Heap, Nicholas; Martin, Ian and Williams, Judith
Issues of quality assurance in the management of plagiarism in blended learning environments.
In: EADTU (European Association of Distance Teaching Universities) Annual Conference 2006, 23-24 Nov 2006, Tallinn, Estonia.
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Increasing access to and availability of electronic resources presents students with a rich
library of opportunities for independent study. But students also find themselves in the
confusing territory of how they should best use these resources within their assessment
activities. Likewise, teaching institutions are faced with the problems of plagiarism and
collusion, and the challenges of educating, deterring, detecting, and dealing with breaches of
policy in a fair and consistent way across all disciplines.
This paper examines issues of quality assurance in the management of plagiarism by
discussing the following questions:
– How can effective automated plagiarism detection services be introduced and managed
across the institution?
– What teaching and assessment practices can be adopted to deter plagiarism?
– What part should collusion and plagiarism detection tools play in educating and deterring
– What are appropriate penalties for plagiarism and collusion and how can these be
applied consistently across disciplines?
Drawing together three distinct strands of research, in both distance and campus based
institutions, the authors discuss how practice and policy have evolved in recent years in an
attempt to reduce the incidence of plagiarism and collusion. The paper will illustrate this
evolution by reporting on recent developments in assessment strategy, detection tools, and
policy within two UK HE Institutions: The UK Open University and Manchester Metropolitan
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