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- Consulting: Plagiarism systems
Consulting: Plagiarism systems
[For educational institutions].
Project Title: Development of policies, procedures, and IT solutions that streamline the process of reporting, examining, communicating and recording plagiarism cases.
Background: During my work as the Authorised officer for academic integrity at a large Australian university, I helped develop the workflow and a paperless online system for the automatization of reporting, processing and recording plagiarism incidents. Using bulletpoints I summarise the challenge and the benefits of developing such a system. Interested parties can read here a recent publication that describes the problem and the process in detail.
1. Problem/need to be addressed
- Some universities do not have well developed policies, clear guidelines and systems for examining, reporting and recording plagiarism incidents.
- Most institutions lack efficient procedures, workflow charts and automated systems. Some use traditional pdf forms that staff members need to complete, email, and communicate to students once approved, and then upload on a record system.
- Others record plagiarism instances within the department but not on a central database. As a result, students who plagiarise in units offered by different departments get away with it.
- Lecturers and administration are spending too much of their valuable (and expensive) time when having to examine and report suspected plagiarism. To avoid the hussle, some look the other way!
2. Suggested solutions
- Development of policies and procedures (including workflows, examples, etc.)
- Software that standardizes the process of reporting, examining, communicating and recording plagiarism cases.
3. Summary of benefits
- Operational: improved academic rigor and standards, reduced plagiarism, efficiency, accuracy, consistency
- Financial: reduced processing time for academic staff
- Staff: increased staff satisfaction, improved organizational culture
- Market: quality assurance process in place (an asset for accreditation), enhanced University reputation.
4. IT requirements
- Options: web-based or standalone solutions
5. Related services
- Development of online courses on what is plagiarism and how to avoid it (for students)
- Development of guidelines, manuals, handbooks (for staff)
- Training of staff and Authorised officers on the use of the related system/software, how much is too much plagiarism etc.
Additional information
- Location: Onsite or online.
- Estimated duration of project: 3-5 days.
- Cost: variable (see for instance my fee schedule)