This is certainly a hot topic at the moment, particularly within HE institutions given the advent of electronic plagiarism detection services such as Turnitin, the system in operation here.
As College Administrator for Turnitin, I am heavily involved in instructing both staff and students on how to use the system. We've recently had a discussion within our own section on how we manage the teaching of referencing to both FE and HE learners as we are a mixed economy College, and that this needs to be done holistically, as part of the formative process as a supportive mechanism.
Indeed, our taught LIS sessions of referencing are changing incrementally to tackle the issue of electronic sources of information and the requirement to cite and reference these sources accurately.
It is a difficult balance, conveying the complexities of the Harvard system whilst at the same time supporting students in a non-punitive way. Allowing students access to the Originality Reports that are created based on their submissions has improved understanding as to what the issues associated with referencing e-resources are, but it is a shared responsibility and one that needs a consistent message from all areas of the organisation.
Any thoughts?
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Aren't we just training our students to become more skilled at filtering out plagiarism, rather than understanding the concepts behind referencing etc., when using systems such as Turnitin?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I have to say that I have never understood the anxiety around this issue, surely if a student is 'filtering out' plagiarism, there has to be some understanding of which elements of the submission are at fault, before the student in question can begin to remedy the deficiencies in their work? Surely any tool that aids this process is to be welcomed....I know that the students have been extremely positive in their feedback on the taught sessions on the use of Turnitin that I have been involved in. Surely the wide range of web resources that the students have at their disposal mean that we now have to radically rethink how we support students and offer guidance on all aspects of using the web, and Turnitn/referencing etc., falls within this...?
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