Criminal intent or cognitive dissonance: how does student self plagiarism fit into academic integrity?

The discourse of plagiarism is speckled with punitive terms not out of place in a police officer's notes: detection, prevention, misconduct, rules, regulations, conventions, transgression, consequences, deter, trap, etc. This crime and punishment paradigm tends to be the norm in academic settings. The learning and teaching paradigm assumes that students are not filled with criminal intent, but rather are confused by the novel academic culture and its values. The discourse of learning and teaching includes: development, guidance, acknowledge, scholarly practice, communicate, familiarity, culture. Depending on the paradigm adopted, universities, teachers, and students will either focus on policies, punishments, and ways to cheat the system or on program design, assessments, and assimilating the values of academia. Self plagiarism is a pivotal issue that polarises these two paradigms. Viewed from a crime and punishment paradigm, self plagiarism is an intentional act of evading the required workload for a course by re-using previous work. Within a learning and teaching paradigm, self plagiarism is an oxymoron. We would like to explore the differences between these two paradigms by using self plagiarism as a focal point

Students enabling students in a Student Partnership Project: a case study emerging from the OLT Transforming Practice Project on Student Partnerships

This emerging initiative stemmed from an Office of Learning and Teaching Project (OLT) project, Transforming Practice Programme 2016: Student Engagement: Students as Partners in Teaching and Learning. The initiative, trialed in semester 2, 2016, involved the selection and training of two experienced students to be leaders of a Closed Facebook ‘students-only’ community which provided advice and triaged queries to appropriate channels. The evaluative processes comprised a participatory action research methodology. Two student leaders who facilitated the Closed Facebook and four academic staff of the project were the participants. The findings demonstrate that the Closed Facebook students-only site provided a safe space, outside the formal learning/classroom environment, where student participants were able to ask and share knowledge. The informal student-for-student learning community complemented the formal structure by facilitating the opportunity for students to become ‘experts’ as university students as they move-through their learning journey

Re-living First Year -the first weeks

Abstract Using data from a survey and interviews with Firs

Meet-Up Program: Peer learning for success

Meet-Up is a peer-assisted learning (PAL) program and is one of the suite of co-curricular services offered by Student Learning and Development and Library Services. Meet-Up provides opportunities for students to enhance or develop their academic learning skills and their understanding of discipline concepts through engagement with peers and peer leaders, both in a discipline-based context and in a general study enquiry mode called Meet-Up Student Community (MUSC)

The Learning Centre: Supporting student success

LAPs have been empirically shown to contribute to student success through opportunities for academic development and personal growth. But this success is a shared responsibility between administrators, academics, professional staff, and the students themselves. The Learning Centre builds upon a holistic and integrated service model to improve student outcomes through quality learning support initiatives and strong collaborative networks This support applies to both staff and students Together, we can work to maximise student success at USQ and beyond

Developing a learning community to support student learning in a first year statics course

Engineering statics is a core first year engineering course which has had a high failure rate and a low level of student satisfaction for several years. It caters to a diverse student cohort which includes a large percentage of distance students. Some of the factors that appear to contribute to the poor course outcomes include students’ immature study habits, first year isolation issues and variable background knowledge. We are seeking to address these issues by building a collaborative learning community through peer mentoring in both a face to face and virtual (online) environment. Peer leaders will be used to facilitate learning sessions with small groups of on campus students. These sessions will then be replicated in the online mode and extended to more general learning sessions within the university’s residential colleges. \ud This paper discusses the proposed implementation and evaluation strategy for this program in semester 2, 2010 as well as the expected outcomes

Developing a peer-assisted learning community through MSN Messenger: A pilot program of PALS online

Evidence suggests that peer-assisted learning schemes on campus help students to establish social networks that can have a positive influence on their learning achievements. At USQ, the majority of students are off campus, which raises the urgent question: how to harness the advantages of PALS (Peer Assisted Learning Strategy) in an online environment? Given that the potential problem of social isolation is even more acute in distance education, how do we develop a PALS scheme online that creates a sense of community for its participants? These questions are explored by reflecting on a pilot program that was conducted during the first semester of 2006 in two different courses and made use of MSN Messenger to build collaboration amongst learners in a variety of geographical locations. This pilot program is evaluated through a survey with PALS leaders and participants, and also through comparisons with other such programs in different institutions

PALS Online and community building: a contradiction in terms?

[Abstract]: In response to a rapidly changing tertiary education environment, a number of universities have implemented various peer-assisted learning schemes. Research has shown that peer-assisted learning can play an important role in helping students address the difficulties of adjusting to university study in first year. These difficulties consist not only of adjusting to academic content and study skills, but significantly also to a sense of belonging to a university community. The evidence suggests that peer-assisted schemes on campus help students establish social networks which can have a positive and vital influence on their learning and academic achievements for the duration of their studies, and hence assist with retention. At the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), the majority of students are not on campus, which raises the urgent question: how can we harness the advantages of peer-assisted schemes in an online environment? And given that the potential problem of social isolation is even more acute in distance education, how do we develop a peer-led scheme online that creates a sense of community for its participants? This paper will explore these questions by reflecting on various examples of online mentoring schemes, and suggesting strategies for future development

Creating confidence: developing academic skills and information literacy behaviours to support the precepts of tertiary academic performance

Fostering the skills required for students to access and utilise information in a manner consistent with the expectations of tertiary assessment has been the drive for collaboration between the Faculty Librarian and the Academic Learning Skills Lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland. Mapping key areas of convergence in information literacy and academic skills has led to a model of integrated instruction and academic support based on the belief that creating a foundation of skills in these areas leads to a commensurate level of self-efficacy. By building skill and confidence levels, especially in students making a transition to university in their first year, staff can influence learning behaviours including those which may to lead to breaches of academic integrity. This model can be accessed by all students which is especially important to ensure parity of program experience for off-campus cohorts who are often expected to undertake study with a greater degree of autonomy than their on-campus peers, yet who, just like their on-campus peers, often need an opportunity to develop their academic skill base

Academic style with substance: a collaborative screencasting project to support referencing skills

Purpose – This paper seeks to report the initial phase of a cross-institutional screencasting project designed to provide digital, multimedia support for referencing skills. Use of screencasting software, with strong educational design, has the potential to reach all learners asynchronously, regardless of mode of study, and this paper focuses on the transferability of the principles and skills in this project to other contexts and institutions. Design/methodology/approach – The referencing tutorial makes use of dual coding theory to provide an aligned visual and auditory learning experience and is discussed in reference to the current literature. The foundation of the project was collaboration between the academic libraries and lecturers in the field of academic learning skills. The pedagogical and technical design and challenges are discussed, with a view to incorporating feedback into further iterative development stages. Findings – This paper finds that screencasting has been used to effectively support the development of referencing skills across a diverse student cohort, but recognises that further, in-depth analysis will be required to determine the impact of the project. It also provides an example of a low-cost project which could be replicated by other institutions to positively frame referencing within the context of broader academic writing. Originality/value – The paper provides an overview of a short project to collaboratively develop a screencast and add value to existing referencing resources (which are predominantly text-based). The design approach situates referencing within an academic writing continuum seeking to explicitly provide a rationale for the mechanics of referencing, whilst also acknowledging the challenges presented by a rapidly changing information environment