• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Pauline Swartz is the designer of the Bruin Success tutorial, a Web site that helps clarify plagi

Photo

With plagiarism a constant problem on campus, administrators hope new Web sites are a creative way of attempting to stop the plagiarism for which they have been looking.

The UCLA College has recently secured a site license to use Turnitin.com, a Web site designed to help faculty detect plagiarism as well as educate students on how to properly cite information.

Turnitin.com was previously used in the chemistry department, and some administrators believed spring quarter was a good time to open the program up to the rest of the College.

Since Turnitin.com was made available to faculty, over 40 professors have registered to use the program this quarter.

Turnitin.com was developed by UC Berkeley doctoral student John Barrie, who believed the Internet could actually help faculty members detect plagiarism in student papers.

After College administrators made a proposal to the Academic Senate’s Faculty Executive Committee, the use of the site was approved late last quarter. FEC is made up of faculty members who act on behalf of the 800 faculty members in the College.

“Some faculty members were familiar with the tool, and they had a positive experience with it. Many of the faculty members thought that it could be a potentially useful tool that could make a difficult part of our jobs a little easier,” FEC chairwoman Robin Garrell said.

Professors who choose to use Turnitin.com have the option of individually submitting student work that they suspect to be plagiarized, or requiring the entire class to submit its papers to the Web site.

Through the program, student papers will be compared to Internet documents, a variety of journals and periodicals, as well as any previously submitted student work.

The site will assign each paper an “originality percentage,” which represents how original it is. If the site detects a paper has been plagiarized, the instructor can view the specific sections of the text in question.

The professor has the option of speaking with the students whose papers have low originality scores, or high amounts of similar sections. They can then send the case of possible plagiarism to the Office of the Dean of Students, as they would have in the past.

“The site will not determine whether or not the student plagiarized – that is completely up to the professor and dean,” said John Sandbrook, special assistant to the executive dean.

Dean of Students Robert Naples said he is curious as to how the increased use of Turnitin.com will affect the number of possible cases of plagiarism presented to the Office of the Dean of Students.

“If the number of cases presented to the Dean of Students office increases greatly we won’t be able to deal with them as quickly as we have before. I am curious to see what happens,” Naples said.

As a result of the FEC approving the College’s use of the site, officials had to make changes to the plagiarism and student copyright policy included on the UCLA Registrar’s Office Web site.

One of the revisions to the notice says if a student chooses to not submit their paper to the Web site when the professor requires it, the student will receive a zero on the assignment.

Some administrators believe the way to stop plagiarism before it happens is to properly teach students about citing.

Pauline Swartz, a UCLA College librarian, recently designed a tutorial site called Bruin Success, dedicated to educating students on how to properly cite and document sources, as well as the dangers of file sharing.

“We interviewed students to hear their perspectives on plagiarism, and we learned that a majority of students cheat not to get ahead – but just to stay with the pack. We wanted to design a place where students could find tips on how to de-stress, as well as proper citation rules,” Swartz said.

One section of the tutorial, titled “Avoiding Disaster” teaches students how to better manage their time and not feel like the only way to get a good grade is to cheat.

“Students really helped to shape this site – we included situations in our games that students actually go through. We also tried to make it fun so that students don’t get bored learning about these important issues,” Swartz said.

Many students are unaware of the resources available to them. The Bruin Success site is among many sites available to students.

“It’s a great thing that we have these resources. A lot of students forget how to cite sources, and it seems like they’re plagiarizing when they really aren’t. It definitely doesn’t hurt to have extra resources at our fingertips,” said Aisha Pascua, a second-year physical science student.

To visit the Bruin Success Web site, go to www.library.ucla.edu/bruinsuccess.