Directions, Materials, & Getting Started

  1. Objectives: By completing this tutorial you will:
  2. Examine the current challenges you face regarding student plagiarism
  3. Gain insights into the reasons why students might plagiarize
  4. Identify resources available to help students avoid plagiarism pitfalls
  5. Research ways to design assignments that help you avoid pitfalls
  6. Evaluate your current assignments in light of presented strategies
  7. Construct an assignment for your course that may act as a deterrent to plagiarism
  8. Examine resources and strategies in case things still go wrong
  1. Materials: You will need:
  2. A current writing assignment
  3. Your syllabus or list of course objectives
  4. Access to the Internet
  1. Getting Started
  2. Use this handout to take notes and to complete the practice activities.
  3. Start the tutorial on-line at:
  4. Click on the
  5. All the supporting handouts mentioned in the tutorial are located in the Appendix of this document.
  6. Use the navigation buttons within the tutorial to move the slides forward and backwards
  1. OK, let’s get started!!!!

Challenges

  1. Think – Write - Share
  2. Take a few moments to think about the current challenges you face regarding student plagiarism in your classes
  3. Write down an example. Be specific. Name the course, assignment, and nature of the event. What triggered your awareness? What did you do? How did it make you feel? What underlying assumptions did you hold about the student? How does it alter the way you teach?
  4. Post a comment on the web log (blog) on plagiarism, describing the challenges you face in your classes regarding plagiarism.
  5. Take a few moments to read the other postings
  6. The next few slides illustrate how to post comments to the blog.
  1. How to postcomments to the Plagiarism web log (blog)
  2. You will be given a link to access the blog.
  3. To post a comment, click on the word, "Comments.” It is very small and you won't think it is a link at all, but it really is. You will see a number in parentheses after the word, "Comments" - this lets you know how many comments are currently posted there.
  4. When you click on the word "Comments", a new dialog box will open.(see diagram next page)
  5. Scroll to the bottom of the box, type in your first name and your comments.
  6. Click on the "Post" button and your comment will be posted.
  7. You will need to refresh the page in order to see your new posting.

  1. Why do they do it?
  2. Now that we’ve examined some of the plagiarism challenges that faculty face in their classes, let’s take a look at some possible reasons why these challenges exist.
  1. Pre-Reading Activity (Handout #1)
  2. You are about to do some reading on why students plagiarize.
  3. Before you do the reading, fill in the Pre-Reading section of Handout #1 (a copy is located at the back of your printed handout).
  4. List reasons why you think students plagiarize
  1. Reading selections – Why they do it?
  2. Click on the links below to read the following three vignettes:
  3. From two student perspectives
  4. Student #1

Student #2

  1. Penn State U.’s website on Cyber Plagiarism(scroll to the section on “Causes”)
  1. What about my ESL students?
  2. There are special cultural aspects of writing that may help you to understand your ESL students and to inform them about writing conventions here.
  3. U. of Hawaii -
  4. ColumbiaCollege of Chicago -
  5. An interesting discussion on the matter by ESL teachers -
  1. Post-Reading Activity
  2. Finish filling out the Post-reading section of Handout #1
  3. Make note of any surprising discoveries or information that challenges your current thinking about the problem
  4. Take a short quiz
  1. Resources
  2. Now that we’ve looked at some of the reasons why students plagiarize, let’s examine resources that can act as deterrents.
  1. Student Resources
  2. Student on-line tutorials
  3. Information literacy tutorial at PSY
  4. Student Plagiarism Tutorial
  5. Other Library Student Tutorials -
  6. PSY Learning Center & Online Writing Lab (OWL)
  7. Other On-line Writing Labs (OWL’s) - Purdue U. On-line Writing Lab -
  1. Apply it!
  2. After looking at the student resources available, think about how these could be useful to you and your students
  3. Write three concrete ways to let your students know about these resources and/or how you can incorporate their use into your classes
  4. ______
  5. ______
  6. ______
  7. Share it!
  8. Go to the web log on plagiarism and post a comment, sharing:
  9. how you can (or already do) use these resources with your students
  10. other resources you know of
  1. From Resources to Design
  2. So far, we’ve looked at
  3. the current challenges you face regarding student plagiarism
  4. some of the reasons why students plagiarize and
  5. a few resources available to help students avoid pitfalls
  6. Now let’s look at how to deter plagiarism through the design of assignments
  1. Gathering strategies (Handout #2)
  2. On the next several slides you’ll find information on strategies to deter plagiarism through assignment design.
  3. To guide your reading process, think about this:
  4. Your goal is to gather the strategies you encounter in the texts.
  5. Use Handout #2 to record them as you read.
  1. Let’s do some reading
  2. U. of Toronto -
  3. U. of CA at Berkeley -
  4. MC Library Faculty handout on preventing plagiarism -
  5. Council of Writing Program Administrators - statement on best practices -
  6. PennStateUniversity – within the link, scroll down to the section on “Prevention”
  1. Here’s what one MC faculty member had to say
  2. I have relied on creating unique assignments that are very difficult to plagiarize. For example; instead of having students write a paper on Tecumseh, the Indian prophet and rebellion leader, I ask students to serve as prosecutor or defense attorney on a trial of him. They have to write up how they will make their case for or against him. Professor Karl Smith, History, TP/SS
  1. From The Teaching Professor -Arthur Sterngold, in the January, 2005 issue of The Teaching, shared 6 strategies for designing assignments to beat cyber-cheating:
  2. Break up major research papers into smaller assignments
  3. Require students to write about course-specific topics
  4. Choose some required source material for your students
  5. Incorporate assignments into class discussions and tests
  6. Meet with students to discuss their research
  7. Require students to submit printouts of source materials
  1. Time to compare (Handout #3)
  2. Now that you’ve thought about different deterrent strategies related to assignment design, let’s compare them to one of your own assignments. Use the Venn diagram in Handout #3 to illustrate the similarities and differences in design.
  1. Time to design a writing assignment
  2. You can choose to:
  3. modify your current assignment or
  4. create a new assignment
  5. Be sure to incorporate the strategies and resources that we explored in this tutorial
  6. In addition to designing the assignment, write a brief explanation about how your ideas on assignment design have changed as a result of the information you encountered in this tutorial.
  7. Submit these with your completion check sheet.
  1. A word about alignment
  2. Best practices suggest that objectives, activities, and assessment techniques should be aligned with one another, that is, they support each other.
  1. Example of alignment
  2. Objective: students will be able to identify the topic sentence in a paragraph.
  3. Activity: students will read and discuss the definition of a topic sentence. They will study examples from a sample essay. They will work in pairs to practice finding topic sentences from a series of paragraphs.
  4. Assessment: working individually, students are given an essay and asked to highlight the topic sentences
  1. Example of non-alignment
  2. Objective: students will be able to identify the topic sentence in a paragraph.
  3. Activity: students will read and discuss the definition of a topic sentence. They will study examples from a sample essay. They will work in pairs to practice finding topic sentences from a series of paragraphs.
  4. Assessment: working individually, students are asked to write a five paragraph essay about global warming, using two resources
  5. Note: The activity supports the achievement of the objective, but the assessment (how you know they know) is not in total alignment. A well-written essay would have good topic sentences, but the objective states to “identify” them, not to write them. To achieve alignment, either change the objective/activity or the assessment
  1. Double check your alignment
  2. Take a moment to look at your course objectives. Having just modified or created a writing assignment for your course, has the alignment been affected in any way?
  3. Make adjustments as necessary to re-align the objectives, activity, and assessment
  1. What to do if things still go wrong
  2. Refer to Statement of Plagiarism and Academic Dishonety
  3. Academic Integrity Procedure from Student Policy Manual
  4. Talk to a respected faculty member or chair about what to do in specific instances
  1. Congratulations!
  2. You have completed many tasks in this tutorial. You:
  3. examined and shared the current challenges you face regarding student plagiarism
  4. gained insights into the reasons why some students plagiarize
  5. identified resources available to students
  6. discovered ways to design assignments that avoid the pitfalls of plagiarism
  7. evaluated your current assignments in light of the presented strategies
  8. constructed an assignment for your course that can act as a deterrent to plagiarism
  9. examined resources and strategies in case things still go wrong
  1. To finish up…
  2. E-mail me with any questions or to share what you are working on. If you would like feedback or just want to share your great ideas.

Thanks for participating!!!!

Evaluation

Please print this form, complete it, and send it to Suzanne Shaffer at ITSC 202, PennStateYork Campus, 1031 Edgecomb Ave.York, PA17403

Tutorial Evaluation

Name of Tutorial: Designing Assignments that Avoid the Pitfalls of Plagiarism...

Date tutorial completed:

Facilitator(s): Suzanne Shaffer

Please take a few moments to evaluate this tutorial. We are constantly evaluating our programs and we appreciate your input!

Please rate the following using this scale (SA-Strongly Agree; A-Agree; D-Disagree; SD-Strongly Disagree)

1. The objectives of the tutorial were madeSAADSD

clear and were met during the session.

2. The tutorial was well organized.SAADSD

3. The materials/handouts were useful.SAADSD

4. The materials were easily accessibleSAADSD

5. The participants were engaged duringSAADSD

the tutorial.

6. Overall, this tutorial met my needs and it SAADSD

was effective.

7. Navigation through the tutorial wasSAADSD

clear and user friendly

8. The content of this tutorial can be applied SAADSD

to my teaching practice

9. The tutorial broadened my understand-.SAADSD

ing of the teaching/learning process

Please comment on the following (use the back of this page if more room is needed):

  1. What about this tutorial worked well?

2. What aspects of the tutorial could use improvement?

3. Do you plan to apply what you learned in the tutorial to your teaching practice? How? We welcome suggestions for future on-line tutorials, workshops, or speakers. Write your suggestions on the back of this sheet.

APPENDIX – Handouts, Evaluation, & Completion Check Sheet

Handout #1

Why Students Plagiarize
Pre-Reading / Post-Reading
New ideas…

Handout #2

Strategies to deter plagiarism

Handout # 3

Venn Diagram

1