FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGES

OUMH1103

LEARNING SKILLS FOR OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNERS

PLAGIARISM-WHY ADULT LEARNERS RESORT TO PLAGIARISM AND

SUGGEST LOGICAL AND PRACTICAL SOLUTIONSTO ELIMINATE THIS
PROBLEM.

Name : ROZAINI BT MOHAMAD NOR

Matric number : 80418035270001

NRIC : 680418-03-5270

Telephone number : 012 909 3792

E-mail address : lauser55@oum.edu.my,

lauser55@gmail.com.

rozai68@yahoo.com

MOHD RUZMAN B. MAT ALI

PPW Pahang
Jan 2009 Semester

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 Table of Contents
Table of Contents.........................................................................................3

Introduction..................................................................................................4

Section 1: Plagiarism: reasons and solutions...............................................6

Who’s Resort in Plagiarism...........................................................................6

Student 6

Undergraduate Student
6

Distance learner Student

6

Part-Time Student
7

Why It Happen.............................................................................................7

To get a Better grade

8

Time Management
8

Lack of litigation Knowledge

9

Even Thought University or tutors always remind the prohabit of

plagiarism, these situations will not cut out the number of plagiarism.
9

How it Happen............................................................................................. 9

Verbatim (word by word copies)

9

Cut and paste

9

Recycle Paper
9

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How to eliminate practice of Plagiarism.....................................................10

Conclusion..................................................................................................12

Section 2: Information Evaluation

13

Authority ....................................................................................................... 13
Accuracy and Reliability
14

Objectivity 15

Original Data cite in articles

17

Bar chart Using Microsoft Excel

18

Conclusion 18

Reference...................................................................................................20

PLAGIARISM
Introduction

Plagiarism derive from Latin word “Plagiarius” meaning ‘kidnapper’ or ‘abductor’.

(William,2002)In Other words plagiarism means taking and using some other
person’s thoughts, writings, inventions, literary or artistic work and present as your
own. This is a kind of vandalism or intellectual theft. Plagiarism commonly
happened seriously in academic institution where the submission of work with the
integrities take accoutered for credit.

(Carroll, 2002) said most of the academic work done by undergraduate students at
university will be based on the words, information and ideas of other writers. Then,
the original sources of contribution might consist mainly of selecting, ordering,
summarizing and interpreting what others have said. So, it is important to learn how

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to reference properly that is, how to specify clearly and precisely what your debts
are and how to acknowledge them. Then your own contribution can be clearly
identified and appreciated.

University of Lead gives a new definition as “Plagiarism is defined as presenting

someone else’s work as your own. Work means any intellectual output, and
typically includes text, data, images, sound or performance.” (MacDonald-Ross,
2005)

It is similar to Malaysian Law such as Copyright Act 1987(Act 322) to protect this
intellectual and innovation which is subsist of literary, artistic or musical work.
Copyright Act is legal aspect will controlling the plagiarism.

In this assignment I divide to three section i.e. section 1, focusing on why it happens
especially among the adult and distance learner. Then I will suggest a solutions to
avoid this happens base on Edward H. Landon statement in Educator’s Voice (2004)
the problem fall in two parts, first the problem “…why students cheat, as well as
how to handle it…”. In Section 2, I will explain on Information Evaluation Criteria
base on journal wrote by Christina C Jocoy and David diBiase “Plagiarism by Adult
Learners Online: A case study in detection and remediation”; and in Section 3, I will
present data The most reasons cited by students (with corresponding perceptions by
staff) show in article by Mike Hart and Tim Friesner in articles “ Plagiarism
and Poor Academic Practice – A Threat to the Extension of e-Learning in
Higher Education?” in form of bar chart.

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 Section 1: Plagiarism: reasons and solutions

Who’s Resort in Plagiarism

After some literature review we found out that a group of student resort in
plagiarism. There are high school student, under graduate student, a distance learner
and part time student.

Student

Newstead, Franklyn-Stokes and Armstead (1966) find out in their researched

that student with this characteristic most often to cheat in their works. They
are male students, non-mature students, students with a high expectation, and
Science students. These happen due to high degree of laziness among male
student and Science student always using the same lab test and some format
of report.

Undergraduate Student

Undergraduate student who was non-matured are commonly involved in

plagiarism. For instant in the United States, research indicates that cheating
among undergraduate students has steadily increased over the last half
century or so from around 23 per cent (Drake, (1941)), to as much as 90 per
cent (Jensen, Arnett, Feldman & Cauffman, 2002).

Distance learner Student

95% of student study via distance-learning are involving in cheating (Bull,

1999), (Kaczmarczyk, 2001) also report that a high frequency of cheating.
This thing happens because of easy access to internet sources.

Cut and paste will be a clinical process to furnish an assignment fast. NY

Times study (2003) on plagiarism involving 23 institutions within the US,
results found, 38% of the undergraduate students surveyed in the last year
had engaged in one or more instances of ''cut-and-paste'' plagiarism
involving the Internet, paraphrasing or copying anywhere from a few

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 sentences to a full paragraph from the Web without citing the source" and
that "almost half of the students said they considered such behavior trivial or
not cheating at all (Rimer, 2003).

Part-Time Student

Part Timer student also, in the rise resort in plagiarism (Jocoy, 2006),
(Whitley, 1998). Lack of time management, priority high on working and
family will make this group of student to take short path and involving in
cheating. (Gatrell, 2006) said part time student who plagiarise other works
for one or many reason such as, they don’t know the boundary of plagiarism,
cannot identify their own ideas, and behind the date line.

Why It Happen

There are many reasons why plagiarism happens. Dordoy (2002) in their research
illustrate that 59% of the student cheating to get a better grade and 54% of the
student has a bad time management and so on (refer to table 2). However we can
summarise the common reasons for cheating such as Bad Time Management,
overwhelming Assignment, and boundary of plagiarism and research just get
confused. How they do to over comes the situation and problem to make sure they
can catch up their datelines.

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 REF DESCRIPTION STUDENT STAFF
1 Wanting to get a better grade 59% 36%
2 Laziness or bad time management 54% 42%
Easy access to material via the
3 40% 35%
internet
4 Not understanding the rules 29% 40%
5 It happens unconsciously 29% 30%
Table 1 : Common Reason of Plagiarism Base on (Dordoy, 2004) case study

To get a Better grade

Every Distance learner tried of the best to get a better grade due to competitive
situation to get a scholarship, waive or reduction of fee from university or
from employer.

Time Management
Due to nature of learning dimension and current responsibility, a less priority
was set by a distance learner student. More time spend for delivering job task
and managing the family affairs.

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 Then, the times less will be use for academic purposes so to fulfill the date line
they will find out a short cut and resort in plagiarism.

Lack of litigation Knowledge

Even Thought University or tutors always remind the prohabit of plagiarism,
these situations will not cut out the number of plagiarism.

How it Happen

Verbatim (word by word copies)

Clarkeburn and Freeman, (2005) found from his case study that, 97% of
student were uncertainty about the extent to which original sources could be
used verbatim.

Cut and paste

Jocoy, (2006) in the article state that “The Center for Academic Integrity
(CAI) reports results from their survey of approximately 50,000 students at
more than 60 universities that students believe ‘cut & paste’ plagiarism using
a sentence or two (or more) from different sources on the Internet and
weaving this information together into a paper without appropriate citation –
is not a serious issue. (CAI research, 2005).”

Scanlon and Neumann, 2002) in their survey of college student attitudes

towards Internet plagiarism reveal that nearly 90 percent agree that copying
and pasting text from Internet or traditional sources without proper citation is
wrong, and 25% of them admit having used Internet sources in this manner.

Recycle Paper

While internet surfing I found out at least 6 link where student can obtain
recycle paper that can be use as Research Papers, Essays, and Book Reports.

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 There are CollegeTermPapers.com, MegaEssays.com, Cyber Essays ,
SparkNotes.com, TermPaperSites.com, and Education-Majors.com

1.1.1. paraphrasing

Clarkeburn and Freeman, 2005) reported a small increase (4%) student still
use paraphrasing without proper citation.

How to eliminate practice of Plagiarism

The overall goal of an assignment are required the student writing by their own
using reliable sources. Then the issue of plagiarism will arise. However we should
have a strategy how to avoid this situation happen.

1.1.2. Specific Instruction

Instructor, Lecturer or Tutor should give a clear instruction subsist of

specific expectations, permission to collaboration or individual tasks;
prohibit awareness, specific component and topic, and requirement for oral
presentation. Instructor also should explain the content of good writing
article and research paper.

The skills they learn in working to further the ideas and arguments of others
are a valuable part of what they will take away from their assignments.
Knowing this may help them understand the value of original work.

Soto, Anand, and McGee (2004) found that students who received no
explicit plagiarism instruction plagiarized twice from who participated
discussions of definitions of plagiarism, review of Turnitin.com plagiarism
reports, and identify instances of plagiarism in their essays.

1.1.3. Oral Presentation

Oral presentation may show at what extent, the student doing the information
trail, evaluating information and review the information. Then they will

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 caught by an uncertainty of their data, sources and un-familiarities of
reference.

1.1.4. Assessment strategy

Ryan (2001) reports an interesting case study from Birmingham University

in which students were encouraged to research their essays in their own
study time but to actually write them under supervised conditions (which had
the bonus of cutting down on the marking load!).

This point is also reinforced in the suggestions provided by Moon (1999).

Another useful strategy may be to ask students to append photocopies to
their completed work of some of their strategically most useful sources,
including articles read ‘in the original’.

1.1.5. Writing academic skills

Method of writing for the purpose academic articles, or research paper

should be constantly taught and reinforced. For example OUM stress on
using APA format for citation and references.( ). Then, student
should acquire this technic of citation and then they should be able to use
that time to times. These methods will help them to acknowledge the
sources they were refer to.

Referring to handbook by Carroll contains tutorial material which can be

used to indicate to students the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable
practice (Carroll, 2002).

What is important to note here is that purely negative messages on the dire
consequences of failure to observe academic conventions may well be
abortive. Rather, students (and particularly those whose skills are poorly
developed for whatever reason) will need some practice to learn the relevant
skills. Core modules may well be filled with a discipline or theme-based

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 content so a coordinated strategy within a department may be necessary to
ensure that academic conventions are not only taught but are also reinforced
at key points

1.1.6. Encourage Student to make Statement

Instructor should encourage student to make their own statement base on

understanding of the subject. From the reading and review of the sources
should make them able to make a conclusion.

American researchers have published data which indicates that cheating at

institutions with honour codes is significantly less than at institutions without
(McCabe and Trevino, 2002).

Conclusion

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 Section 2: Information Evaluation

Authority this report are to review an electrical article wrote by Christina Jocoy and
David DiBiase “Plagiarism by Adult Learners Online: A case study in detection and
remediation” base on information evaluation criteria. This article was publishing in
The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 7, No 1
(2006), ISSN: 1492-3831 for the first time and downloaded to website at:

http://www.aeteluq.org/node/138,

http://www.e-abclearning.com/content/view/47/72/,
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/242/466.

I will choose 3 out of 5 criteria information evaluation for this discussion. The
Criteria are as below:

Authority

Jocoy was an Assistant Professor at California State University; she obtained with
PhD in Geography from Pennsylvania State University. Before that she was an
instructor at Department of Distance Education, Pennsylvania State University.

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 This article was written while she was in Penn State University with her colleague
David DiBiase. This article was referred with many researcher and writer in this
topic. She wrote a numbers of articles writing in geographic. She was awarded
Distinction on undergraduate thesis, May 1993 granted PTA scholarship,
Williamsville Central School District, 1989.

David DiBiase earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Cartography at

the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was lecturer in cartography in the College
of Earth and Mineral Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. He was a
pioneer of e-education at College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in GIS (Global
Information Systems).

He was a co-writer with Jocoy for this article. Distinguish writing in e-education and
Cartography. He was awarded high achievement in cartography and distance learner
such as Educator of the Year Award, 2005, University Consortium for Geographic
Information Science and Bill Murphy Barrier Buster Award, 2004, American
Distance Education Consortium, for publications generated as part a Penn State
World Campus faculty workload research initiative.

Both of them are active academic writer especially in cartography and distance
learner since they were at Pennsylvania State University.

Accuracy and Reliability

(Zaiton Osman (et al), 2008) also highlight that an accuracy and reliability none
compromised and every fact must be verified. In this case, this article rooms with
information’s such as data, statistic and review of literature. There is a case-study to
elaborate their fact.

This article was published in The International Review of Research in Open and
Distance Learning, Vol 7, No 1 (2006), and I was checked this issue via link :
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/23

Some Peer review by other journalist can examine at website such as at

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/rt/metadata/242/0

This article was written accurately base on statistic and research they had done.
Number of review of literature was made to support the argument.

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Objectivity

Objectivity means presenting information base on fact and no allowance for bias in
politic, religious, gender, race, personal philosophy or age. (Zaiton (et al), 2008). In
this contact of this assignment, these writers achieve his objective to show that
plagiarism can be detected. This case study shown that, more evidence of plagiarism
detected using computer software.

1.2. Conclusion

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16
 2. Section 3 : The most reasons cited by Student

Original Data cite in articles

REF DESCRIPTION STUDENT STAFF

1 Wanting to get a better grade 59% 36%

2 Laziness or bad time management 54% 42%

Easy access to material via the

3 40% 35%
internet

4 Not understanding the rules 29% 40%

5 It happens unconsciously 29% 30%

Table 1 : Common Reason of Plagiarism Base on (Dordoy, 2004) case study

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Bar chart Using Microsoft Excel

Conclusion

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19
Reference

1. Maureen M. Dawson and Joyce A. Overfield (2006), Plagiarism: Do Students Know

What It Is, Manchester Metropolitan University, Oxford Road, Manchester M1
5GD, UK

2. Carroll, J.(2002), A Handbook for Deterring Plagiarism in Higher Education, 2002,

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development, Oxford.

3. MacDonald-Ross, G., 2005. Plagiarism in Philosophy: Prevention Better than Cure.

HEA Subject Centre Philosophy and Religious Studies.

4. Harris, R. (2002), ‘Anti-Plagiarism Strategy for Research papers’ [online] Virtual

Salt, 12 March, 2001.

5. Dordoy, A. (2002), ‘Cheating and Plagiarism: Staff and Student Perceptions at

Northumbria’, Northumbria Conference.

6. Heberling, M. (2002). Maintaining academic integrity in on-line education. Online

Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 5(2). [Online] Available at:
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring51/heberling51.html

7. Kaczmarczyk, L. (2001). Accreditation and student assessment in distance

education: Why we all need to pay attention. Proc. 6th Conf. on Innovation and
Technology in Computer Science Education, Canterbury, UK, 113-116.

8. Bull, J. (1999). Computer-assisted assessment: impact on higher education

institutions. Educational Technology and Society, 2(3), 123-126

9. JISC (2002), Electronic plagiarism detection, Bristol: JISC

10. Caroline Gatrell(2006), Managing Part-time Study: A Guide for Undergraduates

and Postgraduates, McGraw-Hill International,

11. LAWS OF MALAYSIA ACT 332 COPYRIGHT ACT 1987 [REPRINT - 2001]
Incorporating latest amendment - Act A1139/2002

12. Jeremy B. Williams, 2002, THE PLAGIARISM PROBLEM: ARE

STUDENTSENTIRELY TO BLAME?, Brisbane Graduate School of Business,
Queensland University of Technology, AUSTRALIA

13. Christine L. Jocoy and David DiBiase. 2006. Plagiarism by adult learners online: A
case study in detection and remediation. International Review of Research in Open

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 and Distance Learning. 7(1): 1-15. Accessible from
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl

14. www.csulb.edu/~cjocoy/CV_9_19_08.pdf

15. Henriikka Clarkeburn and Mark Freeman,(2005), To plagiarise or not to plagiarise:

an online approach to improving and motivating honest academic writing, ,
University of Sydney

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