I often tell my nieces and nephews that their generation is lucky because almost all the information that they need for school can be easily found on the Internet. They can easily search in Google or Wikipedia and with just one click of the button, all the information that they need is presented before them. But because of this easy access of all information on the Internet, Plagiarism has become one of the problems being encountered in Universities.
So how can universities encourage their students to create their own work and avoid Plagiarism:
1. I believe that the first effective method to combat plagiarism is Education. Most of the time, students plagiarize unintentionally. The school should include in their Students’ Orientation, a discussion about Plagiarism so that students will be aware of it and thus, there is a big chance that they will put the best effort to avoid committing Plagiarism.
Aside from incorporating it in the Student’s Orientation, the school can distribute leaflets and have a campaign project in the university by posting posters about Plagiarism, its bad effects and how they can avoid committing Plagiarism.
If the university has a website, they can put a special section on their website about Plagiarism where students can easily get information about it.
2. The faculty should give students enough time to do their work so the students will not cram and therefore will just opt to copy works on the Internet or to get services of companies offering thesis and essay writing.
The faculty should also schedule a periodic review of the students’ report and paper work so the faculty can check the progress of the student. This will also be a time for the faculty to discuss his observation on the style the student is using for his paper and the faculty can also give suggestions on how to improve the work and pointers on how to avoid plagiarism.
3. The faculty should also require a specific format for the paper that he is requiring his students. For example, students should use different sources for their work like book sources, journal sources, Internet, etc.
4. The school should also put an effort to discuss important principle on intellectual property right to their students so that the students will be aware too that there are some principles present that will allow them to use copyrighted materials so as not to impede the students to search for further knowledge when doing their research work.
One principle is the Principle of Fair Use. As defined in wikipedia.org,:
“Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review.
The fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”
If the students are aware of their rights, they will not be impeded to do further research for their studies, at the same time, they will be able to avoid committing Plagiarism.
5. The Principle of Creative Commons can also be introduce to the students. As defined in Wikipedia:
“Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.”
This way, the students will have information on the options that they have in conducting their research work and paper and thus, students can explore using previous and existing knowledge in doing their research work without the fear that they might commit plagiarism and copyright infringement.
6. The university should also impose a strict disciplinary measure if students have been proven to be committing Plagiarism. Disciplinary measures like suspension or giving a penalty on the grades for submitted work that has been found to be plagiarize.
7. If the university can afford it, they can also employ plagiarism detection system where they can check the students’ submitted work against an electronic database of original and copyrighted contents.
Sources:
http://www.wikipedia.org
http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss4/currentpractice/article2.htm
Ethics in Information Technology by George Reynolds
Post a Comment