The adventure has begun

Adventure game, that is. I have the first scene for my plagiarism game done:

http://www.lycoming.edu/library/instruction/plagiarismgame.html

So far, the only thing you can do is make the fridge pop open. I intend to put something in the fridge, but I don't know what yet.

The premise of the game is that little plagiarism gremlins/goblins have invaded the campus and are stealing or polluting people's brains. Only you can stop it.

It will have a series of rooms to go through with activities in each one. Some of these activities will just be for fun, others will be about plagiarism. I can't think of how to get away from the quiz-like activities, but if I wrap them up in killing goblins, then maybe it will be more fun than a straight-out quiz.

More on plagiarism

I met with the head of the Writing Center to talk about our plagiarism crusade. Our first step is going to be going to freshman composition classes this semester and having them do an activity. We will break them into four groups (very small classes will get broken up into 2), and give them each a scenario to discuss. We have four scenarios:

1. Blatent plagiarism (buying paper, etc.)
2. Recycling a paper written for a previous class without permission
3. Using Web information without citing
4. Disorganized notes/poor citation/making up source information

They can discuss it for a few minutes to think of what they would do, then each student can vote for the best solution, details on this will need to be worked out. Wining groups will get either a small amount of extra credit points, or small gift certificates to the campus cafe (they go NUTS for $1 certificates!).

We've had two English professors say they're interested.

Launching a Crusade

This semester, there seems to be an increase in the cases of plagiarism. The provost's secretary is working on coming up with quantifiable numbers. It could just be that more profs are using Turnitin, but then that probably means the problem was bigger than anyone realized. Or it could be students are becoming more ignorant as secondary schools continue their gradual decay.

We have also had a sharp increase in the number of students on academic probation. I don't know if these two issues are related, but I'd like to get the library involved where we can.

So I'm proposing an all-out crusade on plagiarism. Here are some of my ideas after discussing the issue with my director.

• Teaching Effectiveness/Writing Across the Curriculum lunch this spring - We have three or four of these each semester, but this would be a little bit different. First of all, try to get the Provost to admit to coming to show the importance of this issue. Also, send a special invitation to the coaches as they have more influence over a segment of the students that no professor has. Finally, try to offer food (the college has cut back on this to save money).
• Turn the current plagiarism tutorial into a game - Hopefully I can get this done by the TE lunch.
• Contact the Dean of Freshmen to get some time with the students during "First Weekend" - This is problematic as there is more to do than they have time for already, but this is a grave problem! This should be something fun. Perhaps a mock trial or a game.
• Contact the Panhellenic Council and see if we can do a mock-trial or game with the Greek organizations this spring.
• Perhaps in some of these presentations or "games," take advantage of video/animation with the new clickers in the library classroom.
• Form a focus group of students to ask them why students do it and their opinion on how to get it to stop.

To play our part in addressing the growing number of students on bad academic standing, perhaps offer a study skills session in game format in the library. Contact the Dean of Freshmen to get her to require any freshmen on probation to attend this program.

With all of the problems of enrollment in such a scary economy, we need to do everything we can to make our students succeed without lowering our standards. And if it's war that's required, I'm willing to stand in the front lines... okay, that's overly dramatic, but I really want to help improve this.

Irony, thy name is Azete

I just visited a new professor's office, who is trying to figure out Turnitin. She was able to upload the papers on her own, but wanted me to come over and look at the results with her. In one case where the student's paper was a 60% match, 19% of that was from a Web site called azete.com. It is a papermill site... but wait, they have redeemed themselves by including a lengthy page on what plagiarism is and links to Web sites on how to avoid it.