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All about plagiarism

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Overview:: This interactive tutorial provides a through introduction to plagiarism. It provides examples of intentional and unintentional plagiarism, quoting, paraphrasing, and other situations.
Type of Material:: Tutorial
Recommended Uses:: This is a supplemental learning tutorial that could be be completed as homework/ self-paced learning to get the most out of the interactive design.
Technical Requirements:: Adobe Flash Player and Javascript.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: This site is designed to help students understand plagiarism in an academic setting. The goals are the students will be able to: define plagiarism, determine what sources need to be cited in their writing, paraphrase the words of others, effectively incorporate quotations in their own writing, and to describe other methods that can be used to avoid plagiarism.
Target Student Population:: Undergraduate students or graduate students who need a refresher on plagiarism.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: No prerequisite knowledge or skills needed beyond basic computer use.

Rating:
Strengths:: This tutorial combines a wealth of information into a compact learning object. It is strong in summarizing what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. It is completely self-contained and could be used to enhance any assignment where plagiarism may be an issue. The question/ quiz format of the content delivery allows for immediate feedback to the student. Correct and incorrect answers are clearly explained and references are provided.
Concerns:: The first two tabs on the tutorial are useful for students from any college or university, but the links and instructor tools are institution-specific.

Rating:
Strengths:: The learning objectives are clearly defined on the About This Tutorial tab. The tutorial would work well with both students who have no background in understanding plagiarism as well as students who need a refresher. It is not tied to a specific course or discipline so it would be easy to incorporate in most undergraduate classes. The concepts are reinforced immediately by using a self-check type of quiz that gives students feedback on their answers. The tutorial can be completed in a short amount of time, and provides a thorough introduction. Students will need to consult a different source for citation styles.
Concerns:: For faculty at the institution, there is an option to download questions into their Canvas course, but for instructors outside the institution, there is no built-in way to check that students have used the tutorial. The links for continuing to explore the topic are also institution-specific so students outside of the university who are still struggling with the topic after completing the short tutorial would need to find help elsewhere.

Rating:
Strengths:: The layout of the material is intuitive, easy to understand, and engaging. The layout of the tutorial is very easy to use. Each of the two main tabs is divided into three sections, each section providing a short quiz or video to help students learn the concepts. Video transcripts are provided that will address some disability needs.
Concerns:: Most of the tutorial is delivered in Flash format, which is becoming harder to use and access on many of the common platforms that students are using now.

Other Issues and Comments:: The authors have licensed this tutorial under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States copyright license. This allows instructors to modify the content for their own institution.
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