Plagiarism Instruction Online: Using an Interactive Information

Literacy Tutorial to Assess Students’ Understanding of

Academic Integrity

Pamela A. JacksonReference/Instruction Librarian

San José State University Library

Abstract

This web-based tutorial, Plagiarism: The Crime of Intellectual Kidnapping, teaches students about plagiarism, paraphrasing and citing sources. A pre-test and graded quiz allow educators to assess student learning and analyze students’ understanding of important academic honesty concepts.

Library’s Role in Plagiarism InstructionWhy should the library teach students about plagiarism?

• Demonstrates the library’s commitment to important campus issues, such as academic integrity.

• Campus communities frequently look to librarians to provide this instruction.

• ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education call for student demonstration in the legal and ethical use of information.

Collaboration with Classroom Faculty

"Last spring, in order to address the issue of plagiarism, we submitted course assignments to turnitin.com and were astounded to discover that between sixty-three to seventy-five percent of our students plagiarized. This tutorial has contributed significantly to help meet the formidable challenge of plagiarism."

--Debra Caires-Mullens, Coordinator of CS100w and June Sheldon, CS100w Instructor

Campus Commitment to Academic Integrity

“As a university, we need to help our students to really understand what it means to have academic integrity and why it is important to have it. We need to continue to find ways to help students understand what cheating and plagiarism are and why it is wrong to engage in such practices.”

--Annette Nellen, Chair, Academic Senate San José State University

Benefits of Using Online Tutorials• Students learn information literacy skills at

their own pace, outside of physical classrooms and traditional class time.

• Offers a progressive reinforcement of information literacy skills.

• Students gain a common foundation of knowledge before the in-person library instruction session.

• “Face” time with students can be advanced and student-centered when tutorials precede in-person library instruction.

The Creation Process: Plagiarism: The Crime of Intellectual Kidnapping

Tutorial Highlights

• Pre-Test and Graded Quiz

• Plagiarism Definitions and Examples

• Academic Dishonesty Policies

• Plagiarism Detection Services

• Paraphrasing Examples & Practice

• Importance of Citing Sources

• Citation Styles

Five Person Team

• One Librarian responsible for overall direction of the tutorial, and creating the content and quiz.

• One Information Literacy Specialist responsible for oversight of the programming and graphics team; collaborates with librarian on overall direction.

• Two Programmers responsible for HTML, PHP, and back-end MySQL quiz databases and queries.

• Two Graphic Artists/Designers responsible for the artwork, Flash animations, and overall look of the tutorial.

Timeline• Spring 2003: Idea sparked through a

conversation between classroom faculty and the Librarian.

• Fall 2003: Tutorial is launched one week before the fall semester begins.

• Fall 2004: New quiz that better adheres to test writing standards is launched.

• Winter 2005: Tutorial is made available for download via an open publication license.

Quizzes and Queries• Students register to take the tutorial.

• Quiz scores are automatically emailed to the student upon completion.

• Results are stored in a local database.

• Queries allow us to see quiz scores by class, student, semester (includes class averages and scores by question).

Analysis of Student Quiz Data

Data included from 2031 Student Pre and Post Tests between

August 2004 and March 2005

901

276

179

682

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Number of Students by Level

Upper-DivisionLower-DivisionFirst-time FreshmanOther, unidentified

Number of Students by Level

Number of Students by College

406

270 263211

146

60

682

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Number of Students by College*

Science

Social Science

Applied Arts & Sciences

Education

Arts & Humanities

Business

Other, not registered aspart of a class

*College may not correlate with student’s major.

Average Quiz Scores by Level

82% 84% 80%83%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Average Scores by Level

Upper-DivisionLower-DivisionFirst-Time FreshmanOther, unidentified

Average Scores by College

83% 82% 82% 82% 80% 80% 83%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Average Scores by College*

Applied Arts & Sciences

Social Science

Science

Education

Arts & Humanities

Business

Other, not registered aspart of a class

*College may not correlate with student’s major.

Pre- and Post Test Comparison• Comparison assesses students’ general

understanding of plagiarism and citing sources, but not their ability to recognize plagiarism in paraphrases.

• Average Overall Pre-test Score: 85 %

• Average Overall Quiz Score: 92 %

7 %

How They Scored

• 90th percentile when asked to define plagiarism, penalties, and what should be included in a citation.

• 80th percentile when asked to define paraphrasing, use direct quotes, and identify what type of information needs to be cited.

• 30th percentile when asked to read an original passage and identify what is wrong with a paraphrased passage.

Students Need More Paraphrasing Instruction

• Students lack the ability to read an original passage and identify what is wrong with a paraphrase.

• Students do not understand that paraphrasing is NOT merely a rewriting of the original passage but involves synthesizing the original passage and writing it in their own words.

Contribution to Student Learning

• Library is able to provide classroom faculty with data about their students’ knowledge.

• Librarians can use data to guide what they teach during their in-person instruction session.

• First year of quiz results show that students have difficulty with paraphrasing. New quiz gives students more practice paraphrasing.

Link to SJSU Tutorials:http://tutorials.sjlibrary.org/

If you would like to experience the tutorial with the interactive quiz as students do, please follow these instructions:

• From the plagiarism tutorial homepage, click on 'SJSU Students - First Time.'

• Register as if you were a student, but use the word "test" as both your first and last name.

• Make up a unique number to act as your student ID (suggestion: use part of your phone number).