THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

KNOWLEDGE TEAM

Draft minutes of a meeting of the Knowledge Team held on Friday, June 10, 2005 at 12:30 – 2:00 pm in the Conference Room, 4th Floor, Main Library.

Present: Dr Anthony W. Ferguson (Convenor)

Dr John Bacon-Shone

Dr Bruce Cheung

Professor Francis Chin

Dr Colin Day

Dr Bob Fox

Dr Nancy Law

Mr Tommy Liu

Mr Rex Lui

Dr Elaine Martyn

Dr Nam Ng

Dr John Nicholls

Mr David Palmer

Mr Peter Sidorko

Mr Benny Tai

Ms Lillian Wong

Ms Antonia Yiu

Dr Y.C. Wan (Secretary)

Apologies: Dr David Johnston

Professor Thomas Kvan

Mr Andrew Lih

Ms Tina Pang

Dr Frank Tong

Ms Carmen Wong

Dr Allan Yuen

1.  Minutes

Dr Fox remarked that he was concerned by the language used the Turnitin@HKU Experiment: Final Report (submitted by Turnitin Project Team during the last KT meeting), which he felt emphasizes the wrong things. He added that the mention of Turnitin as “plagiarism detection software” is wrong and instead, it is “text comparison software”. The reason is that much of what Turnitin reports on is not plagiarized material but the same text as in another paper. He suggested that Turnitin should be publicized as a formative tool to help students rather than a summative policing tool only and that he was worried by the direction KT seems to be heading in within Turnitin.

Members exchanged their views and made the following comments:

-  The mention of Turnitin as “plagiarism detection software” reflects how the software is actually used. It is necessary to alert the teachers about the “misuse” of Turnitin.

-  It is necessary to refer to minutes of previous meetings on the position of KT on Turnitin.

-  Awareness of plagiarism should be part of the package of the educational process.

-  Apart from serving as a tool for teachers, Turnitin should also be introduced to students so that they can do their own checking before handing in the assignments.

In addition, Dr Martyn conveyed Mr Nigel Bruce’s suggestions that the minutes should include the following points:

1)  Turnitin needs to be used sensitively, and care taken to distinguish between citations, references and quotations and actual plagiaristic behaviour, as Turnitin does not make that distinction.

2)  Turnitin should be used as a carrot, not a stick – as a part of a formative process of developing students’ ability to write in their own words, rather than a summative identification of academically “criminal” activity.

3)  Turnitin is especially useful if teachers “turn in” the specific assignments they expect, or have asked, students to draw on. The chances of picking up meaningful reliance on sources would then be much higher – and the process more meaningful.

The Convenor noted that Mr Palmer conducted an originality study of 19 recently received HKU theses using Turnitin and highlighted two cases which are found to have a high degree of similarity with published material. He also noted that the Turnitin funding proposal has not been submitted to the university and he will send the draft to concerned members first to seek a balance between different viewpoints.

2.  Matters arising from the last meeting

(a) Communication with DVC about future of KT

The Convenor distributed his paper Knowledge Hub, Policy Group and Team during the meeting and remarked that it is a summary version of a longer paper he submitted to DVC Wong on previous efforts to coordinate the use of ICT in teaching/learning at HKU and IT milestones. The paper was subsequently passed to PVC Malpas who suggested keeping the Knowledge Team going to maintain coordination in ICT issues.

Dr Bacon-Shone asked about the merging of two computer committees recently. Dr Ng replied that these committees focus on IT infrastructure and services at large and the use of ICT in teaching/learning belongs to a separate area. Dr Bacon-Shone commented that KT is unique in such a way to pull together the ICT things embedded in the Libraries, CC and CAUT.

The Convenor remarked that Turnitin project provides an opportunity to enhancing coordination and he will apply for university development fund to start the project.

(b) Endnote: pricing options

Ms Yiu presented her paper Subscription to Endnote Floating License: Proposed Budget (distributed during the meeting), which gives a quotation of HK$28,626.00 for subscribing to 10 Endnote floating licenses and further details about the floating license setup and arrangement.

Members exchanged their views on whether ten floating licenses are enough for the trial period. Some suggested 10 floating licenses are not enough particularly during peak hours and when Endnote is taught on a class. Others remarked that students on an individual basis do not use Endnote at the same time and it will be better to subscribe to a small number of licenses and monitor the usage.

To help KT make a decision, Ms Yiu will contact the Endnote Hong Kong distributor for additional quotations of subscribing 10 to 100 floating licenses, at incremental steps of ten. She also suggested starting the subscription in the new semester since a new version (version 9) of Endnote will be released sometime in September.

3.  Learning platform – 2 years experiment finished

The Convenor thanked CC for supporting two additional learning platforms, ILN and SOUL, since early 2004. He noted that the experiment will soon be over and suggested setting up a taskforce led by Dr Johnston to study the way forward.

Dr Ng noted that WebCT will soon be releasing Campus Edition version six, which is an intermediate step between the old version that HKU is now using and WebCT Vista, which is costly to subscribe but powerful. This new version incorporates key modules of WebCT Vista and thus provides more features than the one HKU is using. However, it is less costly as WebCT Vista and its annual subscription price will be about 10% more of that of the old version.

He added that about 1,100 courses, out of about 2,000 courses run by the university, are on WebCT. Responses to the two additional learning platforms have not been good and only ILN received some enquiries from teaching departments, such as Architecture. For commercially available platforms, WebCT and Blackboard are most popular ones but their annual license fee amounts to about one million Hong Kong dollars.

Members exchanged their views and made the following comments:

-  The use of ICT in teaching/learning happens not only on individual level where the main concern for KT should be how to provide support to these individuals but also at the university level. The problem is how we can bring these two levels together.

-  Ask CityU for a report on their study of WebCT and Blackboard and why they ultimately chose Blackboard. It is important to look at what our sister institutions have done.

-  Three key issues affecting the selection of a learning platform at HKU are money, pedagogy and existing user base.

-  Rex noted the computer and English courses he is taking are on WebCT. Tommy also added that a number of courses that he is taking are on WebCT and they are used most frequently in downloading the course notes.

The Convenor concluded that he will communicate with Dr Johnston about chairing the taskforce. He will also draft the taskforce’s terms of reference and circulate it to members.

4.  University-wide copyright page demonstration

Ms Yiu gave a demonstration of the “Copyright in Teaching and Learning @HKU” web site (http://lib.hku.hk/copyright/), which is to draw together pertinent information about copyright and thereby provide a venue for members of the University community to become acquainted with the related legislation and guidelines. She added the contents of the web site were prepared by Ms Irene Shieh, Law Librarian.

KT members welcomed the copyright web site and agreed that it will be useful to teachers and students. The Convenor thanked Ms Shieh for her good work in putting together the web site. [Post-meeting note: Ms Yiu will liaise with External Relations Office to add the pages to the university web site.]

5.  English proofreading for students – should the university take a stand on this?

The Convenor noted that some companies offer English proofreading services to students and wondered if the university should take a stand on this.

Members commented that it will be fine for students to get these services from outside since sometimes teachers are too busy to proofread their papers. It will not be a problem as long as students are writing the papers themselves. However, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between polishing English and writing a paper on a student’s behalf.

6.  Any other businesses

Dr Martyn remarked that she received 14 replies from the recent “Portfolios for Teaching and Learning at HKU” survey. She distributed the questionnaires to members and requested them to send the questionnaires to their colleagues.

Dr Bacon-Shone asked if CC had been asked to create staff e-portfolios. Dr Ng replied yes and said that CC had only a few more weeks to complete the task.

7.  Items delayed to the next meeting

(a)  Brainstorming – what can we do to the “hot issues”?

8.  Date of the next meeting

Members agreed that the next meeting be held in September 2005. Exact date is to be confirmed.

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