Rethinking Plagiarism project design process

Rethinking Plagiarism

Design Process

The Academic Technology team in the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University intended to develop a learning module that would explain the importance of avoiding plagiarism. The information below describes the design process.

First: Interviews were conducted

The goal was to ensure that what we were creating was relevant to students. Thus, university employees (primarily those in libraries and academic resource centers) who had frequent contact with students and their writing were identified. The three themes below, gained from these interviews, helped to frame the project.

Theme 1

Academic discourse is similar to an ongoing conversation. You may enter and leave it, but it continues. Engaging in measures that ensure academic integrity allow one to maintain a place in the conversation.

Theme 2

Students are lectured at often about the consequences of plagiarism. They have heard this so often they are likely numb to it. Rather than approaching this from a punitive standpoint, let’s approach it from “here’s what you gain by engaging in academic integrity.”

Theme 3

Students may say that they know plagiarism is wrong and that they try to avoid it, but students still unknowingly engage in it. Be explicit about strategies students can use to avoid plagiarism.

**Second:** An alignment map was created to connect learning objectives, assessments, instructional activities, and learning materials.

This was revised frequently throughout the development of the learning module.

Third: I gathered all necessary materials. This included the interviews and a few academic papers on plagiarism. I used these resources along with the alignment map to begin creation of the learning module.

Fourth: Using Articulate Storyline, I developed a first draft of the Avoiding Plagiarism learning module.

The use of characters aimed to give the learning module a personal feel.

Branching was used to keep the learner engaged throughout the module.

Various question types were used for occasional comprehension checks.

Fifth: After learning was piloted with members of Academic Technology team, revisions to the learning were made. These revisions were primarily to comprehension check questions and overall appearance.

The end result: An engaging and dynamic eLearning module that takes into account the specific needs and interests of university students. Plagiarism is an issue that continues to be particularly relevant. This eLearning is a resource that Ohio State will have at its disposal as it heightens students’ awareness to this topic.