Academic Integrity - Plagiarism

Sooooo its August 11 and as I sit here typing up this blog, UMD 6 is pretty much under house arrest doing their analysis and write up of all the field research just finished back in their respective countries. Folks are sleep deprived, frustrated, redoing the 8th draft of their chapter on literature review and watching the days roll by too quickly. Pressure and Panic sets in and the big temptation sometimes looms in..... the other big "P" - PLAGIARISM.

This scenario is by no means unusual for university students but the consequences are dire and so I thought we'd take a look at this problem that plagues many; especially those who are guilty of accidental plaigiarism, simply because you are not sure when you are committing the "crime".

What is plaigiarism?

"The wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or purloining and publication, of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one's own original work". Lynch, Jack (2002) The Perfectly Acceptable Practice of Literary Theft: Plagiarism, Copyright and the 18th Century in Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation 24, No. 4 (Winter 2002-3), pp. 51-54.

As with all Universities, plagiarism is taken very seriously at IHS. Students upload papers on the university's website (http://www.eur.nl/english/) and each paper is rigourously checked by "Blackboard" to determine the extent to which a student has utilised the work of another. This is expressed by the percentage of work found elsewhere. This does not necessarily mean plagiarism. If the percentage is above a certain amount, the lecturer will then check to see if those areas identified by Blackboard have been properly referenced by the student. If it has then all is well. Bear in mind however, that there is a limit to the amount of work that can be quoted even if referenced but those details will be explained to you further on arrival.

You are probably wondering what is Blackboard?

It is an online software tool which allows a lecturer to interact with students via the Web. You can do some or all of the following, depending on how your instructor sets up the course:

• View important announcements and information
• Participate in online discussions and in small group activities
• Access course materials and resources on the Web
• Submit your assignments, take on-line tests and quizzes, and check your grades

And of course, there is SafeAssign which is the plagiarism prevention service that comes bundled with Blackboard Software that is the subject of this blog entry.

But what exactly does Safeassign do?

SafeAssign checks all submitted papers against the following databases:

• Internet - comprehensive index of documents available for public access on the Internet
• ProQuest ABI/Inform database with over 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6 million articles from '90s to present time, updated weekly (exclusive access)
• Institutional document archives containing all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in their respective institutions
• Global Reference Database containing papers that were volunteered by students from Blackboard client institutions to help prevent cross-institutional plagarism.

Trust me, this software ain't perfect but it comes pretty close. I had a recent experience with student who tried to outsmart Safe Assign by downloading and installing a plagiarism checker online before submitting his paper (Viper in photo to left) . The software reported 0% but SafeAssign caught 57%. He was stunned because he had not only used other software to see if he could get away with it but he also had paraphrased the information to bypass Safeassign. Or so he thought. The consequences were severe. Undoubtedly this was not a case of accidental plagiarism but many cases are.
So how do you know for sure if you are in the clear? IHS will provide a handbook on thesis writing which tells you how to reference work from others that you use, the format that is specific for IHS and a small booklet on plagiarism. Of course all the lecturers are there to guide you. You will be expected to learn and use proper referencing in your papers from day one so that by the time your thesis is being completed you will be an expert. Now to get you on your way a bit faster here are some links you might want to peruse.
http://academicintegrity.dal.ca/Student%20Resources/Plagiarism_defined.php
http://library.duke.edu/research/plagiarism/
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/
http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/plagiarism.shtml
Just a word of warning. Its also practice among students to pay persons back at home in other universities to write your papers for you. The lecturers have not only been lecturers for a while now but they have been students and its far easier than you think to detect such tricks of the trade. My advice is resist the urge, mostly because even if you "get away" with it you would have only cheated yourself.