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university on plagiarism to our students. In addition to this, the UWI’s plagiarism policy is
posted on our various myelearning course shells. While these are important and possibly
effective efforts towards helping students avoid plagiarism, the problem with these two
efforts is that there is no guarantee that students would become appraised of maintaining
academic integrity in their university lives. I say this because, the library session is done as
part of the orientation to our new students on a Friday afternoon, the second day of
orientation, and usually, most students do not attend. Additionally, students often do not
read the plagiarism policy posted online unless they have been charged with academic
misconduct.
As Bill Taylor, I feel that integrity is “… an essential part of any true educational experience”
that would prepare one for their role professionally. The spirit of valuing ‘own work’ and
acknowledging the work of others are great virtues to practice in a learning environment.
It stands to reason that if one lacks integrity in their preparation to become a professional
then he/she would most likely lack integrity in their professional lives and dealings.
Integrity is a “character that we need to nurture” (Taylor, n.d., p. 1) for functioning in every
area of our lives. And because I prepare future and practicing school leaders, I am even
more passionate about integrity and what we call in the educational leadership literature
(e.g. Brown & Trevino, 2006; Patton, 2008) ‘ethical and moral leadership’. School leaders
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their interactions with school members and their protection of students. Therefore, I take
I may not take the approach that Bill Taylor took in writing a letter to students at the start
sufficient for adherence and promotion by all staff rather than divergence by staff that may
cause confusion to students. Additionally, while there are very sound principles and
operating standards with the letter, it still leaves students in the dark concerning writing
and producing work and research output that eschews plagiarism. Students need to be
deliberately directed to the forms of plagiarism and academic misconduct as well as the
levels of misconduct. They need to also be made aware of the ways in which to avoid
plagiarism and, should they be tempted not to adhere, that there exists very sophisticated
plagiarism detection software (e.g. Turnitin) and more accessible strategies, such as typing
Many times students are not aware that they may have produced a piece of work that point
to plagiarism. With adequate knowledge, many can be encouraged to hold to the highest
standards with respect to academic conduct and integrity. Apart from posting the
university’s policy on my myelearing course shells, I have in times past arranged for our
teaching sessions so that students can benefit. When the need arises, I also sit with
students and point out the incidences of poor crediting or copying of another’s work within
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Rinnelle Lee-Piggott CUTL 5106
their own work. I show them how I detected it, either with or without the use of Turnitin,
which is subscribed to by UWI. I show them how to accurately credit their sources of
information, pictures, etc. and I set an example to follow within my own work, be it
Now, such occurrences at the School of Education are irregular. This is because the nature
of our assessments are generally authentic, which require for instance context-specific
work, student creations or practicums. In this way and according to Harris (2001, cited in
References
Brown, M. E. & Trevino, L. K. (2006). Ethical leadership: A review and future directions. The
Patton, M. C. (2008). Principles for Principals: Using the Realms of Meaning to Practice
Talab, R. (2004). Copyright and You, A student online plagiarism guide: Detection and
http://www.oakton.edu/user/4/pboisver/NewFaculty/LetterTaylor.htm