As the ability to plagiarize sources for research papers has become more prevalent, so have programs to catch students in the act.
Text matching is similar to plagiarizing, and faculty at Ball State University are looking for ways to reduce this practice of copying and pasting.
At Monday's University Senate Agenda Committee meeting, a task force reported on its trial experience with a text-matching program available through the Blackboard Beyond program.
Faculty Council Parliamentarian David Pearson said since the issue was presented two years ago, the task force has looked into various companies to help cut down on text matching. It found that SafeAssign, a feature of the Blackboard Beyond program, had the same capabilities as other more costly programs. He said the program determines if students have copied and pasted information by giving the paper a percentage score, which can be viewed by professors or students, depending on how it is set up. It also identifies key phrases and buzz words that students should avoid.
Telecommunications professor Barry Umansky said he and another seven to 10 professors have been using the program for the past six months. Instead of calling students out for cutting and pasting, he said he lets students use it to determine areas of a paper that have been copied from another source and might need to be revised.
"It should not be used as a deciding factor to say, ‘You plagiarized,'" he said. "Even if students have properly cited it, you have to ask, ‘Was it a demonstration of a student's ability to cut and paste, or to synthesize the information?'"
Umansky said it will probably be available for professors to use soon, but even he is still considering the different ways it can be used.
The Senate Agenda Committee decided on Monday to send the information they had gathered about SafeAssign to the Provost's Office.
From there, the provost may decide to implement the software for all faculty members.
Pearson said the software is activated for professors, but it is not available on the toolbar. He recommends faculty be trained on how to use the program so it's capabilities are not abused.
Umansky said SafeAssign's software should not be defined as a program to fight plagiarism.
"It's text matching, which means sources could be properly cited," he said.
Before testing the SafeAssign software, the Senate Agenda Committee task force considered a program called Turn It In. But its $100,000 licensing fee and copyright issues with the courts deterred the group from pursing this software.
Indiana University, however, is using Turn It In. Students accused of plagiarizing could receive a failing grade on the assignment or for the course, IU's Dean of Students Dick McKaig said in a press release by the Indianapolis Business Journal.
In the same article, Stephen Heck, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Principals, said, "It's a whole new area. The idea of Internet plagiarism had never really surfaced in our schools, and now it has become a serious issue."
Ball State sophomore Timothy McDonald said he "halfway plagiarizes," but he's never gotten caught.
"I'm sure there's been a time I've plagiarized," he said. "Getting a few sentences, copying and pasting, getting the thesaurus out and changing some sentences around. I'm pretty good at hiding it."
Junior Jessica Ondras said she doesn't need to plagiarize.
"I'm a good writer myself, so I don't feel the need to take other people's work, people who are not as proficient as me," she said.
For some students, it's hard to understand how to avoid plagiarizing.
Junior Andrew Miller said one of his professors this semester warned the class to watch for plagiarism because several students were close to getting called out for it.
"A lot of people were confused because it was fact-based information, and we didn't know how to change it," he said.
SafeAssign
- Text-matching program determines if students have copied and pasted information from a database, which faculty will create
- Part of the Blackboard Beyond program
- Presents no additional cost to Blackboard Enterprise clients
- Activated for all faculty to use, but not on the toolbar
- Seven to 11 professors are using it, and they think it's successful
Other items discussed at the Senate meeting
- Teaching Evaluations committee is considering using Outlook for Senate voting procedures, instead of "reply-to-all" e-mails
- Task force has looked into the correlation between grade inflation and faculty evaluations
- Amendment readings were slated for next meeting
- Campus Council is looking into creating a student task force to enforce the smoking policy
- Campus Council is looking into using Cardinal Cash in the Village
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