Preventing Plagiarism

The issue of plagiarism in online courses has gotten the attention of instructors, administrator and students.  The assumption that students taking online courses have greater access to documents on the internet and will thereby be more likely to engage in plagiarism has not been confirmed.  Rena Palloff stated (n.d.) in an online interview that rates of plagiarism in online courses and traditional courses are about the same.  Jocoy and Dibiase’s review of three empirical studies investigating plagiarism reported a plagiarism rate that ranged from 3% to 21%.  Regardless of the total rate or the comparable level of plagiarism across online and traditional courses, the need for a system that facilitates ethical learning and performance is needed.  There appear to be two roads for which to achieve the goal: 1) plagiarism detection software, and 2) authentic assessment that encourages collaboration.

I have been able to identify three plagiarism detection software for online instructors: 1)  “turnitin”, 2) plagiarism-detector, and 3) academicplagiarism.  Turnitin is the self proclaimed global leader in plagiarism detection software.  All of the instructors I know who use such software, use turnitin.  While there appears to be some consensus in my academic community regarding which plagiarism detection software to use, other educators suggest that the need for such measures are minimal or unnecessary when course evaluation is designed effectively.  Educational consultant, Keith Pratt, suggest that  instructor’s have the opportunity to create collaboration in course performance activities to reduce the need for cheating.  Furthermore, the integration of authentic assessment, that reflects the requirements of the real-world, requires fewer limitations on access to information or peer support.  It appears to me that there is more value for the student and the instructor when performance is evaluated through authentic assessment.  Now we only have to train instructors on how to create effective authentic assessment.

Lastly, if plagiarism is as Rena Palloff suggest, mostly based on a student’s unawareness of appropriate rules governing plagiarism, then the most effective strategy is to educate the learner about copyright, fair use, and cheating.  One of the most helpful resources for such training and support resides with the institutional library support staff.  Instructional modules and typically located at the library.  Writing centers also contain may of these resources and often make them available via their website.  These resources and other are clearly available at the beginning of a course or as needed during the course.

Jocoy, C., & DiBiase, D. (2006). Plagiarism by adult learners online: A case study in detection and remediation. International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning, 7(1), 1–15.
Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database.

“Plagiarism and Cheating” (approximate length: 10 minutes).
Dr. Palloff and Pratt discuss effective methods for dealing with plagiarism in distance education.

Launching the Online Experience: The Role of Technology

Setting up the online experience in essential to the learning experience.  The integration of technology into the online learning environment is a crucial step in this process.  Choosing, organizing, presenting and supporting technology are four of the most important aspects of the set up process.  However, the instructor’s knowledge of the technology is the first and most important aspect of technology integration.  When instructors are knowledgeable and comfortable with technology, their decision-making, application, and anticipation and response to student needs are more effective than when they just have a working or limited knowledge of the technology.

Understanding technology’s role and anticipating student’s interaction with technology provide the instructor with an informed starting point for informing students of how technology will be used in the course.  In particular, instructors must provide students with clear expectations about the specific technologies that will be use and the expectations for their use across all of the specific activities and assignments in the course.  This appears to be a simple process, but there are subtle, but important aspects of this process that must be attended to by the instructor.  First, students learn what is expected and they can take inventory of their technology skills to determine if they are competent and comfortable with all of the technologies and in all of the applications. If they identify gaps in their technology skills, they can identify the resources needed to supplement their technology skills for successful completion of course requirements.  This is valuable because it reduces or eliminates anxiety that can be connected to perceived or real gaps between what is required in the course and the student’s technology skills.  Developing student confidence and self-efficacy contribute to perceived and real student persistence, especially during the first two-weeks of class.  For these reasons, clear communication not only informs students of technology issues, but actually empowers them to take an active role in their success.

Second, instructors must make the distinction between how technology is integrated into the course, how students are prepared to use technology before the course begins, and how students must be supported early in the course to maintain their connection to the course and community.  It is the latter point that can be minimized in the heat of course delivery.  The first two weeks are the busiest time for instructors and various demands can minimize a instructors focus on the role and impact of technology.  In particular, best practices indicate that instructors mush be diligent in their effort to develop community among students, so as instructor are checking in with students to ensure that they are well connected and that the instructor is making a “human” connection with all of the students, they must also check in with students who do not appear to be keeping up with assignments in the first two weeks.  To avoid a minimization of the role of technology, I suggest that a part of that checking in process should be to address any difficulties the student might be having.  Consider the following possibilities that may occur for students who anticipated minimal difficulty with the technology.  First, it is possible that student expectations of their technology skills could have been over-estimated.  Second, student may also have under-estimated the degree of difficulty the technology’s sophistication.  Third, students may not have accessed the available training resources that can build the necessary technology skills.  Considering all of these issues, it becomes understandable that students may begin a course felling very confident that they can be successful with the course technology and encounter significant problems in this area that put them at risk for success and completion of the course.  It is the instructor’s responsibility to anticipate and quickly respond to these possibilities.

The Evidence on Online Education

In an effort to ground ourselves in the empirical evidence that drives the best practices for online learning, I came across a meta-analysis conducted by the US Department of Education (2009) that provide additional insight.  "Insider Higher Ed" provides a summary of the report (www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/29/online) and the full report is available for download on the website. 


Here is an introduction to the scope of the report,
"The Education Department report said that it had identified more than 1,000 empirical studies of online learning that were published from 1996 through July 2008. For its conclusions, however, the Education Department considered only a small number (51) of independent studies that met strict criteria. They had to contrast an online teaching experience to a face-to-face situation, measure student learning outcomes, use a "rigorous research design," and provide adequate information to calculate the differences."



I hope this is helpful.

Reflections on Building Online Communities

Online learning communities achieve three important goals that work to increase student learning and satisfaction.  First, students are connected to each other through collaborative learning experiences.  Second, the instructor plays the role of facilitator, and not disseminator of knowledge and thereby empowers student to become responsible for their own learning.  Third, the online environment integrates a learning experience where the student constructs knowledge with classmates rather than receiving it passively.  Therefore, student connection and collaboration, student-directed learning, highlighted by reflective experiences, and a constructivist approach to knowledge creation are the essential elements of an online community. 

Building such a community requires the instructor and student to be aware of the differences in an online learning environment and what is required for success.  Second, the instructor has primary responsibility for creating a safe and nurturing environment where the student can feel safe and comfortable to take advantage of the new learning format.  Lastly, the instructor must work diligently in the first two-weeks to connect students to one another and the community.  Responding to those who appear to be less integrated and engaged requires the instructor to reach out to these students because early connection to the experience, much like in a college setting, is essential for their matriculation, learning, and success.

Sustaining an online community is first a result of a firmly developed community in the first two-weeks.  Second, instructional requirements that become familiar and routine increase the likelihood of student engagement.  Moreover, students develop and benefit when these familiar activities also engage them in critical dialogue, constructive feedback, and professional commentary.  Moving students into greater levels of collaboration and self-directed learning is critical.  Lastly, instructors must continue to engage the students and the learning community as a peer and partner in the learning process and contribute fully.

Community building is the work that facilitates the grown of relationships that build trust for which students exchange for taking intellectual risk with former strangers.  It is the role of community building that is the lesson that I will use when I design and deliver online courses.

Welcome Classmates - OIS 6510

Hi Everyone,

I just want to let you know that I am very interested in learning more about each of you and "Online Communities." I'm a big proponent of learning communities, but not yet sold on its utility for all learners in distance education.  I plan to create online classes for others and teach my own, so I want a solid understanding of what is possible and hwo to get the most out of online communities.

Looking forward to the nest 8 weeks.

Rudy

A Snapshot of Best Practices

As an Instruction Designer (ID), you may be faced with a project where a “training manager has been frustrated with the quality of communication among trainees in his face-to-face training sessions and wants to try something new.” The trainer may have “plans to convert all current training modules to a blended learning format, which would provide trainees and trainers the opportunity to interact with each other and learn the material in both a face-to-face and online environment.”  Furthermore, the trainer may have pans for “putting all of his training materials on a server so that the trainees have access to resources and assignments at all times.” 

If faced with this scenario it seems appropriate to begin the ADDIE process of analysis with one basic question, “Is converting the program to a blended format necessary?”  See Appendix I for specific questions that guides this analysis.  If the determination is made that the current format does not lend itself to meeting the program goals and outcomes, then a second set of issue must be addressed with the trainer prior to designed the new blended approach: 1) Instructor Issues, 2) Student Issues and 3) Technology Issues.  These issues are essential considerations for distance learning with any project and must be addressed early.

A second primary issue for this redesign relates to the trainer’s new role as a facilitator in a distance-learning environment.  Instructional delivery via distance learning involves different processes than traditional lecture-based classroom instruction. As such, the trainer must be aware and competent across the following three issues:

1.     Moving from dispenser of knowledge to facilitation of learning

2.     Management of content and technology in new ways

3.     Facilitating student engagement in the new learning activities

The third component of best practices offered to the trainer relates to the issue of encouraging student communication.  This is a critical aspect for involving students in the learning process.  Three broad topics are necessary:

1.     Clearly establish expectation for communication

2.     Make communication meaningful

3.     Remove barriers to communication

This snapshot is elaborated in greater detail in "Best Practices" 

Week 5: Application Blog – The Impact of Open Source

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm) offers a series of “Open Course” distance learning courses across six major academic content areas (i.e., Management, Science) and cross disciplinary and specialty areas.  I chose to review two courses from MIT’s Sloan School of Management because of variations in design and learning tools offered across the two courses.  Course one is entitled “Competitive Decision-Making and Negotiation” (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-067-competitive-decision-making-and-negotiation-spring-2003/index.htm) and course two is entitled “Optimization and Analysis for Manufacturing” (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-066j-system-optimization-and-analysis-for-manufacturing-summer-2003/).  Design differences across these courses are evident immediately as the MIT homepage presents a list of thirteen course characteristics that pertain specifically to resources and more broadly to aspects of the learning experience that impact student engagement.  The User-Interface (UI) of the course characteristics was particularly effective as the homepage prominently presented the thirteen characteristics in a legend with meaningful icons. The legend was followed with the corresponding “icon” included as the first piece of data included about each course in a vertical listing of courses by department.  This design format provide students with clear and repeated information about the course characteristics that inform the decision making process based on student interest and learning preferences. 

I personally believe that there is a balance that must be attained when designing courses that meet the student’s need and also optimizes the learning pertaining to the goals and purpose of the course.  While debatable, it appears that Open Source courses are designed to be less “student dependent” because of a broader application to a wide variety of students in comparison to a learning solution for a specific population of learners/workers/employees.  In this manner, open course distance learning appears to be closer to traditional courses offered in a college or university setting.  In conclusion, from the very first experience with the MIT homepage, there is clear evidence that the designer has planned to provide the student with key technological information that delineates different types of experiences and resources provided in each course.  One limitation is that there is no information defining the technological requirements (i.e., hardware, software, internet connectivity) for the student to complete each course based on the different resources and learning experiences.  Further analysis of the specific syllabus did not identify these technological requirements.

Similarities and Differences

First, both courses achieve most of “Fundamentals of Teaching Online” outlines by Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek (2009) and three of these are worth note.  As both courses attempt to “avoid dumping a Face-to-Face course into the web,” it becomes apparent the “Competitive Decision-Making and Negotiation course is at a disadvantage because it only employs “lecture notes” as a learning resources to students.  In comparison, the “Optimization and Analysis for Manufacturing” course offers selected lecture notes, projects and Examples, assignments and solutions, and exams with no solutions.  These differences may be reflective of real differences in a classroom-based course, but also appear to offer very different opportunities for student engagement.

Second, the issue of organizing the course and making the organization and requirements clear to the student were excellent for both courses.  For example, the template for all of the MIT open courses were very similar and provided an informational and navigational column on the left that detailed the syllabus, calendar, and other learning resources for the course (i.e., lecture notes, assignments).  Drilling down to all subpages across both courses revealed clear descriptions of what to expected and therefore appears to achieve the goal of organization and clarifying requirements.   One meaningful difference between the courses was the use of a Mind Map in the “Organizational” course and none for the “Negotiation” course.  The mind map was front and center on the “Organizational” course’s homepage and provided an excellent visual representation of the course.  I suggest a comparison of these two courses for anyone interested in assessing effectiveness and impact of a mind map.

Active Learning

Overall, the “Organizational” course designed more opportunities for students to actively engage.  While both courses integrate many meaningful applied activities, it was the inclusion of group projects in the Organizational course and the absence of these learning experiences in the “Negotiation” courses that separated the two.  It should be noted that with a minimal number of course learning components, the Negotiation course has designed creative use learning components such as case studies and a post negotiation questionnaire that appear very beneficial to learning and active learning.  Here again would be an example of a learning design that I would suggest to classmate for review.

References

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). The student and distance education. Teaching and learning at a distance: foundations of distance education (4th ed., pp. 165-175). Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson.

Retrieved from http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Retrieved from http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-067-competitive-decision-making-and-negotiation-spring-2003/index.htm

Retrieved from http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-066j-system-optimization-and-analysis-for-manufacturing-summer-2003/