Plagiarism Instruction Online: Using an Interactive Information Literacy Tutorial to Assess Students

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Plagiarism Instruction Online Using an
Interactive Information Literacy Tutorial to
Assess Students Understanding of Academic
Integrity

• Pamela A. Jackson
• Reference/Instruction Librarian
• San José State University Library

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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.
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• Librarys Role in Plagiarism InstructionWhy
  should the library teach students about
  plagiarism?
• Demonstrates the librarys commitment to
  important campus issues, such as academic
  integrity.
• Campus communities frequently look to librarians
  to provide this instruction.
• ACRLs Information Literacy Competency Standards
  for Higher Education call for student
  demonstration in the legal and ethical use of
  information.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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.

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The Creation Process Plagiarism The Crime of
Intellectual Kidnapping
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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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).

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Analysis of Student Quiz Data

• Data included from 2031 Student Pre and Post
  Tests between
• August 2004 and March 2005

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Number of Students by Level
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Number of Students by College
College may not correlate with students major.
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Average Quiz Scores by Level
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Average Scores by College
College may not correlate with students major.
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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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Link to SJSU Tutorialshttp//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).