Chris Anson North Carolina State University

Good Teaching Makes Good Citizens:Designing Plagiarism-Proof

Assignments

Workshop Agenda10:00 Discussion of Issues

11:00 Toward an understanding of plagiarism

11:45 Strategic Application

12:00 Lunch

1:00 Goal- and support-based design model

1:45 Strategic application

2:15 Break

2:30 Assignment workshop

3:30 Discussion and resources

4:00 Adjourn

Your Turn . . .

Please read all the vignettes.

Now focus on the vignette assigned to your group.

Discuss the vignette with your group, exploring its implications and trying to decide on a particular course of action, if any.

Be ready to share the results of your discussion with the larger group.

So, What’s Plagiarism?

Consider . . .

Myth: The rubber soles of shoes or rubber tires on a car will protect you from being struck by lightning.

Fact: Rubber-soled shoes and rubber tires provide NO protection from lightning. However, the steel frame of a hard-topped vehicle provides increased protection if you are not touching metal. Although you may be injured if lightning strikes your car, you are much safer inside the vehicle than outside.

This appears verbatim at:

Safeco.com

City of Fort Collins, CO

University of Victoria Elementary Education Program

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration

Denton County TX

FEMA.GOV kids site

Times Record News (a Scripps newspaper), Wichita Falls

Lightning Protection Service & Installation, Inc., Berlin, NJ

National Weather Service Forecast Office, Jackson, MS

And also at:

Emergency Management Service, Portage, WI

WeatherBug.com (sponsored by Cool Savings, Inc.)

Goddard Flight Center (NASA)

Steuben County Gov., Bath, NY

Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council

Emergency Management Service, Tuscaloosa, AL

Factmonster.com

Kidzworld.com

Florida Family Insurance Co., Inc.

And also at:

weatherandkids.com

bikeleague.org

Emergency Management, Springfield, MO

United Electric, Inc.

cybercom.net

vaudevilleproductions.com

easyweb.easynet.co.uk

Chiltern District County, Buckinghamshire, England

And dozens of others . . . .

Why?

Producers of text in civic contexts--for the public good--do not have profit motives or proprietary interests

The more the texts circulate, the better

Specific uses of texts make attribution unnecessary or undesirable

Consider . . .

“Experience six brightly colored ‘island villages’ with the ambiance of the tropics. Each village has its own heated quiet pool plus a white-sand beach on the shores of a shimmering lake.” (from official Disney site)

Dozens of booking agents provide this text verbatim with no attribution.

Why?

Brokers don’t want to risk creating their own (mis)representations of properties

But they want to develop “trust” with clients: not “their language” but “ours”

No one cares that the text is not attributed; everyone “wins”

Plagiarism?

The concept of plagiarism varies in different contexts and “textual cultures.”

The textual culture of public service operates with less proprietary interest than either business or academia.

The textual culture of business operates with selective proprietary interest, based on its goals.

Textual Culture in Academia: Research

Highly individualistic and person-centered

Based on credit cycles of individual production, invention, and publication

Privileges the ownership and attribution of ideas, concepts, and words to express them

Textual Culture in Academia: Teaching

Focused on individual growth

Preoccupied with evaluation of individual achievement

Recognizes and rewards “original” thinking and innovation by novices

Tends to perpetuate (and teach) assumptions about authorship from its own context

Values in Our Context: Teaching

We care that students are developing (through their own effort).We want to know we are evaluating their learning authentically.Secondarily, we want students to learn to do things the way we do.Secondarily, we want to emphasize ethical behavior and prepare students for social and occupational challenges.

Values in Our Context

We care that students are developing (through their own effort).We want to know we are evaluating their learning authentically.

Fear of plagiarism? Or opportunity

to make this happen?

Orientation of our Work

Turning insomeone

else’s work

Due process

Possiblesanctions/

remediation

Pasting in un-attributed text

as if own

Incorrectcitation

practices

Intentional andknowing?Yes

No Intervention

Orientation of our Work

Turning insomeone

else’s work

Due process

Possiblesanctions/

remediation

Pasting in un-attributed text

as if own

Incorrectcitation

practices

Intentional andknowing?Yes

No Intervention

Orientation of our Work

Turning insomeone

else’s work

Due process

Possiblesanctions/

remediation

Pasting in un-attributed text

as if own

Incorrectcitation

practices

Intentional andknowing?Yes

No Intervention

Why Ex Post Facto?

Learning Goals

Creative Assign-ment Design

Attention to Learning/Process

Due Process/Sanctions

Yes

No

Maintenance of Appropriate Teacher Role

(Unlikely)Plagiarism

Learning andAuthentic

Assessment

Why Give Assignments?

“Gauge what students have learned.”

“Assess their ability to express themselves in writing.”

“Test their comprehension of course material.”

“Look for the extent to which they can synthesize disparate views on a topic.”

“See what they got from the experiment.”

Why Give Assignments?

“Provide an opportunity to practice skills of close observation and analysis.”

“Help them learn how to describe different positions on an issue in the discipline and evaluate those positions.”

“Acquire the conventions of writing in my discipline.”

“Get them to think critically.”

Problem: We Tend to Use Writing as a Test

• Learning-oriented• Particularized• Multiple texts• Goal-driven• More integrated

• Assessment-oriented

• Generalized• Single texts• Format-driven• Less integrated

Dominant Orientation in Higher Ed

• Learning-oriented• Particularized• Multiple texts• Goal-driven• More integrated

• Assessment-oriented

• Generalized• Single texts• Format-driven• Less integrated

Potential for Submitting Others’ Work

Learning-oriented Assessment-oriented

• difficult• less reason to do so• more learning if done

• easy• more reason to do so• less learning if done

Paper-as-Test Model

ACTIVITIES

Paper

Paper

learning testing

Example: History

A term paper of five to eight pages in length will be required and due at the end of week 14. This may be attached and sent to the instructor by e-mail. The paper must be in APA format (refer back to link at top of syllabus for the APA format guide). The term paper may be on any topic covered by the time frame of the textbook; that is of interest to the student. Please advise your instructor of your intended topic; so that, you do not pick something to difficult to research in a freshman level history class.http://www.bmcc.edu/nish/courses/HS101/HS101syllabus.htm#points

Paper-as-Test (Plus Accountability)

ACTIVITIES Paper plus“evidence”

Paper plus“evidence”

learning testing

Example: Sociology

You will write 3 essays, each about 5-10 pages long (not counting the Reference page). You must choose your 3 topics from the list provided below. Each essay must include at least 5 academic sources which cannot be dated before 1992. For each essay, you will turn in a rough draft and a final essay. Only the final essay will be graded and by the instructor only. Each essay will count 30% of your final grade. PLEASE TURN IN A COPY OF THE ARTICLES AND/OR BOOKS THAT YOU USED TO WRITE YOUR PAPER WITH YOUR FINAL DRAFT. I will return these back to you when I return your paper.

http://www.as.wvu.edu/soc_a/sociology/faculty/latimer/389syllabus.htm

Semi-Integrated Model

ACTIVITIES

Paper

Paper

learning testing

Example: Architecture

The rough drafts will not be graded, but you are required to turn it in anyway. . . . Don't short-change the rough draft. It's your chance to show me what you are going to turn in on the final copy so that I can tell you what could be better about it. If you don't get the rough draft to me by the due date, I don't guarantee that I'll be able to get comments back to you before the final copy due date (but I'll still try). http://www.ksl.stanford.edu/people/kpfleger/cs329_material/fall97/papers.html

Example: Chemistry

Peer Review (pick up drafts Friday Apr 16), peer review IN CLASS Monday Apr 19) You will be given rough drafts of your classmates papers on Friday. By class the following Monday, you should have thoroughly read the drafts and provided constructive criticism both on the draft and in a short paragraph summary for the author. Constructive criticism should include positive comments on aspects of the paper that are strong and comments that you think the author should work on. You should comment on the writing and the content. You will then discuss the drafts in small groups during Monday’s class. Rough drafts will be handed in with the final paper and peer review scores will be determined based on effort made in reviewing the drafts and participation during the in-class exercise.http://www.sonoma.edu/users/w/whilesli/term_paper_assignment_446.pdf

Fully Integrated Model

ACTIVITIES

WRITING

ACTIVITIES

WRITING

WRITING

Paper

Paper

learning testing

Your Turn . . . .

• Please read the Art History assignment.

• In a pair or small group, critique this assign-ment generally. What works? What needs improvement?

• Now critique it in terms of its potential to encourage or leave open the possibility of plagiarism. How can you change the curricular model to shut down this possibility?

Lunch Break

12:00-1:00

The Instructional Design Model

Develop Goals for Students Learning

Create Supporting Activities for Student

Learning

Evaluate Learning

DesignAssignments

Informal

Formal

Operative Questions

What new knowledge, skills, and processes do you want students to be able to know or use?

What activities support the development of the assignment?

How do you judge whether the learning goals are reflected in students’ products?

LearningGoals

AssignmentDesign

SupportingStrategies

Assessment

What aspects of your assignment help to accomplish those goals?

Plagiarism-Proofing: Goals

• What learning goal(s) do you want students to acquire?

• Describe each goal: is it informational (some pieces of knowledge)? Experiential (something experienced, or some skill practiced)? Affective (some new awareness or metaconsciousness)?

• How does each goal help you to achieve the goals of your entire course?

Plagiarism-Proofing: Start With Goals

• Goal: Learn about an artist in the context of a work you’ve found in a museum.

• Goal: Practice taking someone else’s biography of an artist and putting it into your own words.

• Goal: Learn how to tell others, orally, something about an artist in a way that will interest and motivate them.

• Goal: Be able to describe culture from an anthropological perspective and reach conclusions about behavior and cultural practice from careful observation.

Choose a Mode/Focus on Design

Before you consider high-stakes, assessment-oriented assignments, consider low(er)-stakes assignments designed to encourage learningSuch assignments are driven by specific intellectual goals in your courseThey tend to be linked well to your course materialThey are easier to evaluateThey are very difficult to plagiarize

Example: 20th C. Science & Tech.

You are writing a letter to the high school teacher of your son or daughter. You know that the period covered in your child's course includes what is commonly referred to as the Middle Ages and you want to be sure that your son or daughter is not taught the "flat earth error" that seems to be implied in the textbook. In your letter, describe the "error" as presented in Russell's Inventing the Flat Earth, and explain why it is important that a more accurate story be presented to the class.(http://www1.umn.edu/scitech/microtheme1.htm)

Example: Language & Linguistics

(First informal assignment) What do you think about trying to keep the Lakota language alive and flourishing? Write a page or two explaining your position.

(Second assignment, after first is discussed/handed in)What do you think about trying to keep the dialect spoken on Tangier Island alive and flourishing? Write a page or two justifying your position relative to your first response.

(Third assignment, after second is discussed/handed in)What do you think about trying to help keep Ebonics alive and flourishing? Write a page or two justifying your position relative to your other two responses.

Example: Studies in the Family

First informal assignment) What information, perspectives, and strategies should prospective parents know before they decide to have children? Write a page or so explaining your position.

(Second assignment, after first is discussed/handed in)Should schools have a required curriculum on parenting that teaches the information, perspectives, and strategies you advocated in Stage 1 of this informal assignment? Justify your position.

(Third assignment, after second is discussed/handed in)Parental “licensing” programs have been suggested to combat parental abuse and ignorance. The state would require parents to demonstrate knowledge (through tests or coursework) before getting a license to have children. New parents who have not obtained a license would be required to obtain one immediately or face removal of their child to protective custody. Argue for or against this method of providing the information you advocated in Stage 1 of the assignment.

Example: Physics

The special theory of relativity rests on two experimentally verified principles, one of which (the constancy of the speed of light) is so surprising and hard to accept that after hearing it for the first time, most people either miss the point or think they must have misunderstood what was said. Explain this non-intuitive property of light in a way that would be clear and understandable to a non-scientist. Using non-technical language and analogies from everyday life, contrast the behavior of light with that of familiar objects traveling at speeds much less than c. Length: One page.

(http://www.indiana.edu/~cwp/assgn/biomods/p300.html

Example: Early Modern China

Pick an event (the Sino-Japanese war, the Boxer rebellion, the fall of the Qing dynasty or some other event) which is discussed in this course and find accounts of the event in at least two newspapers published at the time of the event, one of which must be from a newspaper which was not published in the U.S. (You may not write on an event which happened after 1917.) Your paper should include a Xeroxed copy of the newspaper accounts, plus your analysis of the accounts in the light of the readings, lectures and class discussions.http://writing.umn.edu/tww/WID/history/assignments/social_response.html

Example: Invertebrate Zoology

[A]rrange the propositions below in a logical order, connect the individual statements with appropriate transitions, and arrive at a conclusion that is supported by your argument. Using all of the points supplied below, write a 2-page essay on the topic, “The relationship between coral and zooxanthellae.”

• Coral reefs are formed by scleractinian corals that typically occur in shallow (<60m) water.

• Hermatypic corals contain photosynthetic algae (zooxanthellae) in special membrane- bound cavities inside the cells of the gastrodermis.

• Reef corals are limited to clear water because suspended material interferes with the transmission of light.

• Over two-thirds of the metabolic requirements of corals are provided by zooxanthellae. [ETC.]

cwp.missouri.edu/resources/ samples

Your Turn . . . .

Consider the twelve low-stakes assignments.In a small group, discuss which of the assignments might realize specific learning goals in your course. If you already use any of the samples, explain what you do. Or collectively come up with new ideas for low-stakes, creative, learning-based assignments for your courses.

Plagiarism-Proofing: More Design Strategies

• If a specific, generalized form or genre is not crucial, can you achieve the goal(s) through highly particularized and unique assignments? Cases? Hybrid or mixed genres?

• What “input” from your course can you incorporate into your assignment that comes only from your course?

• How can you break larger projects up into smaller assignments?

Design Opportunity

Create unique kinds of assignments

• creative angles and topics• hybrid genres• multi-modal assignments• episodic or multi-staged tasks• cases and scenarios

Mixed Medium: FSN

Goal: Analyze and present known information about nutrition within a specific culture while respecting and valuing cultural traditions in dietary practices.

Sketch of assignment: Students investigate the dietary practices of a specific cultural or ethnic group (Cuban American, Japanese, Hmong, Pakistani, Southeastern U.S., etc.). They write up a nutritional analysis (and give a presentation) in a way that balances an understanding of and respect for the culture or ethnic group.

Opting for Speaking: Chemistry

Goal: Apply biochemical knowledge to specific situations and make critical judgments about the accuracy of information.

Sketch of assignment. Students must look at Web sites that have a possible biochemical “bias.” Applying their knowledge from the course, they then do a brief presentation accompanied by Internet projection describing any bias they find, or explaining why there is no discernible bias.

Particularizing: Architecture

Goal: Critically evaluate existing designs and eloquently express the results in writing for an informed public.

Sketch of assignment: Professional critique of a built project familiar to the student. The critique is intended for the "informed public" (features in the New York Times or Columbus Monthly, i.e., insightful and professionally valid, yet also entertaining and eloquent, reflecting a sophisticated knowledge of the subject without being burdened with professional jargon). http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/com10f2.cfm

Mixed Genre: Studies in British Empire

Student Essay from the perspective of a foot soldier:

My dearest Jane, After I left you to join the army, many interesting things have occurred. My light foot brigade has been transferred to South Africa to fight the Boers of Transvaal [1]. They are determined to hold their lands from us. We need the resources of South Africa, like the gold and diamonds. The Dutchmen have no honor, as they strike civilian trains, and mutilate prisoners. . . .

“academic” footnote explaining info.

Mini-Case: American Literature

Imagine you’re Hester, looking back over the events in the novel. Choose one image (besides the scarlet letter) that’s most important, meaningful, or relevant to you. Write 2-3 pages in your (Hester’s) journal explaining why. Try to be authentic, i.e., avoid writing a journal entry that sounds like a literary analysis.

Design Opportunity

Create class-specific assignments

• ask students to incorporate material from class discussions/lectures

• provide additional readings/materials for writing

• design assignments from course material

Example: Psychology

Decide whether the concept of natural selection applies to human attraction, dating, and mate selection. Refer to the article discussed in class (about physical attraction data) to explain and support your position.

Design Opportunity

Create specific audiences (or self-reflection) for assignments

• Consider asking students to write the same text for different audiences and/or purposes

• Ask for “parallel texts” in which students reflect on their papers and processes

Break

Plagiarism-Proofing: Support

• How can you build certain assignment processes into your instruction and class time?

• How can you relate discussions and activities to your assigned projects?

• How can you use less formal assignments to drive your class sessions and enrich your course?

• How can you sequence short assignments to build up to larger projects?

The Instructional Design Model

Develop Goals for Students Learning

Create Supporting Activities for Student

Learning

Evaluate Learning

Design WritingAssignments

Informal

Formal

Providing Support

Analyzing sample dataExtracting information (text, art, etc.)Practicing close observationProviding support for assertionsJudging the validity of a sourceFinding the right persona or styleTranslating complex information for lay audiencesChoosing/narrowing a focusLooking for the main point of a readingArticulating an opinion

Example: FSN

What’s Needed: “Consult data on food nutrition; make conversions and calculations based on estimated quantities consumed daily.”

Supporting Activities: A sample daily menu from an ethnic group exempt from choice in the assignment provides raw data in class. Students work in groups, using nutritional tools, to figure nutritional values and then share them in brief reports, using an overhead, with the class.

Example: Biochemistry

What’s Needed: “Explore the Web site, paying special attention to its source and goals. Collect statements, data, or other information that potentially represents bias or, based on course material studied so far, misleads the viewer/reader in some way.”

Supporting Activities: A model site is given that the class unpacks as a group, contesting some of the statements at the site based on their own knowledge of the facts, and citing appropriate material as support.

Example: Architecture

What’s Needed: “Observe built object; take critical notes: attention to elements studied and discussed in class.Formulate opinion and work toward critique.”

Supporting Activities: A 3-D interactive photo suite of a building and grounds is shown onscreen in a computer lab. Students turn the building around and examine it from different angles, taking notes on what they see. Full-class follow-up draws on their observations collectively, showing how to “look” for various elements.

Your Turn . . .

• In a small group, share the assignment you brought to the workshop.

• For each assignment, discuss one or more “plagiarism-proofing” methods from what we’ve considered and try to apply it to a redesign of your assignment.

• What else would you need to change in addition to the assignment itself? Consider various supporting activities.

Support Opportunity: Process

Early ideas

Freewrites

Topic explorations

Source analyses

Focus exercises

Drafts

Reflections

Peer responses

Revisions/edits

low stakes high stakes

Final Paper

Support Opportunity: Portfolios

• Student portfolios provide a collection of work that documents progress over time

• Portfolios can contain both primary documents (the “artifacts” of assignments) and secondary documents (reflections and commentary).

• Students take ownership of and responsibility for their portfolios.

• Teachers can oversee portfolios’ development and provide input along the way.

What About Large(r) Classes?

• Design unique assignments.• Use series of short, less formal assignments

and assess for evidence of learning and engagement.

• Allow specifics of classroom to enter into the “genre” of the writing.

• Combine writing with other media• Use writing in the class.

Summary

Our view of plagiarism is often shaped by our assumptions about what writing is for in our classes.Starting with learning goals can help us to create assignments that engage students and make it difficult and unnecessary for them to plagiarize.Supporting larger projects engages students and leads them through the process, averting plagiarism.Adding creativity and imagination to our assignments not only engages students and helps them “own” their work; it also makes teaching more fun for us.

Issues and Discussion

Good Luck!

chris_anson@ncsu.edu

www.home.earthlink.net/~theansons/Portcover.html

The WPA Statement

http://www.wpacouncil.org