how effective are electronic plagiarism detection systems and does it matter how you use them?...
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Presentation 23 June 2010. 4th International Plagiarism Conference, Northumbria University. The advent and use of digital technologies, which open up a plethora of useful and credible information for use by students, at the same time expose the risks of uncritical and unacknowledged use of other people’s work. Institutions have met these concerns with the implementation of electronic detection systems. The situation has moved very quickly, from the introduction of the UK national license for Turnitin in 2002/3 to the present situation where this software is used by over 95% of Higher Education Institutions. Electronic detection of plagiarism is one of the most widely spread technologies used in education and the evidence base for its use is only just beginning to yield results. This paper will examine the evidence to date for the effects of plagiarism detection systems. It is based on a HEA-funded review ‘Digital with plagiarism in the digital age’ which is available online at http://evidencenet.pbworks.com/Dealing-with-plagiarism-in-the-digital-age.TRANSCRIPT
www.le.ac.uk
How effective are electronic plagiarism detection systems and does it matter how you use them?
4th International Plagiarism Conference 23 June 2010
Dr Jo Badge (@jobadge)School of Biological SciencesUniversity of Leicester
http://bit.ly/eDetection
Electronic Detection Systems
• Software to automatically search for non-original text
• dynamic list of software online [link]
Plagiarism detection services
Turnitin CopyCatch
SafeAssign
WCopyFind
Effectiveness
• Cross comparison reviews mostly focus on usability
• Live testing with scoring for detection rates carried out by Debora Weber-Wuff– Rates Safeassign above Turnitin in terms
of detection rates
Mode of use: prevention
1. Long term effects
2. Risk / benefit perceptions
3. Punishment as education
1. Long term effects : Culwin, 2006
Deterrent : Badge, 2007
Detection rate/ %
pilot 2.06 Year 1
2.73
Year 2
0.94
2. Risk / benefit perceptions : Woessner 2004
3. Punishment as education
• Punitive tutor-supported access
• Students shown originality report prior to penalty
• Most common but least studied
• Form of student access to originality reports
Mode of use: student access
1.Punitive supported access
2.Outside institutional systems
3.Institutional open access
4.Tutor supported access
2. Outside institutional systems
first: spelling check; second: grammar check; third: originality check
3. Institutional open access
Still fairly rare in UK
• IFS
• York (controlled training session trial)
Braumoeller & Gaines, 2001
• Marked on grading curve
• Feedback on effect of plagiarism on grades
Assignment 1
Plagiarised papers
Assignment 2
Plagiarised papers
Politics 100 C (n=78) 10 1Politics 100 D(n=73) 9 0
4. Tutor supported accessLedwith & Risquez, 2008
Proportion of matching text for both assignments submitted through Turnitin
Ledwith & Risquez, 2008
Barrett & Malcolm, 2006
Davis & Carroll, 2009
Reduction in– Amount of plagiarism (45.5%)– Over-reliance on one source (45.5%)– Citation errors (62%)– Insufficient paraphrasing (38%)
Percentages= total final drafts showing reduction where n=66 (over 3 years 2007-
2009)
AcknowledgementsHigher Education Academy
University of Leicester Teaching Enhancement Forum
GENIE CETL
Dr Nadya Yakovchuk
Dr Jon Scott