Using draft SafeAssign to allow students to take responsibility for reducing plagiarism

Abstract

Plagiarised text in student assignments is a continuing issue in universities, especially in first year courses. Draft SafeAssign, embedded in Blackboard, allows students to submit their piece of writing to text matching software without penalty. Text is scanned for matching text but is not added to the institutional database. In Semester 1 2012 Draft Safe assign was used as a formative assessment tool in two courses: the CSI assignment in 1st year course Cell Biology, LFS100 (enrolment 428) and the PC assignment in 2nd year course Systemic Physiology I, LFS201 (enrolment 212). Students were instructed to submit the text for their assignments no later than one week before the final due date. Instructions were given for students to retrieve and interpret the report in order to make any changes before the final assignment submission. Students then submitted the final assignment to SafeAssign. A nominal mark (2%) was attached to correct use of the tool. The number of students identified by Draft SafeAssign as having suspect text and needing an interview was vastly reduced in both courses: 2011: 50 in LFS100 and 20 in LFS201 and 2012: 23 in LFS100 and 7 in LFS201. In the case of group assignments Draft SafeAssign allowed for easier identification of which student(s) wrote the ‘offending’ text in the final submission. Efficient use of Draft SafeAssign allowed for students to take responsibility for correct paraphrasing of their academic writing, whilst reducing the workload of the course coordinator in the counselling of students with suspect text.

Ähnliche Arbeiten