supervision

Help them process information… • Utilise notetaking methods which require them to record quotations accurately, but also encourage them to record their own thinking about the idea • Active thinking during the research process discourages students from acting as passive collectors of information • Provide constructive feedback on their drafts and the quality of their paraphrases and require that they include source citations in drafts • Scaffold this skill by doing paraphrase and summary activities before engaging in research

Help Students Recognize Plagiarism • There are some excellent interactive activities already available online to help students understand what plagiarism is, and how to avoid it. • Review the excellent reference material on the matter in the Library Learning Commons Plagiarism Resources • Then do some activities with sample papers and research notes that include un-cited summaries and have students identify and correct the problems.

You Quote It, You Note It... • This tutorial from Acadia University is engaging as well as informative. • By the end of it, students should have a firm grasp of what constitutes plagiarism. • You can have your students complete the tutorial and then sign off that they have completed it and understand what plagiarism is, and what the consequences of plagiarism infractions will be. You Quote It, You Note It!

Accountability…. • Have students complete an exit ticket on this activity to have a record of their participation and understanding. • It allows tracking of elements that may need more explicit instruction, and also makes students take informed accountability for their work. • Here is a sample response form made in Google Docs--you could also do this as a paper exit slip

Use Research Templates to Build Good Habits • There are a variety of research and bibliography templates already printed off for student use in the library. They are source-specific, and follow the MLA referencing format. • The templates are also available online in the Library Learning Commons, as well as templates using other subject-specific referencing formats such as APA. Research Templates • When students are encouraged to use these research forms to record their information, they readily have the bibliographic information they need available when it comes time to provide documentation for a source.

Quality Resources • Students should be encouraged to use the Virtual Library databases when conducting research. • The information students will find here has generally been drawn from better quality sources than the ones they will find “Googling" on their own. • They also include a number of tools which allow students to track their research more easily, and to generate correctly formatted citations. • Database passwords are embedded in the network, so students are automatically granted access when using a networked computer. • If they are using the WiFi, or accessing the databases from home, they must enter the password to gain access. • They can pick up a hot pink password card from the circulation desk in the library if they cannot remember the passwords.

Creating a Database Account • The collections in the Virtual Library databases are provided by two main companies: EBSCO and Gale. • The first time you ask students to use the databases, you should require them to create a user account in each. • Anytime they go to do research in the databases, they should be logging in. This will allow them to save the good articles they find to their own research folder in the database. • Please note: you cannot simply tell them to bookmark the article. The URLs for the article are search-session specific, so the bookmark they create will not take them back to the article they found. • Please take the time to create your own accounts now so that you can explore these features. Open the Virtual Library Page in a new tab so you can still see this page.

Virtual Library Secondary By Subject SelectAdvanced Placement Source to make an EBSCO account and Global Issues in Context to make a Gale Account

Documentation Shortcut! • One advantage of using the Virtual Library databases is that they will actually provide a properly formatted bibliographic entry for your students!

EBSCO … • Once your students have found a good article for their topic, they can quickly find the correct way to format their bibliographic entry right in the database. In the right hand toolbar, one of the options is "Cite" and another is "Add to Folder". Clicking on "Add to Folder" will allow them to save the article for future reference, and clicking on "Cite" will bring them to a page where they can select the correct bibliographic entry for the citation method you have instructed them to use

Here is an example of the bibliographic options they will see. The most common one used at Southwood is MLA.

Gale … • The bibliographic citation for articles in the Gale databases can be found at the end of the article.

To save articles found using a Gale search, saving from the search list will place the articles in the student's saved folder.

Citation Generators and Other Resources • Students will often want to use bibliography generators such as OneNote or Son of Citation Machine. • Students should exercise caution in using these tools. • They often ask for information which is not present in the sources students have used. • As a result students enter the wrong material or the citation generator creates an incorrectly formatted list.

A better tool is a very comprehensive online resource called Research and Documentation Online

Written and maintained by Diana Hacker and Barbara Fister (the authors of the Chicago Manual of Style) it offers comprehensive examples of citation and bibliographic formatting for a wide variety of sources in the major documentation formats used by most disciplines, as well as guidance on the research process.

TurnItIn.com • This online plagiarism checker is not only good for determining the authenticity of final products • Students can also use it as a tool to check their work during the draft process. This student obviously has a problem that needs fixing!

Time to Play… • Spend your remaining time playing around with the databases which relate to your subject area. • One of the best ways to help your students use these tools effectively is to be as familiar as possible with their features yourself!

Tech Tools, Documentation and Plagiarism Prevention