Strange Bedfellows

1. Directorate of Human Resources Strange Bedfellows The interaction of student plagiarism and assessment practice

3. Online essay site ‘may put patients at risk’ “ Hospital patients could be placed at risk because a new online essay service might tempt trainee nurses to cheat their way through university, plagiarism experts have warned. The website – called nursing-essays.com – was launched last month as a service that provides “a selection of high-quality model nursing essays, which are perfect for nursing students everywhere looking for a helping hand”… Phil Baty05 August 2005 ”

4. www.nursing-essays.com

5. Shock and horror? Plagiarism is: more complicated more interesting more useful …seeing beyond the headlines

6. A tale of two surveys

7. What I recommend you notice Under-reporting [July, 2005 Scottish Examination Board 180,000 candidates, 500 exams 41 cases reported] Under-detecting [50% admit ignoring] Naïve academics Increasingly pragmatic and strategic students

8. You read, I go searching… Is the eBay offer a threat to civilisation as we know it? If not, what does it threaten? Be ready to tell others in two minutes

9. The point: Plagiarism forces us to rethink assessment We need to resist incorrect or opportunistic attempts to say what the rise in case numbers signify Changes to deal effectively with plagiarism will improve assessment, skills development, institutional integrity… …and learning

10. Others’ uses of plagiarism • Profit-based, market-place thinking and outcomes-based programmes have killed education • Widening participation is wrong • Exams are the only way to test students • Managers are evil

11. “ respondents reported that they felt ‘lost and bewildered’ at university implying that academic integration was a major issue… [it] is strongly associated with a person’s perception that it is somehow ‘natural’ and fundamentally ‘right and proper’… to be a university undergraduate. Such perceptions are less common perhaps among non-traditional students… First year courses should aim to make ‘non-traditional students’ feel at home in the academic environment and to believe that a university education is a natural experience for people from all sorts of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.” Barnett, 2005

12. New metaphors? Not: crime  war  disease 

15. Four reasons plagiarism improves assessment practice • Shared understanding of UK academic culture and practices

16. Shared understanding?… a definition ‘submitting someone else’s work as your own’ ‘work’What is that? ‘someone else’s work’How can work belong to others? ‘my own work’ What makes work belong to me? ‘submitting’ What is OK?

17. ‘Submitting someone else’s work as your own’

18. UK learning culture ‘Original’ does not mean ‘no one ever thought of it before’. It means ‘made by you’, ‘coming from you’. ‘Your own words’ does not mean words that have never been used before. It means ‘written by you’. You ‘show you know’ by changing things. Transformation shows understanding ‘New’ means putting together others’ work in a new way

19. Four reasons plagiarism improves assessment practice • Shared understanding of UK academic culture and practices • Better skills development

20. “ I gave them an hour’s lecture about plagiarism so they definitely know about it but I still get it. It’s in the handbook. What’s wrong with them? ”

22. The melody 361 ● 3612 361 ● 3612 3523 6165 1652 6132

23. Are you ready to perform in a concert in two months’ time? If not, what do you need to be ready?

24. Four reasons plagiarism improves assessment practice • Shared understanding of UK academic culture and practices • Better skills development • Better learning

25. Better learning: process, not product • Submitting drafts – they draft! • Tracking the process – there is one • Activity as a pre-requisite for learning

26. Four reasons plagiarism improves assessment practice • Shared understanding of UK academic culture and practices • Better skills development • Better learning • Better institutional integration

28. If you can’t love it, use it • Clarify your own thinking • Collaborate • Focus on pedagogy, not catch and punish • Document and research the local

29. Summing up • Pedagogy • Patience • Practical help • Publicity