ASSIGNMENT 2 MSC PROJECT PROPOSAL: DESIGNING A PLAGIARISM TEST FOR SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD INTRODUCTION

Plagiarism is a growing concern in academic institutions (Hamilton et al, 2004). Statistics provided by the University of Edinburgh (2007) show that at the University 317 cases of plagiarism were detected between 2004 and 2007 with each year experiencing more cases than the last. It is uncanny that instances of plagiarism are on the increase with the amount of effort put into plagiarism awareness and detection techniques. In an ideal scenario increased efforts in deterring plagiarism like workshops and software solutions would yield a decrease in the number of occurrences but that is not the case. To have a good understanding of the challenge of plagiarism a clear definition is required. What is plagiarism? Plagiarism is usually defined as passing off someone elses work or writing as your own (Brown and McDowell, 1998 . p.3). Brown& McDowells (1998) definition is succinct and encompassing. Plagiarism takes many forms whether its a student copying texts directly from a source without re -writing it in their own words and referencing or a group of students who work together on an assignment and attempt to pass it off as the work of one student. The two examples count as acts of plagiarism but within them two scenarios might be encountered and the two scenarios can be attributed to two different categories of plagiarism which are: Intentional and Unintentional plagi arism. Scenarios involving intentional plagiarism are usually straightforward and involve culprits who knowingly attempt to fool tutors but unintentional plagiarism is less direct and the individuals in question never had the intention to plagiarise (Smith , 2008). Unintentional plagiarism stems from a misconstrued grasp of he concept and to understand how students end up plagiarising by mistake the perspectives of both students and teachers needs to be understood. Smith (2008), unlike Brown and McDowell (1998), attempts to understand plagiarism from the view of the Student and the Teacher. In Smiths work the opinions of 186 foreign students are unearthed through questionnaires and 30 of these students opted for further participation through interviews. The methods used were appropriate because of the kind of data required from these students. Basically, to fully understand a students perception of plagiarism a qualitative method like interviews would be needed to gather the data which would be descriptive a nd a quantitative method in the form of questionnaires would provide the statistical data that would give insight as to how wide spread the opinions were among the students. The focus here is on one of the questions in the questionnaire which asks

students to provide a definition for plagiarism which would be compared to the Universitys official definition. 133 out of the 186 gave a definition for plagiarism and later analysis showed that 32 percent of the 133 students produced wrong definitions with 68 pe rcent giving similar or closely similar definitions. This highlights the concern stated earlier that even with the implementation of plagiarism awareness and detection tools students still did not fully understand or avoid plagiarism. Further research in t his book showed more interesting facts about students perception of plagiarism. Apparently, students categorise plagiarism. Copying with the intent to cheat and deceive the tutor is branded wrong by the students but scenarios where information is shared a mong friends and colleagues with the intention of helping one another learn, or in broader terms unintentional plagiarism, is not considered to be plagiarism because there was no unlawful intent. This is where the conflict arises because both categories are officially branded as plagiarism and there is no distinction between them in the eyes of teachers. This is therefore the main issue with plagiarism. Students do not take it as seriously as the Teachers do (Ashworth et al., 1997 cited in Smith, 2008) an d while some students give themselves leeway to plagiarism thinking they arent doing anything wrong the academic authorities have more stringent views which end up flagging both intentional an unintentional plagiarism as outright plagiarism Students have a lax view of plagiarism and this is to their detriment because the authorities who evaluate their work are uncompromising in their assessment of plagiarism. There are facilities in place to punish students who are caught plagiarising but there is a lack of plagiarism awareness facilitates tailored to educated students about the meaning of plagiarism and what it entails (Smith, 2008). Junaini & Sidis (2007) propose in their paper What should be done to avoid plagiarism among University students That Uni versity officials should create Academic Dishonesty policy documents, circulate them around the institution and if Students understand the policy the Teachers would have less plagiarism cases to handle. This model is very inadequate. Merely circulating Ant i-plagiarism policies across the institution and believing it will curtail plagiarism is farfetched. The centre of Academic integrity (Lathrop & Foss, 2005 ) details 3 steps to be used to enforce Academic honesty and curtail cheating. They are:

1. Develop standards that are communicable to all members of the school community (including parents). 2. Create a process for handling alleged violations. 2

3. Get a commitment, especially from the school administration to adhere to and enforce these standards.
Once again it is evident that measures to ensure students understand what plagiarism means or even what the plagiarism policies expect from them have been neglected. Institution authorities pay attention to publicising DO NOT PLAGIARISM and fail to

evaluate students understanding of plagiarism. If measures are put in place to adequately educate and evaluate students on plagiarism it is possible that cases of plagiarism will reduce. In some institutions the need for plagiarism awareness tools ha s been recognised and addressed. The University of Brighton (2010) produced a Plagiarism awareness pack which was distributed to students. It contains useful information like definitions of plagiarism and penalties for plagiarism but most importantly it co ntains tests which would help evaluate students understanding of plagiarism and the penalties it carried. The University of York (n.d.) has also implemented plagiarism awareness measures. They introduced a plagiarism awareness online tutorial which provide d definitions for plagiarism, explained the methods and advantages of appropriate referencing and quizzes to asses students understanding of plagiarism. North Kentucky University (2009) implements a very creative method of raising awareness of plagiarism i n students. Students are required to form small groups and discuss questions like Why is plagiarism wrong?, How is plagiarism or cheating tied to your tests or writing for class? and How would you feel if another student copied your class speech and that student presented it before you first as their work to the class?. After the discussions students are asked to watch and evaluate a case study video related to plagiarism. All these make the experience more personal and interesting resulting in students fully grasping the idea of plagiarism and its consequences. Another worthwhile approach to plagiarism awareness is the MassBlast Guide provided by DiPaolo (2008). The guide involved session which explained the concept of plagiarism and why it was illegal, videos which provided further explanations as well as exercises to evaluate the students understanding. Raising the awareness of plagiarism and assessing students understanding of it is essential. If students understand what plagiarism is, its penaltie s and how to avoid it then cases handle by plagiarism violation committees will decrease and academic integrity will be absolute. PROBLEM STATEMENT

The University of Huddersfield is not exempted from the growing number of plagiarism cases. Like most Universities plagiarism is abound at the institution and the university recognizes the need for plagiarism awareness tools. Currently the university s School of computing and Engineering uses a paper based plagiarism test provided by Netskills and an online test provided by Indiana University Bloomington (Frick, 2008). These have been tolerable so far but the University now requires a more personalized plagiarism test tailored to fit the needs of the school and its students. This forms the basis of the aims and objectives of this project. This projects aims at designing a plagiarism test for the School of Computing and Engineering, University of Huddersfield, to help educate students on plagiarism, its different forms and consequences. Also, it will include measures which test and evaluate the students understanding of plagiarism. The product will be paper based and online-based with the Schools Blackboard facility used to design the onlin e fraction of the product. METHODOLOGY GROUNDED THEORY: INTERVIEWS Considering the plagiarism test is being designed for the University of Huddersfield, it will be necessary to gather the clients requirements. An appropriate method for gathering the clients requirements would be qualitative in the form of interviews. Interviews will give the researcher an opportunity to meet with the stakeholders personally and evaluate factors like requirement reasonability and product functionalities. Meetings and sess ions with different stakeholder members will be involved and the grounded theory will be used to analyse the raw narratives provided during these interviews and code them into more elaborate concepts which will aid the design process of the plagiarism test (Allan, 2003). CASE STUDIES In order to design an efficient plagiarism test it will be necessary to review case studies of other institutions which have designed and implemented them. Through case studies the benefits and pitfalls other institutions exper ienced while adopting plagiarism tests will be identified and any concepts and functionalities which can be applied to the University of Huddersfields proposed plagiarism test will be highlighted and evaluated. TEST DESIGN

The design of the test will be based on the information gathered from case studies, interviews and questionnaire evaluation. Plagiarism tests from other institutions will be analysed and evaluated and any features which are applicable to the client will be considered. The interviews and questionnaires will provide more insight into requirements and possible features to be included in the test. The test will be designed based on the information gained from the data analysis and evaluation and since it will b e paper based Materials needed will Word processing applications and printing facilities TEST EVALUATION Like the test provided by the Indiana University Bloomington ( Frick, 2008). The Test will be evaluated with scores. Every task in the test will carry a certain mark or point and at the end of the test the participants performance will be graded against a predetermined pass mark. If the participants score is below this mark then the student will have to retake the test. Participants who score same or abo ve the mark will be awarded a certificate which WILL declare they have passed the t est and fully understand the concept of plagiarism.

REFERENCES Allan, G. (2003) A critique of using grounded theory as a research method [Available at] http://www.ejbrm.com/vol2/v2 -i1/issue1-art1-allan.pdf [Accessed on 20 February 2010]

DiPaolo, J. (2008) MassBLAST Planning Guide. Healey Library. [Available at] http://libfs2.simmons.edu/massblast/wiki/images/a/ad/Plagiarism.pdf [Accessed on 21 February 2010]

Frick, T. (2008) How to recognise plagiarism . Indiana school Bloomington: School of education [online] Available at: https://www.indiana.edu/~istd/plagiarism_test.html [Accessed on 21 February 2010] Hamilton, A. Tahaghogho, S. M. M., and Walker, C. (2004) . Educating Students about Plagiarism Avoidance - A Computer Science Perspective [Available at] http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~mh/Papers/157_Hamilton.pdf [Accessed on 21 February 2010]

Junaini, S. and Sidi, J. (2007) . What should be done to avoid plagiarism among University students? Academic quality symposium 0718. [Available at] http://myais.fsktm.um.edu.my/3079/1/Syahrul_ -_AQS07__What_Should_be_done_to_Avoid_Plagiarism_among_University_Students.pdf [Accessed on 21 February 2010 ]

University of Brighton Plagiarism Awareness Pack (2010) [Available at] http://staffcentral.brighton.ac.uk/clt/resources/documents/Plagiarism%20awareness%20pack %202009-10%20final%20(wit hout%20GEAR).pdf [Accessed on 21 February 2010 ]

University of York (n.d.) Plagiarism Awareness Online Tutorial [Available at] http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/aso/teach/assess_fback/circular%20plagiarism_awareness_tut orial.pdf [Accessed on 21 February 2010]