Sunday, October 19, 2008

Competency - LexisNexis

I conducted an "easy search" on my topic: plagiarism and high school students in Major U.S. and World Publications, News Wire Services, and TV and Radio transcripts. 457 records were retrieved. I then searched within results adding librar* and narrowed it down to 30 hits. The majority of the hits were very relevant to my interest. One in particular from UPI, dateline March 8, 2007, Durham, N.C.:

Add e-cheating to parent's Web worries

Add this to the worry list of what can happen when kids go online: They can learn how to cheat, a skill educators say has moved into American classrooms.

Across the net, blogs and Web sites instruct visitors how to scam their way past others on sites such as ClubPenguin.com, where younger players seek coins to furnish igloos, or Whyville.net, where tweeners try to earn higher salaries, The Chicago Tribune said Thursday.

For high school and college students, the Internet is a virtual library of term papers.

One educator said e-cheating is an example of how competitive modern culture has become.

Cheating in school is "absolutely getting worse" over the last 20 years, said Tim Dodd, executive director at the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University in Durham, N.C. "We've looked at middle-school behavior and seen students begin the life of a plagiarist."

Students are downloading material and passing it off as original as early as the fifth grade, Dodd said.

It's the notion that young children are learning to cheat to get ahead that is troubling, he said.

"There are subtle and not-so-subtle messages that only getting ahead matters," he said.

I find this to be extremely relevant. Articles of this type could help the librarian/media specialist convince administrators of the need for teaching research/citation skills and assisting students to avoid accidential (and/or intentional) plagiarism.

I found this search engine to be very user friendly. The 'Power Search' feature was especially impressive as more options are available including using connectors, natural language, and Keywords (Index Terms).

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Competency - Successive Fractions

Using the topic: Designing a library program that teaches research skills, educates the students about plagiarism, and minimizes incidents of plagiarism at the high school level, the broadest topic would be high school students.

Using Academic Search Complete I entered high school student* which brought up 16,618 records. I then added plagiarism which brought up 21 records. Finally, I added research which brought up 6 records:

Most Kids Cheat from the April 2008 issue of School Library Journal
Keeping it Real from the May/June 2005 issue of Teacher Magazine
The making of a relic from the March 2002 issue of Teacher Magazine
How do I know if they're cheating from the July 2001 issue of Curriculum Journal
How to handle cyber-sloth in Academe from the January 2001 issue of Chronicle of Higher Education
Educators turn to anti-plagiarism Web programs to detect cheating from the December 2000 issue of Education Week

Each one of these articles relates directly to my topic/area of interest. I found this to be a very efficient way of searching and was pleased to see the number of hits reduced as I moved from the broad topic and narrowed down each successive search. ASC uses Boolean Logic so using the AND operator to refine my search produced very satisfying results. I enjoyed using this search strategy and found it to be very productive.

Competency - Specific Facet First

For this competency, I used Eric and typed in student plagiarism. 21 records were displayed. Titles included:

Stemming the Tide of Plagiarism in Elementary School
Plagiarism - A complex issue requiring a holistic institutional approach
Policy, preparation, and prevention: Proactive minimization of student plagiarism
Student online plagiarism: How do we respond?
The integration of information and communication technology into classroom teaching
Teaching practices that encourage or eliminate student plagiarism
Legal aspects of plagiarism


I was very pleased with these titles and did not see a need to search further. Dr Yi mentioned in the power point that if the search yields 30 or fewer hits you may not have to search further.

Had I chosen 'Student Research' with 3706 hits I would have had to refine the search. Likewise, if I had chosen 'Research Skills' I would have had to continue as 2441 records were retrieved.

So, I was very pleased that my first facet retrieved the fewest items and most were extremely relevant and useable to my area: reducing plagiarism and teaching effective research methods.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Competency - Citation Pearl (Snowballing)

In keeping with my focus topic, I used Project Muse and searched for plagiarism.
792 results were returned, including Buying in, Selling Short: A Pedagogy against the Rhetoric of Online Paper Mills. Ritter, Kelly. Pedagogy, Volume 6, Issue 1, Winter 2006, pp. 25-51. Looking at the subject headings:

• Cheating (Education) -- United States.
• Plagiarism -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States.
• Report writing -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States.
• Web sites -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States.

I focused on Cheating (Education) – United States which brought up 50 subjects which in turn brought up:

Cheating (Education) – United States 3 articles
Cheating (Education) – United States – Prevention 2 articles

I chose to focus on the 2 articles on prevention:

Organizational Theory and Student Cheating: Explanation, Responses, and Strategies Bertram Gallant, Tricia. Drinan, Patrick.
The Journal of Higher Education, Volume 77, Number 5, September/October 2006, pp. 839-860 (Article).

Abstract:
Studies have described and analyzed the problem of student cheating as well as institutional responses to the problem. However, organizational theory has been neglected. Viewing student cheating and institutional responses through the lens of organizational theory can inform strategy and instill fresh approaches to the management of the problem.

The Complexity of Integrity Culture Change: A Case Study of a Liberal Arts College Bertram Gallant, Tricia. The Review of Higher Education, Volume 30, Number 4, Summer 2007, pp. 391-411 (Article).

Abstract:
The concept of academic integrity has been resurrected in both literature and practice in response to a perceived problem of student academic dishonesty. Most specifically, academic integrity advocates suggest changing the student academic culture to normalize academic integrity and reduce occurrences of academic dishonesty. Theories of organizational culture and change (e.g., Schein, 1992) suggest, however, that such a change process will be complex. This study fills a void in the literature by providing an examination of the integrity culture change process at one case institution and offering considerations for the facilitation and empirical investigation of integrity culture change

These seemed to be more theoretical than practical, so I clicked on Educational Leadership (one of the subject headings) and came up with nothing I deemed relevant.

I decided to go back to ‘report writing’ from the original hit.
Two articles came up. One was the original one (Buying in, selling short), the second was:
Researching in the New Public Access. Hudson, Brian P. Pedagogy, Volume 2, Issue 2, Spring 2002, pp. 257-261 (Article).

Subject Headings:
• College students -- United States.
• Report writing -- United States.
• Internet -- United States.

I then clicked on Internet and came up with some good material (50 subjects).
Looking down the list, there were subject references such as internet access for library users, internet and teenagers, internet in education, and internet research. Most of these did not relate to my search but one article came up under ‘internet research’ which I found interesting:

Illiterate or Lazy: How College Students Use the Web for Research.
Thompson, Christen. Libraries and the Academy, Volume 3, Number 2, April 2003, pp. 259-268 (Article).

Abstract:
This article reviews several studies of student usage of the Internet to determine how they use the Web for research. Preliminary data suggest that the majority of students begin a research assignment with the Internet, most often with a commercial search engine. What is not known is whether students have adequate information literacy skills to find authoritative information and then to evaluate the information for use in their research. Evidence indicates that there is yet room for improvement in how students conduct research, as well as how library instruction is designed.

I think this article in addition to the very first one I found (Selling short) to be the most useful and applicable to my initial query. Selling short, in particular, offers class-based inquiry lessons that have the students evaluate the quality of essays available from so-called paper mills. In addition, the author states that:

"Faculty across student levels, and across the disciplines, should also invent active, collaborative methods of involving students in writing assignments that question existing dichotomies between authorship and economics across fields and majors. To avoid the preaching that our students ultimately tune out, let us also seek to locate the ethical and moral inquiry, and resulting quandaries, in student writing itself. I hope that faculty, regardless of area of study or field of expertise, will promote such inquiry into academic dishonesty with their students. Such a pedagogy would characterize students as active scholars, or makers of meaning in the research, rather than passive receptors of information who seek, in Survivor style, to "outplay, outwit, outlast" the academic system that has turned a deaf ear to the siren song of authorship-for-sale on the World Wide Web" (Ritter, 2006).

Although both of these relate to college students, I think some of the material could be applied to high school students who often take dual-credit and advanced placement courses at the college level. Both articles would assist a librarian in designing library programs to help students improve their research skills and avoid the lure of plagiarism.

As to the strategy itself (Citation Pearl), I feel a certain ambivalence towards this method. While it did garner two relevant documents, I did not feel the level of satisfaction that I felt using the Building Block Search. It is, however, good to have as many tools as possible when searching for information on the Web. Also, if what you are looking for is not clearly defined in your mind, this strategy will allow you to build a scaffold as you peruse records and subject headings that will ultimately lead you in the right direction.

Competency - Building Block Search

For this competency I searched LibLit for my topic: high school libraries, research skills, and problems with plagiarism.

Facets: High School, research, plagiarism (I did not include librar* since I was searching in LibLit).
Terms for facet (synonyms): high school, middle school, secondary school, research, search*, paper, plagiarism, cheating, dishonesty.

Building Block Search:
S1: high school or middle school or secondary school = 3,351 records
S2: research or search or paper = 39,039 records
S3: plagiarism or cheating or dishonesty = 210 records
S4: S1 + S2 + S3 = 5 records

The 5 records retrieved were:
Cooper, J. Patchwork Plagiarism. Knowledge Quest v. 35 no. 4 (March/April 2007) p. 62-5
Callison, D. Plagiarism. School Library Media Activities Monthly v. 22 no. 4 (December 2005) p. 41-5
McGregor, J. H., et. al., Appropriate use of information at the secondary school level: Understanding and avoiding plagiarism. Library & Information Science Research v. 27 no. 4 (2005) p. 496-512
Minkel, W. Sniffing out the cheaters. School Library Journal v. 48 no. 6 (June 2002) p. 25
Williamson, K., et. al., Information Seeking and Use by Secondary Students: The Link between Good Practice and the Avoidance of Plagiarism. School Library Media Research v. 10 (2007) p. 1-22
All were available as Full Text articles and all were extremely relevant to my query needs.

I had never used this strategy and while you have to put a little more work into it at the start (thinking of facets, synonyms, etc), the time is well spent because the end result (5 very relevant records or hits) pays big dividends in that you are able to find valuable information fairly quickly and get on with the next stage of your research. Without this strategy, it would have taken much longer to find relevant information and much time would have been wasted in wading through irrelevant records.