An overview of plagiarism in higher ed and some tools faculty can use to detect (or better yet, prevent!) it.

1. Plagiarism in the
Digital Age
Katelyn Lemay
NYU FAS Office of Educational Technology
December 2, 2016
Office of Educational Technology

2. Agenda ● Intro & definitions
● Educating students
● Popular “tools” for cheating
● Instructor tools & strategies
● Demo: Turnitin
● Additional questions

3. Definitions
“Presenting others' work
without adequate
acknowledgement of its
source, as though it were one’s
own.”
NYU Academic Integrity policy
“Plagiarism can lead to course
failure or to further
disciplinary actions, including
suspension or expulsion.”
Liberal Studies Academic Integrity guide
http://tinyurl.com/nyuintegrity http://tinyurl.com/lsintegrity

4. “Studies differ in their
projection as to how
much college students
actually engage in
cheating.”
Differing estimates
Newstead, Franklin-Stokes,
and Armstead (1996):
>50%
Nonis and Swift (2001):
30% - 96%
Wotring (2007):
47.2% - 70%
Source: American College Personnel Association (ACPA) -
“Overview: Student Cheating in Higher Education”

5. How do
students
cheat?
● Content sharing sites
‒ coursehero.com, postyourtest.com,
scribd.com, etc
● Plagiarism checkers
‒ WriteCheck, Turnitin
● Paper writing services
● “Collaborative cheating”

6. Why do
students
cheat?
● Increasingly competitive
academic environment
● Perception that peers
are cheating
● Access to online
communication and tools
● Poor understanding of
academic integrity

7. Students and
academic integrity
● Differences in cultural
understandings of plagiarism
● Inconsistent instruction in
secondary schools
● Remix / mash-up culture

8. What are we doing to
prevent plagiarism?

9. Current efforts
Preventative approaches have shown to be
more effective than punitive ones.
❏ Consistent messaging
Make sure students - and faculty - have
access to clearly written policy.
❏ Student education
Students complete an online module
before coming to campus.
❏ Supportive learning environment
Refer students to academic support
centers and wellness resources on
campus.

10. Current efforts
❏ Consistent messaging
❏ Student education
❏ Supportive learning
environment
✓
https://www.nyu.edu/about/policies-guidelines-compli
ance/policies-and-guidelines/academic-integrity-for-st
udents-at-nyu.html

11. Current efforts
❏ Consistent messaging
❏ Student education
❏ Supportive learning
environment
✓
✓
https://m.albert.nyu.edu/app/dashboard
(under “Self-tests”)
Additional Resources:
FAS Office of Ed Tech Digital Literacy guide:
https://wp.nyu.edu/fas-edtech/digital-literacy-guide/
NYU Libraries Copyright & Fair Use guide:
http://guides.nyu.edu/fairuse

12. Current efforts
❏ Consistent messaging
❏ Student education
❏ Supportive learning
environment
✓
✓
✓

13. Tools and strategies
for faculty
“low-tech” and “high-tech” approaches

14. “Low-tech”
approaches
● Statement in syllabus about plagiarism
● Different versions of exams
● Low-stakes quiz on recognizing
plagiarism
● Quick in-class writing exercises
● Oral presentations with in-class Q & A

15. “High-tech”
approaches
● Multimedia projects
● Embracing remix / mash-up culture
● Course design*
● Turnitin (plagiarism detection software)*

16. Course design
“Courses that rely upon infrequent, high-stakes assessments (such as three
exams and nothing else) put intense pressure on each of those grade-earning
opportunities, and ratchet up the incentive to cheat on each one…
...To tackle the cheating problem, we need to redesign college classes to help
students develop motivation of their own. Educational theorists tell us that people
learn best when they are trying to answer a question, solve a problem, or meet a
challenge that matters to them.
We know, in other words, how to build classes that lower incentives for
cheating—they are the same type of classes that create better environments for
learning.” - How college classes encourage cheating, Boston Globe (04 Aug 2013)

17. Turnitin
Creating a TurnItIn assignment
http://www.nyu.edu/servicelink/041223513203041
FERPA considerations
http://www.nyu.edu/servicelink/041223510243634
Viewing originality reports
http://www.nyu.edu/servicelink/041223614323072
Best practices

18. Turnitin:
Best
practices
● Include a statement in your syllabus
● Have students submit their own papers to
Turnitin
‒ Create separate NYU Classes Assignments for
drafts to avoid flagging for self-plagiarism
‒ Use Turnitin even if you don’t anticipate
problems with plagiarism
● Use Originality Report as an indicator to
look more closely at a student’s work
‒ If a student has a lot of long quotations, the
Originality Report will have a high similarity
index, even if they are properly cited

19. Questions?
Katelyn Lemay
k.lemay@nyu.edu
wp.nyu.edu/fas-edtech
Office of Educational Technology