On Being Original

Authors

  • Ray Stoneham University of Greenwich

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21100/compass.v6i10.131

Keywords:

plagiarism, assessment, TurnItIn

Abstract

This case study evaluates a range of techniques that have been used over the past ten years in a variety of contexts to attempt to address the issue of plagiarism by students in the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Greenwich.  The importance of plagiarism prevention in ensuring authentic assessment is emphasised, and the barriers to implementing a comprehensive strategy are highlighted. 

Author Biography

Ray Stoneham, University of Greenwich

Principal LecturerSchool of Computing and Mathematical Sciences

References

Anderson, J. (2011): "A Few Million Monkeys Randomly Recreate Shakespeare". Available online at http://www.jesse-anderson.com/2011/09/a-few-million-monkeys-randomly-recreate-shakespeare/ (Accessed 20 Feb. 2014)

Ariely, D. (2012): "Plagiarism and Essay Mills". Available online at http://danariely.com/2012/07/17/plagiarism-and-essay-mills/ (Accessed 1 June 2013)

Arnott, L. (2009): "The Advantages and Disadvantages of Turnitin.com". Available online at https://suite101.com/a/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-turnitincom-a113699 (Accessed 21 Feb. 2013)

Bailey, J. (2011): "The Problem with Detecting Translated Plagiarism". Available online at http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/02/24/the-problem-with-detecting-translated-plagiarism/ (Accessed 1 May 2012)

Baity, P. (2006): "Staff ignore cheating ". Available online at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/staff-ignore-cheating/203883.article (Accessed 20 June 2007)

Barrett, D. (2011): "The cheating epidemic at Britain's universities". Available online at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8363345/The-cheating-epidemic-at-Britains-universities.html (Accessed 5 March 2011)

Carey, J. (2013) "Plagiarism vs. Collaboration on Education’s Digital Frontier". Available online at http://plpnetwork.com/2013/12/16/plagiarism-vs-collaboration-educations-digital-frontier/ (Accessed 20 Feb 2014)

Clarke, R. and T. Lancaster (2006): "Eliminating the successor to plagiarism? Identifying the usage of contract cheating sites". Available online at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.120.5440 (Accessed 20 Feb.2014)

Colton, Charles Caleb (1824): "Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think" (8 ed.), New York: S. Marks. #217, p. 114. Available online at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6AclAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA114 (Accessed 20 Feb. 2014)

Graham-Matheson, L. and S. Starr (2013), "Is it cheating or learning the craft of writing? Using Turnitin to help students avoid plagiarism", Research in Learning Technology, 21: 17218. Available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v21i0.17218 (Accessed 12 June 2013)

Haggard, S. (2013) "The Maturing of the MOOC: Literature Review of Massive Open Online Courses and Other Forms of Online Distance Learning" BIS Research Paper Number 130. Available online at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/240193/13-1173-maturing-of-the-mooc.pdf (Accessed 20 Feb. 2014)

Housen, J. (2013): "Web Fuels Rise in Plagiarism Lawsuits". Available online at https://www.facebook.com/LawSessions/posts/578168478861997 (Accessed 20 Feb. 2014)

Hyatt, J. and P.H. Lim (2010): "Plagiarism and Copyright in Tertiary Education: Risks Posed by Plagiarism Detection Tools for Both Students and Educational Institutions", International Journal of Law & Education, Vol. 15, No 1, pp. 7–21. Available online at http://www.anzela.edu.au/assets/ijle_vol_15.1_-_2_hyatt_and_lim.pdf (Accessed 20 Feb. 2014)

Lehrer, T. (1953): "Lobachevsky", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_by_Tom_Lehrer (Accessed 20 Feb 2014)

Petronzio, M. (2012): "Use These 10 Sites to Detect Plagiarism". Available online at http://mashable.com/2012/08/29/plagiarism-online-services/ (Accessed 21 Feb. 2013)

Samakovitis, G. (2014). Private Communication.

Schemo, D. J. (2001): "University of Virginia Hit by Scandal Over Cheating", New York Times,. Available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/10/us/u-of-virginia-hit-by-scandal-over-cheating.html (Accessed 1 Feb 2014)

Stoneham, R. (2012): "Managed Learning Environments in Universities: Are they Achievable?", Compass (the Teaching and Learning Journal of the University of Greenwich), vol. 6, pp. 45-54. Available online at http://cms1.gre.ac.uk/sr65/publications/CMS_MLE_v2.docx (Accessed 20 Feb 2014)

Stoneham, R. (2013), “In Praise of Yellow Pages: What is the point of referencing, and why do students find it so difficult?”, Compass (the Teaching and Learning Journal of the University of Greenwich), vol. 8. Available online at https://journals.gre.ac.uk/index.php/compass/article/view/75/145 (Accessed 20 Feb 2014)

Stoneham, R. (2014): "TurnItIn report for 'On Being Original', version 1". Available online at http://cms1.gre.ac.uk/sr65/publications/turnitin%20for%20original.pdf (Accessed 20 Feb 2013)

TurnItIn (2010): "The Scientific Basis of Turnitin: Research on Effective Writing Pedagogy and Practice". Available online from www.turnitin.com (Accessed 1 Oct 2013)

Watson, The Famous Brett (1995): "The Mathematics of Monkeys and Shakespeare: Monkey Claims Copyright on Hamlet. Available online at http://www.nutters.org/docs/monkeys (Accessed 14 Feb 2014)

Widdup, E. (2011): "London university tops cheats' league table". Available online at http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london-university-tops-cheats-league-table-6574454.html (Accessed on 7 March 2011)

Downloads

Published

06/05/2015

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 10 (2015): Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching

Section

Case Studies

License

Compass: Journal of Learning & Teaching provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a more equitable global exchange of knowledge.

 

Works are released under the default licence of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) licence, which provides unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. If authors require a divergent licence, please contact [happy to have 'the Scholarly Communications Manager' (ks8035h@gre.ac.uk) listed here if that is easier.]

 

Authors of articles published in Compass: Journal of Learning & Teaching remain the copyright holders to their published work and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to terms of the Creative Commons license agreement applied to the work by Compass: Journal of Learning & Teaching.

 

Self-archiving policy: authors are permitted, and encouraged, to deposit any version of their article - submitted, accepted, and published versions - in subject and institutional repositories at any time. 

 

If you have any queries about the choice of license, or which to discuss other options, please contact the Scholarly Communications Manager at scholarlycommunications@greenwich.ac.uk.