Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students

Abstract

Helping students to engage in sessions focussing on plagiarism and therefore learn about the concept can be challenging. The advent of new technologies used in educational contexts may help in facilitating such engagement. This study details a small project which sought to use three technologies in an attempt to help students learn about plagiarism and to gain insights into student understandings of plagiarism. The technologies used were a student response system, a social network and online quizzes delivered via a virtual learning environment. The project outcomes suggest that students arrive at university with a variety of understandings of plagiarism and that the success of the technologies used in plagiarism education largely depends on how the activities are integrated in the curriculum.

Full text

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
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Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
By Christopher Ireland and Gillian Byrne
The Business School, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, HD1
3NN, UK
c.j.ireland@hud.ac.uk & g.byrne@hud.ac.uk
Biography of authors
Gill Byrne and Chris Ireland are members of the Learning Development Group in the
Business School at the University of Huddersfield where they provide a focus for
teaching and learning research and innovation across the School as well as
supporting students and staff directly in teaching and learning.
This version of the paper was published in 2015. A previous version was published
in 2011.

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
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Abstract
Helping students to engage in sessions focussing on plagiarism and
therefore learn about the concept can be challenging. The advent of new
technologies used in educational contexts may help in facilitating such
engagement. This study details a small project which sought to use three
technologies in an attempt to help students learn about plagiarism and to
gain insights into student understandings of plagiarism. The technologies
used were a student response system, a social network and online quizzes
delivered via a virtual learning environment. The project outcomes suggest
that students arrive at university with a variety of understandings of
plagiarism and that the success of the technologies used in plagiarism
education largely depends on how the activities are integrated in the
curriculum.
Introduction
Universities claim to take plagiarism seriously; a claim supported by how difficult it is
to find a university that does not have a definition of plagiarism in its student
handbooks. Such handbooks will also contain strong warnings as to the
consequences of committing plagiarism and the procedures followed when an
accusation of plagiarism takes place. It therefore seems somewhat surprising that
these institutions do not always ensure that similarly robust procedures are followed
when helping students understand how to avoid plagiarism. This concern has been
raised by Macdonald and Carroll (2006, 233) who point out that institutional
responses to plagiarism have mainly been ‘through detection and punishment’. They
propose a holistic approach to tackling plagiarism and stress the importance of
learning as part of this approach, placing emphasis on formative assessment.
However, as with most learning it is unlikely to be an exact science; what is taught
does not equal what is learned. This is compounded by the fact that students
studying at HE institutions are likely to have a range of understandings of plagiarism
(Carroll, 2008) acquired from prior experiences with the likelihood that many
students will have their previously acceptable writing practices deemed unacceptable
(Sinclair 2006) and punishable (Ryan and Hellmundt 2003). This range of student
understandings results in a variety of student needs and inevitably, therefore,
demands a differentiated approach to teaching and learning; one that incorporates
multiple representations of and opportunities to access the required knowledge.
Therefore, as well as a general holistic approach to addressing the issues of
plagiarism, a holistic approach at the level of learning seems appropriate. This paper
discusses an attempt to develop a holistic approach within the context of learning
about plagiarism which aims to help students gain an understanding of plagiarism
using technology. 'Using technology to prevent plagiarism: skilling the students' was
a small scale project in the Business School at the University of Huddersfield, which
used various technologies in an attempt to engage students in the topic of
plagiarism. The paper will in turn, provide a discussion underpinning the use of each
technology and then report on the evidence of its use in the project. The

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
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technologies included the use of a student response system (SRS) used in lecture
theatres, social networking and quizzes provided via a Virtual Learning Environment
(VLE).
Literature Review
Background literature relating to each of the three technologies used during the
project is now discussed.
Student Response Systems
The lecture is generally seen in terms of a lecturer providing ‘a monologue to a large
group of students’. (Bach et al., 2007: 124). While lectures continue to be popular,
their efficiency as a tool for learning has long been questioned (Bach et al., 2007:
124) with a number of disadvantages being identified. Ioannou and Artino Jr (2008:
3) report on the difficulties the mass lecture can cause with a ‘lack of classroom
interactivity and inadequate opportunities for feedback’ while Phillips (2005) points to
a lack of engagement and the use of lectures as a means of transmitting information
to ‘passive recipients of knowledge’. Despite recognition of the limitations associated
with large classes, class sizes at universities are rising and those participating have
increasingly varied learning needs (Alberts et al., 2007).
As a response to the pedagogic disadvantages of traditional large lectures one
solution which has been adopted by a number of institutions is the SRS. This form of
technology employs ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ style voting pads allowing
students to respond en mass to questions posed by the lecturer. In large lectures
requiring student to respond to questions, Elliott (2005) explains that students may
be reluctant to participate for a number of reasons. Firstly, social loafing can occur
when students feel that others will take on the responsibility of responding to
questions or that they can follow the crowd and respond along with the majority of
the group. A further reason mentioned by Elliott (2005) for student reluctance to
participate in lectures is free-riding which occurs when students resist participation,
safe in the knowledge that others will provide the relevant answers. Elliott (2005)
mentions two fear related causes for reluctance to participate in lectures; evaluation
apprehension occurs when participants worry about the reaction their answers will
have from others present and social anxiety relates to the fear of speaking in public.
All of these reasons for student reluctance to participate in large lectures could apply
to any subject. Therefore a topic as problematic as plagiarism is likely to cause
students to be even more reluctant to participate.
The use of a SRS can help to overcome some of the problems with student
participation in large groups. Students cannot follow the responses of others or have
their responses revealed to others since voting is anonymous, meaning the shy or
insecure are encouraged to respond (Ewing 2006). Furthermore, while participants
may choose to answer randomly, they can be encouraged to respond knowing that
the lecturer may wait until all have responded before revealing any answers. Further
advantages of SRSs in lectures are that they increase the level of enjoyment
(Beekes 2006; Ewing 2006; Ioannou and Artino Jr 2008) and engagement (Nicol and
Boyle 2003; Beekes 2006) and facilitate the rapid exchange of information (Ewing

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
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2006) with Nicol and Boyle (2003) and Ioannou and Artino Jr (2008) highlighting the
advantages of the speed with which feedback can be provided on student
responses. Nicol and Boyle (2003) also mention that a further benefit to the lecturer
is that a record of concepts that regularly cause difficulty can be created.
While there are clear advantages attached to the use of SRSs in large lectures,
Kenwright (2009) warns of time constraints related to learning to use the system,
planning and designing sessions for the use of a SRS and in setting up the system
for use in the lecture.
In the context of using SRS technology to help students learn about plagiarism,
Bombaro (2007) has reported on its use with new students. She found that the way
in which academic honesty was being addressed with first year students was
inconsistent and that her institution’s administration sought to provide ‘clear and
consistent information about academic expectations and standards’ (Bombaro 2007,
298). As a result she designed a session in which students responded via a SRS to
questions and scenarios about plagiarism. She reports that based on the responses
in the sessions the students seemed ‘better informed about academic honesty’
(Bombaro 2007, 308).
Web 2.0 – social networking
When Tim Berners-Lee conceived the Internet he imagined a creative space to
which users would actively contribute (Tim Berners-Lee 1999). In its early
incarnation it was this sort of space, though this was followed by a period when we
looked to the Internet as a source of information only. With the advent of web 2.0
technologies that support collaboration, user-generated content and communication,
we are now in an era when its use is essentially and determinedly social.
Facebook and MySpace are popular examples of a trend in sharing, creating and
writing online. Young people particularly, but not exclusively, are engaging with this
technology and making the generation of content a normal and daily aspect of their
lives on line. It is this ease and willingness to participate and essentially to write that
holds potential value to those in education. If students are creating communities of
practice online in their social lives by using these technologies for entertainment and,
informally, to discuss their education (JISC 2008) can we as educators harness that
energy to facilitate communities for learning?
‘Social networking sites not only attract people but also hold their attention,
impel them to contribute, and bring them back time and again – all desirable
qualities for educational materials’ (New Media Consortium 2007, 12).
JISC (2008) suggests that students are making the move from social use to
educational use, albeit in an informal way, with students reporting that they use this
technology to talk to peers about their work and, further to this, acknowledging that
they see the potential for social networks to enhance their learning. New Media
Consortium (2007) predicted that education would be exploring ways in which such
technology can be utilized to benefit learners. Despite these assertions more

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
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progress is necessary with only 25% of students reporting that they felt that their
tutors were encouraging them to use social software in their learning (JISC 2008)
and little pedagogical research available (Anderson 2007).
The advantages of this technology for education extend beyond their popularity
amongst young people. They are for the most part free (for those with access to the
Internet) and easy to use. They provide a quick and simple way by which to publish
multi-media, allowing learners to communicate, share, collaborate and compare,
giving ‘students a valuable perspective on their own abilities and inspire them to try
new ideas or technologies’ (New Media Consortium 2007, 9-10). For education the
challenge is to move students from social activity to social learning activity while
maintaining sound pedagogical rigour.
Benefits of learning communities: learning through sharing and discussion
The social aspects of Web 2.0 technologies lend themselves to a constructivist
pedagogical approach as they facilitate interaction, sharing, collaboration and ‘foster
a sense of community’ (Boulos and Wheeler 2007, 3). A sense of belonging is
important for learners as it can engender a shared community of practice.
Face to face teaching allows this sense of community and the opportunities for
collaboration and active learning to be built into the curriculum. However, it could be
argued that there are circumstances where all students, even those who are full-time
campus–based, can experience isolation (Boulos and Wheeler 2007). Where this is
the case the opportunity to become a part of a learning community, be that an online
one, can have motivational benefits for learners (Boulos and Wheeler 2007; Zhoa
and Kuh 2004).
In 2006 the University of Brighton launched its social network, Elgg. This whole
institution facility with 36,000 users is described by the university as being
‘particularly helpful at fostering a sense of community across the split campus’
(Franklin and Harmelen 2007, 11). The system is used both informally by students
and staff to make connections, share learning and research and formally within
teaching to deliver courses in much the same way as a VLE. The advantages of the
Elgg in this respect are seen as being the greater interactivity it allows as materials
can be shared in multiple formats and from other platforms. Other benefits reported
are the support to students that the system facilitates, where students sharing issues
relating to de-motivation have been addressed by fellow students or student services
(Franklin and Harmelen 2007).
Bradford University’s social network is part of a larger resource that aims to support
the student in the transition from school/college to university. The social network is
powered by an open source tool Ning and allows students to make contact with each
other prior to enrolment. ‘The most important feature of the site is the ability for
students to meet other students at the University in a safe environment where, unlike
other social networks such as Facebook, everyone is part of the same community’
(Currant and Keenan 2009). Indeed feedback from students seems to support this
view with students citing the opportunity to ―meet‖, albeit virtually, prior to
enrolment and the subsequent recognition of and by others at enrolment as
significantly reducing anxiety (Currant and Keenan 2009). N
N

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Virtual Learning Environments
Virtual learning environments are often advocated as ideal experiential learning
spaces as they allow students to learn collaboratively and develop ‘interpersonal and
communication skills, social learning skills, self and group evaluation skills, reflection
skills, and self-directed learning skills’ (Dabbagh 2007, 222). As environments that
can be accessed independently they also allow students to manage their own
learning through decisions about pace, time and task order. Further to this, the quiz
tools within VLEs can be an effective way to provide instantaneous feedback
enabling students to develop skills, knowledge and awareness. As Chirwa (2008)
states, ‘automated assessment is one of the main benefits provided by utilising
VLEs, and has made them appealing to many educators’. Their popularity would
seem to extend to the student body also, giving support to their value in terms of
their ability to provide immediate feedback (Peat and Franklin 2002).
Despite these apparent benefits research suggests that students may not utilise
VLEs effectively for a number of reasons: time management may be an issue in an
environment that demands high levels of self-directed learning (Hiltz, 1997); students
often print materials rather than taking advantage of the interactivity facilitated by the
computer (Crook, 1997; Ward and Newlands, 1998). Full advantage of the benefits
afforded by VLEs only appears to be made by students where their use is explicitly
scaffolded (Beasley and Smyth 2004). It would seem therefore that the design of
VLE courses must account for student motivation and different learning needs and
strategies.
Method
The Academic Skills Team in the Business School at the University of Huddersfield
had, for a number of years, delivered sessions on referencing and avoiding
plagiarism. These sessions were invariably delivered in workshop settings either as
stand-alone drop-ins or as guest lecture slots on the students’ timetables. They
included participant questioning, small group discussion and feedback. The classes
were generally well received but participation and engagement were often poor. It
seemed that the types of phenomena reported in the literature which cause 'bolt-on'
study skills classes to have poor attendance (Wingate 2006) and which prevent high
participation in mass lectures may have been present.
In order to address this issue of low participation a more individualised approach was
sought that utilized technology to enable differentiated learning which addressed the
needs of a varied cohort. The project aims, therefore, were to assess the students’
understanding of referencing and plagiarism and to develop a range of teaching and
learning materials to address the learning needs identified. The following objectives
were derived:
• To implement interactive teaching and learning sessions using voting pads to
address the needs of students in terms of referencing skills acquisition.
• To conduct a formative assessment of the students’ referencing skills during
sessions utilising voting pads.
• To implement a blackboard course that includes multi-media learning

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
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• objects and formative assessment tools that address the individual
referencing skills needs of the students.
• To facilitate a student-led learning community focussed on the issue of
referencing and plagiarism.
• To record and assess students’ understanding and perceptions of referencing
and plagiarism using social network profile questions.
The technologies to be used were SRS (Quizdom), VLE (Blackboard) and Social
networking (Ning). The SRS was introduced by adapting a lecture on plagiarism so
that the students were able to respond to questions using the SRS, whereas
previously the groups had been asked to respond by raising hands. It was hoped
that the use of the SRS would overcome some of the obstacles to student
participation mentioned above. This session was delivered to students at all levels
across the school throughout the first term, however, for the purposes of this paper
only data gathered from first year cohorts is used. A Blackboard course, entitled
Academic Matters, was created which included links to supporting material as well
as two interactive quizzes that were designed to generate instant feedback. A social
network also entitled, Academic Matters, the sole focus of which was plagiarism and
referencing was created using what was then a free on-line tool, Ning
(www.ning.com). The site aimed to provide a student-centred and owned space
where learners could share understandings, attitudes and experiences of plagiarism.
It was initially populated with messages from the Learning Development Group tutors
along with their photos. Videos and links to newspaper articles reporting incidences
of plagiarism both in popular culture and business were also added along with
questions to stimulate discussion. It was hoped in doing this students would begin to
appreciate that plagiarism is an issue that has real world relevance outside of
academia.
In the approach suggested by the project a variety of ways of helping the students
learn about plagiarism by exploiting communication technology were adopted. While
established approaches were not dismissed, given a growing and more
heterogeneous student population, which would be likely to display a variety of
learning styles, then a range of opportunities were devised for the students to
engage with the topic and to develop their understanding.
Pilot study
It was decided to focus on first year courses in order to work with as many students
as possible who had no previous experience of plagiarism at university. The main
collaborating group embedded the SRS lecture and VLE quizzes in a core module as
part of a wider approach to helping students learn about plagiarism initiated from the
start of term. The module began with the students submitting an essay on which they
received formative feedback. For many of the students this meant that they were told
that their writing might be considered to be plagiarism and that they would need to
ensure that their writing was acceptable. Therefore when the students in this group
attended the SRS lecture on plagiarism, they already had some recent experience of
the topic. Following this lecture the students completed the two quizzes available via
the VLE; the plagiarism quiz during the days that followed the lecture and the

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referencing quiz during the following week. These quizzes were the then followed by
submission of a further short piece of writing of which one aim was to assess if there
was any continuing evidence of students producing unacceptable writing.
This meant that both approaches could be piloted before being made available
across the school in early November. The Ning social network had previously been
used in other contexts and therefore this was offered across the School in early
November without piloting.
Pilot study results and student evaluations
Following the pilot study with the first year group in 2008/09, quantitative data was
collected in the form of a student evaluation questionnaire. This gave the students
the opportunity to identify which of six aspects of the approach to plagiarism taken at
the start of the course they felt added most and which least to their understanding of
plagiarism. The interactive lecture and VLE quizzes were listed chronologically as
the third, fourth and fifth elements in the list. This list is shown in Table 1 along with
the student responses.
Table 1. Which activity added most/least to your understanding of plagiarism?
The responses indicated in Table 1 show that the Plagiarism Quiz carried out on the
VLE seems to have made the greatest positive difference with 32 students
identifying it as contributing the most to their understanding of plagiarism and just six
students identifying it as having contributed the least. The second most useful
activity indicated by the responses was the 'Interactive Lecture' which preceded
the Plagiarism Quiz while the activity following the Plagiarism Quiz, the Referencing
Quiz, also conducted via the VLE was the third most popular. This activity had a
small negative difference with 12 students rating as least useful as opposed to 10
rating it as the most useful. It may be the case that by the time the Referencing Quiz
was made available a large number of students already felt confident about their
understanding of plagiarism and some might have been responding to the lower
emphasis placed on plagiarism in this activity.

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
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The questionnaire also asked the students about their prior awareness and
understanding of plagiarism. When asked about prior knowledge of plagiarism of 81
responses 64 claimed awareness of plagiarism before arriving at university.
However, informal investigation of these understandings in terms of what they were
and how they were acquired varied greatly, supporting the view held by Carroll
(2008) that students have a range of understandings of plagiarism. Of the 64
students who responded that they were aware of plagiarism prior to starting
university all except for five said that their understanding had changed.
Roll Out
Following the initial pilot study in October 2008 the SRS lecture and VLE
course were rolled out across the school. Students at all levels and across all
courses experienced the SRS lecture, however, as previously stated this paper will
focus on data gathered from first year undergraduate cohorts only. The VLE module
was given prominence in students’ blackboard course lists by appearing
separately. The social network was embedded into the VLE module and invitation
emails were sent out to all students (approximately 4300) across the school. The
students were asked to answer profile questions on signing up and these were
designed to gauge their understanding and perceptions of referencing and
plagiarism.
Profile questions
The profiles questions were as follows:
What aspect of your studies at university are you enjoying the most?
What aspects of your studies at university do you like the least?
Have you had any lectures or tutorials on the topic of plagiarism?
Had you heard of referencing before coming to university?
Rate how confident you are at referencing correctly (1=not at all confident,
2=slightly confident, 3=quite confident, 4=totally confident, 0=What's
referencing?)
Do you think that plagiarism is common or rare?
Do you think the university rules on plagiarism are fair?
Initially the site was private with students only able to join via the invitation email.
This was seen as the safest option as only those invited to the network could see its
content allowing privacy in a password protected environment. However, take up
was limited with around 80 students enrolling. The decision was taken to make the
site public in a bid to make it more accessible as it was recognised that the invitation
by email only mechanism could constitute a barrier to participation (Currant 2009).
Where a network is private and students are invited by email all they receive is a

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
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message containing a link, following this link takes them to a sign up form with no
opportunity to view the site before committing to joining. Making the network public
allows students to visit the site, but not contribute to it, and therefore make some
evaluation of what they are signing up for prior to enrolment.
In response to research that suggests that student participation in online discussion
forums is usually low unless there is explicit encouragement (Tolmie and Boyle
2000; Salmon 2002 in Beasley and Smyth 2004) a student cheerleader was
employed to manage the site and stimulate discussion.
Findings and analysis
Using the Student Response System to engage the students in the topic of
Plagiarism
The SRS lecture took the students through a series of scenarios which required
them to vote on whether they felt the scenario constituted a case of plagiarism or
not, taking a similar approach to that adopted by Bombaro (2007). At the beginning
and end of the sessions the students were presented with two statements: ‘I have
never plagiarised’ and ‘I have plagiarised’ and asked to select the statement which
was true for them.
The 109 first year students, who took part in the lecture following the roll out, had
received no formal input on plagiarism previously at the university. A summary of the
responses to the statements at the start and end of the lecture, shown in Table 2,
suggests that the session had an impact on the understanding of plagiarism of many
in the group. Out of the 109 students responding, 43 (39.4%) selected the statement
‘I have plagiarised’ at the beginning of the session, rising to 71 (65.1%) by the end.
This suggests that the scenarios and questions used during the session had an
impact on the understanding that the students had of plagiarism. No similar shift had
been expressed by the students who had completed the same session during the
pilot study, however, they had already received considerable input on the topic. The
usefulness of the session was supported by comments made by many of the
students. For example one student stated, ‘The quiz that we had during the lecture
was really effective as we were given feedback straightaway and an explanation of
why this was [plagiarism]’. Another student emphasised the usefulness of being able
to see different examples of plagiarism.
Table 2. Self-admission of plagiarism at start and end of session by first year
students receiving first plagiarism session

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Using a social network (Ning) to engage the students in the topic of plagiarism
By the end of the first year there were ninety-three members of the Academic
Matters social network. There had been some use of the discussion forum and one
member had added a video. The use of this resource is still limited and is yet to
reach a critical mass. Figure 1 shows the number of visits to the social network over
the academic year. There are surges of use at the points where the social network
was first introduced via an emailed invitation to the students and where the student
ambassador was first employed.
Figure 1. Google Analytics report showing Academic Matters usage academic
year 2008/09
Note: data collected and output generated using Google Analytics
The Ning was used to promote student to student discussion of the issue of
plagiarism and included profile questions on sign up. These questions aimed to
gauge student understanding of and attitudes to plagiarism (see Table 3).
Table 3. Results of Ning profile questions (total 65 respondents)

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
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Table 3 shows that there were a total of sixty-five responses to the profile questions.
Of those sixty-five, fifteen said that they had not heard of plagiarism before coming to
university. Forty-three said that they felt that plagiarism was common at university.
Fourteen said they felt that plagiarism was rare, with six being undecided in this
regard. Forty-six students said that they felt the university plagiarism rules were fair,
six said they felt they were unfair and twelve decline to say either way.
Student comments suggest that although they felt that plagiarism was common they
thought that more often than not this was due to lack of understanding and skills
rather than determined intention:
‘I think it is common, but a lot of the time it is because people don’t really know
how to reference properly.’
‘Common – although much of it is unintended and not malicious.’
Similarly the following student comments in relation to whether the university's
plagiarism rules are fair or unfair, seem to suggest that plagiarism is often
unintentional and that there is a, perhaps, a gap in relation to knowledge and skills in
this area:
‘IF YOU HAVE BEEN EDUCATED ENOUGH ABOUT IT FIRST.’
Further, to this that the gap is perhaps not being adequately addressed:
‘No. They don’t recognise the responsibilities of all parties to actively seek and
offer support.’
Another comment seems to suggest that the rules stifle collaborative working:
‘No, because it prevents team work and communicating’.
Finally, this comment exemplifies those students who regard the plagiarism rules as
fair and feel able to operate effectively within them:
‘It is fair coz student have to give their own views [rather] than copying.’
Using the VLE to engage the students in the topic of plagiarism
Following roll out across the school the VLE course was accessed a total of 2334
times between 1 October 2008 and 13 May 2009. The quizzes both focussed on
referencing and plagiarism. The first quiz was entitled ‘The Referencing Competency
Quiz’ and was accessed by 196 students, with 64 completing the whole quiz. The
other quiz, entitled ‘The Plagiarism Quiz’, was accessed by 46 students and was
completed by 13.
As mentioned earlier the VLE quizzes, particularly the ‘Plagiarism Quiz’ scored
highly in evaluations during the pilot study as having has an impact on developing
students’ understanding of plagiarism. The following student comment illustrates this
positive reaction:
‘Throughout my college years I had never done any kind of referencing so I was

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
13
unsure of how to reference even though majority of help on referencing was
provided … I was unable to grasp the concept of Harvard referencing until I did
the online test on referencing and plagiarism. I found the concept of multiple
choice on plagiarism highly effective for me …’.
Discussion
This project attempted to incorporate a number of learning technologies into an
approach aimed at helping students entering university learn about plagiarism. The
three examples chosen were those that required the greatest investment of time
from the tutors in terms of designing and developing the materials.
The sessions involving the SRS seemed to impact greatly on those who had had no
tuition on plagiarism at university prior to the session. However, it proved generally
popular with students who were taking the session as part of the pilot study.
Despite these advantages the time factors mentioned by Kenwright (2009) were
relevant. The development of the sessions required considerable time investment
and first involved two hours of training for each tutor before it was possible to think
about designing the actual session. Another consideration is the time needed to first
distribute and then collect the voting pads at the end of the session. An hour can
therefore prove to be a rush and 90 minutes is a more comfortable time allowing for
more detailed feedback and group discussion. Despite these considerations the
advantages of engaging the students enabling them to discuss and think about the
topic as well as the immediacy of the feedback outweigh the drawbacks.
The general curiosity about the Blackboard course seems to be high with 2334 visits
and 242 students accessing the quizzes. The quizzes score well in student
evaluations and therefore seem to have had a positive impact on developing skills
and understanding. The creation of the quizzes was time intensive initially but once
done can be rolled over to subsequent academic years with perhaps only minor
adjustments. It would appear that where the use of the blackboard courses is
integrated into the curriculum and supported by tutor endorsement the initial curiosity
about the course is much more likely to be converted into a commitment to complete
the quizzes.
It is difficult to estimate the benefits for the students who visited the course without
fully accessing the quizzes. They may have been satisfied by the links to other
materials available and therefore have left without investigating further. Those who
accessed the quizzes but did not complete them similarly could have done so
because they felt they had gained what they needed or may have been
disinterested. Investigating the perceptions of these students would prove interesting
and could help to develop the blackboard course further.
Student take up of the social network was limited. Ninty-three students became
members; however, despite the use of a student ambassador activity remained low.
There are several reasons why this might be the case. Firstly, the roll out of the
network did not take place until November, which was fairly late in the year. Students
may already have established friendships and so did not feel the need to

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
14
communicate via an online mechanism. The students may not have felt that the
issue of plagiarism was relevant to them at that time. An advertising campaign was
not used to promote the network instead the invitation email was relied upon to
generate participation. Perhaps also, student reluctance to engage is located in a
resistance to using a technology that they see as being purely social in an
educational context (Tinker, Byrne and Cattermole 2010).
The social network profile questions and the SRS data give us a valuable insight into
students’ perceptions of plagiarism. Although 66.15% of respondents to the social
network profile questions felt that plagiarism was common, students’ comments
seem to suggest that this was a result of lack of awareness rather than malicious
intent.
This would seem to concur with the results from the SRS questions. Here the
significant shift from a belief that they had never plagiarised, to a realisation that they
had in cohorts for whom the session represented their first taught session on the
subject, perhaps shows a lack of awareness of the concept.
Further informal investigation into students’ perceptions of what they understood
about plagiarism also revealed a variety of understandings and practices, sometimes
learned in prior educational experiences. This would point to a need to not only
educate students about how to reference but why we reference and the role that
secondary sources play in the production of an academic argument.
Plans for further development
Following, initial evaluations of the project plans for the future include a more
systematic advertising the social network and VLE during induction and around the
campus on plasma screens and in student newsletters. It is also planned to work
with tutors to encourage them to promote the network to their students. However, it
is recognised that in order to accurately assess the network's value to students
feedback needs to be gathered, however problems arise here in that it is often just
as valuable to know why students do not use a resource as why they do and there
are obvious difficulties in gathering such data.
Beasley and Smyth (2004) argue that multi-media learning objects are more effective
where they can more closely replicate the real world and so future plans for the
improvement of the VLE quizzes include using Microsoft's Captivate to enhance
interaction and visual representation of the intended learning scenario.
Use of the SRS will be continued across the school in the How to Reference Session
delivered to students via workshops and guest lecture slots. Additionally, their
potential benefits will also be promoted to tutors during staff development sessions
delivered as part of the Business School Teaching and Learning Seminar series.
Conclusion and recommendations
It would appear that students come to higher education with a range of
understandings of what constitutes plagiarism and why we reference some of which

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
15
stand at variance to the understandings and expectations of the academic
community. Informal evidence would also seem to suggest that students also employ
a variety of methods in the production of essays, some of them validated by previous
successful educational experience, which result in plagiarism. It would seem that as
educationalists plagiarism education is not just a matter of what students need to
learn but what they need to unlearn and, at some level, an attitudinal shift.
It seems clear from the evidence of this scheme that a holistic approach to
plagiarism education, recommended by Macdonald and Carroll (2006) is the best
approach of ensuring the maximum number of students understand how plagiarism
is seen by the university. A truly holistic approach will also consider what this means
in terms of the use of technology and the evidence provided in this paper goes
someway to supporting the idea that the topic needs to be dealt with in a variety of
ways.
Despite this, a few students have commented that the approach as a whole seemed
‘over the top’ but even one student who made this comment conceded that he had
become a much more confident writer as a result of the process.
Providing multiple representations of learning is undoubtedly sound pedagogical
practice and a combination of materials that can be used in taught environments and
which students can access alone in a variety of forms seems to allow for a range of
learning preferences. However, where materials are integrated into the curriculum
and supported by tutor activity student participation seems to be enhanced. There
seems therefore to be a need to assess and reflect upon the balance between tutor
and students led activity in any intervention that is designed to address a range of
student needs.
Further, research aiming to investigate in more detail students’ understanding of
plagiarism and prior study and writing practices that can in some cases result in
plagiarism would enhance the ability of academic teaching staff to design plagiarism
education interventions.

Using Technology to Prevent Plagiarism: Skilling the Students
16
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