Preventing Plagiarism
In his book titled The Plagiarism Handbook (2001), University professor Robert Harris proposes several ways professors can prevent academic fraud:
- Knowing the reasons why students cheat and helping students avoid the pitfalls. Students may have personal reasons for cheating or plagiarizing such as pressure to obtain good marks or a lack of confidence in their writing skills, they may not be aware of acceptable and unacceptable practices, or lack time-management and organizational skills.
- Informing students of effective practices they should adopt and the consequences of academic fraud. You should include this information in the course syllabus and ensure you answer any questions students may have on the subject.
- Clearly conveying assignment instructions and expectations and specifying presentation requirements as well as how sources must be used. Do not hesitate to repeat these instructions for each assignment.
(Harris, Robert A. (2001). The Plagiarism Handbook, Los Angeles, Pyrczak Publishing)
Professors can take several measures to ensure the work they assign is not conducive to plagiarism, such as:
- changing assignments each time they give the same course
- choosing original subjects instead of commonly used ones
- asking specific questions that require reflection on and analysis of unique perspectives
Another possible method for promoting academic integrity and preventing plagiarism is to ask students to sign a statement of academic integrity and submit it with their assignments or exams. This will make students more aware of the importance of academic integrity. Here are two examples used at the University of Ottawa:
- The Telfer School of Management requires students to submit with their assignments a signed form attesting that their work conforms to the rules of academic integrity at the University of Ottawa. This ethics form is required both for individual as well as group assignments and is explained in the syllabus of each management course.
- The Faculty of Social Sciences proposes the Personal Ethics Agreement Concerning University Assignments and suggests that it be used in all programs of study.